‘Decoding Dollar Dominance: The Global Credit View on the Monetary System in International Political Economy’ (with Herman Mark Schwartz)
This article contrasts the Sovereign Currency View (SCV) and the Global Credit View (GCV) on the monetary system in International Political Economy (IPE) regarding four crucial assumptions: endogenous credit creation versus transaction costs and loanable […]
‘A Feature, Not a Bug. The US Dollar in the European Monetary Union’ (with Torsten Ehlers)
The European Monetary Union (EMU) is often seen as an attempt to shield Europe from USD dominance. However, as BIS data shows, the USD’s volume and share in EMU cross-border payments has been constantly rising […]
2025 | ‘Transformation of the Eurozone Architecture. On Crises and Institutional Change in the Offshore US-Dollar System’ (with Alexandru-Stefan Goghie, Matteo Giordano and Friederike Reimer), GEGI Study October 2025
The Eurocrisis was a make-it-or-break-it moment for the EMU with a profound impact on the transformation of the Eurozone architecture. However, its underlying macro-financial causes remain insufficiently understood. While dominant narratives emphasize excessive sovereign debt […]
‘The Transformation of South Africa’s Monetary Architecture, 1983–2024. A Report for South Africa’s National Planning Commission’ (with Mark Swilling)
This report studies the transformation of South Africa’s monetary architecture—understood as a complex web of balance sheets that interlock via different credit instruments—from 1983 to 2024. The purpose of this investigation is to provide a […]
2025 | ‘Rethinking Currency Internationalisation. Offshore Money Creation and the EU’s Monetary Governance’ (with Jens van ‘t Klooster), Journal of European Public Policy
Internationalisation of the euro has for decades eluded EU policymakers. In this article, we develop a novel explanation of the subordinate position of the single currency. To this end, we build on the state of […]
2023 | ‘International Monetary Hierarchy through Emergency US-Dollar Liquidity. A Key Currency Approach’ (with Fabian Pape and Tobias Pforr), Competition & Change
The notion that the international monetary system is hierarchical has become increasingly common, but the nature, causes, and shape of international monetary hierarchy remain vague. In this article, we develop a monetary theory of international […]
2023 | ‘Rethinking Monetary Sovereignty. The Global Credit Money System and the State’ (with Jens van ‘t Klooster), Perspectives on Politics
This article proposes a conception of monetary sovereignty that recognizes the reality of today’s global credit money system. Monetary sovereignty is typically used in a ‘Westphalian’ sense that simply denotes the ability of states to […]
2022 | ‘After the Allocation. What Role for the Special Drawing Rights System?’ (with Fabian Pape and Tobias Pforr), INET Working Paper
In August 2021, the IMF made a new SDR allocation to help ease pandemic-induced financial strains in the Global South. This paper assesses the potential of the SDR system to address debt- related problems in […]
2021 | ‘Financial Globalization as Positive Integration. Monetary Technocrats and the Eurodollar Market in the 1970s’ (with Benjamin Braun and Arie Krampf), Review of International Political Economy
International political economy (IPE) has explained financial globalization as the result of states deciding to open up and liberalize domestic financial systems. Complementing this ‘negative integration’ view, we present a theory of financial globalization during […]
2021 | ‘The Hierarchy of the Offshore US-Dollar System. On Swap Lines, the FIMA Repo Facilities and Special Drawing Rights’ (with Fabian Pape and Tobias Pforr), GEGI Study February 2021
While it has become common to regard the international monetary system as hierarchical, the nature, shape and origin of this hierarchy remain often vague. Taking on board insights of critical macro-finance, this GEGI Study conceptualizes […]
2020 | ‘A Macro-Financial Model of the Eurozone Architecture Embedded in the Global Offshore US-Dollar System’, GEGI Study July 2020
It is a convention to say that the Eurozone architecture is ill-constructed and deficient. However, monetary architecture is not a well-defined term in monetary theory, and there is no consensus what the Eurozone architecture is beyond being […]
2020 | ‘The Evolution of the Offshore US-Dollar System: Past, Present and Four Possible Futures’ (with Joe Rini and Armin Haas), Journal of Institutional Economics
Little has contributed more to the emergence of today’s world of financial globalization than the design of the international monetary system. In its current setup, it has a hierarchical structure with the US-Dollar at the […]
2018 | ‘The Future of Offshore Dollar Creation. Four Scenarios for the International Monetary System by 2040’ (with Joe Rini and Armin Haas)
In order to sketch the possibility space for the future setup of the International Monetary System (IMS), this paper develops four different scenarios that outline potential outcomes of the IMS’s evolution by 2040. These scenarios […]
2018 | ‘Offshore Dollar Creation and the Emergence of the Post-2008 International Monetary System’
This paper studies the transformation of the International Monetary System (IMS) in the run up to and after the 2007-9 Financial Crisis. Adopting a Money View perspective, it argues that the IMS, in contrast to […]
2017 | ‘Shadow Money and the Public Money Supply. The Impact of the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis on the Monetary System’, Review of International Political Economy
This article explores the effects of the political reactions to the 2007–2009 financial crisis on the monetary system. It chimes in with the view that shadow banks create ‘shadow money’, i.e. private substitutes for bank […]