Since 2024 | Freie Universität Berlin, John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies
The Political Economy of the Global Dollar System (Master seminar, 2026)
The US dollar sits at the centre of the global monetary and financial system. This course explores how the “exorbitant privilege” of the United States has developed historically and how it is challenged and maintained today. Grounded in a theory of money as credit and focusing on the “financial plumbing” of the system, students learn to understand the mechanisms behind the dollar’s global role, such as offshore dollar markets, the role of the Federal Reserve in crises, and recent developments like stablecoins. Further topics include the Bretton Woods era and the rise of the dollar in the 20th century, the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–9, and China as a possible challenger to US dollar hegemony.
The Political Economy of Climate Change (Master seminar, 2024-25)
This research-based Master course introduces students to state-of-the-art political economy debates on climate change and the energy transition, including a variety of economic models. It starts with a historical-institutionalist study of how carbon-based production systems evolved from the coal-based, UK-centric industrial revolution to an oil-based global market, ushering in what has been called the ‘Anthropocene’, and of the international policy responses to climate change. On this basis, the course compares approaches to modelling the economics of climate change: the DICE model of Nordhaus as the quintessential example of the market-failure paradigm, which suggests carbon pricing as the main policy response, and alternatives such as Post Keynesian models and input-output analysis based on the Leontief price model. Small modelling exercises in R introduce students to the core of these models. The final part looks at the challenges of financing large-scale transformations such as the Green Transition from a Monetary Architecture perspective, including implications for countries in the Global South.
2022-23 | Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München, Geschwister Scholl Institute of Political Science
International Political Economy – Principles and Current Topics (Bachelor seminar)
This course introduces students to International Political Economy (IPE) from theoretical and empirical perspectives, focusing on the relationship between politics and the contemporary world economy. The first part covers theories and methodologies of IPE and different ways of conceptualizing international trade and the international monetary and financial system. The second part offers a historical overview of the globalization of trade, money, and finance: from the emergence of a world economy in early capitalism, the British Empire and the gold standard, the interwar years, and the Bretton Woods era to the globalization of trade and finance since the 1970s and today’s Offshore US-Dollar System. The third part discusses current topics such as the COVID-19 crisis and global supply chain disruptions, asset manager capitalism, and global climate policies, drawing on recent research from leading journals. Students learn to distinguish conceptualizations of IPE, to understand how theoretical arguments are structured and tested empirically, and to judge the validity of real-world policy claims.
Introduction to Political Economy (Bachelor seminar)
What is the relationship between the economic and the political sphere? How can we use economic thinking to understand politics? What role should the state play in the economy? This course addresses these fundamental questions of political economy. The first part familiarizes students with foundational thinkers such as Adam Smith and his concept of the “invisible hand” and David Ricardo and his views on social conflict, whose works remain relevant to today’s debates on political liberalism and the politics of inequality. The second part focuses on theoretical models that analyze political actors as agents in a political market, including Anthony Downs on voting behavior and party competition, Mancur Olson on group organization, and Elinor Ostrom on the problem of the commons. Students learn how economic concepts can be applied to political science and how political science questions matter for economic outcomes.
Quantitative Methods of Comparative Politics and Public Policy (Master project seminar)
This project seminar teaches the practical implementation of quantitative research designs in comparative politics and public policy using R and RStudio. The course assumes prior knowledge of statistics; experience with R or other statistical software is helpful but not required. The first part covers the basic functions of R, data import and wrangling, descriptive statistics, data visualization, and regression analysis. The second part introduces key methods for quantitative research designs: quantitative text analysis, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, difference-in-differences, and the synthetic control method. Students present these methods to each other using suitable R packages and replicate selected articles that apply them. In the third part, students present projects in which they develop their own research design based on a dataset of their choice. The projects are designed to serve as templates for quantitative Master theses in comparative politics, political behavior, and public policy.
2014-19 | University College London (UCL), Department of Economics
I was the teaching assistant for the module “History of Economic Thought” in the academic years 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, and 2018-19, and for the module “Money and Banking” in 2013-14.
2013-16 | City, University of London, Department of International Politics
I was the teaching assistant for five modules in the B.Sc. programmes on International Politics and International Political Economy: “International Relations Theories”, “Advanced Theories of Global Politics”, “Introduction to Political Economy”, “The Making of the Modern World Economy”, and “Myths and Mysteries in World Politics”.
2015 | Coursera, Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), and Barnard College of Columbia University, New York
I was a teaching assistant for the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) “The Economics of Money and Banking” developed by Prof. Perry Mehrling:
https://www.coursera.org/learn/money-banking