My review of @fritz_bartel's Triumph of Broken Promises now out at @phenomenalworld. A fantastic book: must-read for Cold War nerds + anyone interested in recent history of capitalism or pol economy of climate change. 2 nuggets and 3 implications (1/7):

phenomenalworld.org/reviews/broken… Nugget 1: Bartel's East-West comparison is eye-opening. In retrospect, Eastern Bloc economies appear sclerotic, West looks strong. But 1970s analysts saw oil discoveries, no inflation & pol stability in East, vs angry unions, noisy street protest & stagflation in the West (2/7)

🚨New Paper Alert🚨
Understanding Italy's Stagnation 📉🇮🇹

Today is #Eurogroup. In the €, Italy is a puzzle. 1980s: among highest per-hour GDP. Today: long stagnation & problem child of €Zone. We tried to understand why. Here's what we found. 1/n

dezernatzukunft.org/understanding-… First, what's the problem? From 🇩🇪 & 🇪🇺 perspective, debt often foregrounded. Fear of default, too big to fail etc. etc.

True: Italian debt stock among largest in Eurozone (left chart). But the deeper problem is growth (right chart).

2/n

Back in March I published this paper on the relationship between capitalism & democracy and didn't do my usual summary thread. It's just been switched to open access AND the German translation is out this week. So now is the time!

ingentaconnect.com/contentone/imp…

politischeoekonomie.com/wandelnde-bild… The paper's Q: how have key figures in the history of thought understood the relationship between democracy & capitalism?

The answer:
- it's a story in 3 acts
- prior to ~1950s, most thought dem & cap can't go together
- it's Modernization Theory that flips the script in 50s

I tried to thread together the recent debates (esp from @NewStatesman @NLR and @PhenomenalWorld) around markets & planning, policy & politics of green transformation. Punchline: planning is good policy; political hope lies in tipping points. 🧵 1/n

phenomenalworld.org/analysis/clima… 1st, policy. As I’ve argued in @FT before, planning is essential to deliver rapid transformation. Ignore dogmatic planning-vs-markets arguments. Focus on specifics of this case. Here, mkt-coordinated investment runs into 3 problems, b/c transformation means high uncertainty. 2/n

Crypto is like a housing bubble on crack. Why? Mini-thread.

A classic housing bubble has two ingredients: an inherently scarce asset (land) plus out-of-control credit creation (usually b/c of some "financial innovation" that gets around previous leverage limits) (1/n) This maps 1-to-1 onto crypto.
1. The inherently scarce "assets" are the core "currencies": bitcoin, ethereum, etc. Their proof-of-work design generates human-made but real scarcity. Their use-case for criminal activity guarantees their status as asset in some minimal sense (2/n)

THREAD: It's a distribution- not an inflation time bomb that's ticking.

Why? In Europe, inflation is sectorally concentrated, esp. in energy & food. It's bottleneck- (and savings-overhang-), not wage-driven. We're temporarily poorer than expected. (1/n)

politico.eu/article/europe… Put simply, there is less food / gas / semiconductors / wood / etc. than anticipated. The problem here is not widespread inflation, but "who takes this hit on the chin"? It's not a massive hit, economies are holding up well, but still, that's a question of distribution. (2/n)

My article on the political economy of deindustrialisation is out in CHS. Core claim: a Cold War comparison can teach us what features of democratic capitalism enabled this contentious process to go ahead. Gist in a 🧵: (1/n)

journals.uchicago.edu/toc/chs/current (the whole issue is great!) What’s the puzzle? In 1970s, the West struggled mightily with deindustrialisation. Inflation, strikes, terrorism, instability. Strong trade unions put up fierce resistance. The East looked coercive but stable, industrialised but w/ weaker productivity (2/n).

Our understanding of the Merkel years shapes our agenda & priorities going forward. I got a bit frustrated with many of the retrospectives I've seen so far, so did a take of my own. Alas in German (link: bit.ly/39xisdu), but here's a 🧵 with what I see as key bits: 1. Many criticise (& some praise) Merkel for a lack of vision, for "only" managing. When it comes to economics, I think that's fundamentally the wrong take. She identified two big challenges early on, formulated a strategic response to them & followed through for years.

Wie wir die Ära Merkel verstehen beeinflusst wie wir in die Zukunft blicken. Ich hab mich an einer wirtschafts- und finanzpolitischen Bilanz versucht. Der Text wurde dann doch (etwas...) zu lang für Twitter, also als PDF hier: bit.ly/39xisdu

Die Kernpunkte in einem 🧵: 1. Viele werfen Merkel vor, keine Vision gehabt zu haben, "nur" verwaltet zu haben. Das halte ich im Bereich Wirtschaft & Finanzen für grundlegend falsch. Sie hat früh 2 Herausforderungen identifiziert, eine strategische Antwort formuliert & jahrelang konsequent durchgezogen.

Manchmal denke ich Deutschland bräuchte eine kollektive Psychotherapie rund um das Thema Inflation. Kleiner Thread um die "heikle Inflationswende" und das "schlechter als Italien" aus der @welt einzuordnen:

welt.de/wirtschaft/plu… @welt 1. Weder Deutschland noch die Eurozone hat, Stand heute, ein erkennbares Inflationsproblem. Die Leute, die an den Finanzmärkten wirklich "skin in the game" haben, sehen Inflation mittelfristig bei 1.6%. Ebenso die Bundesbank. Siehe @FlorianMKern on this:

https://twitter.com/FlorianMKern/status/1432341696327700483

@fl_schuster @PhilippaSigl + ich erklären im neusten @Zeitschrift_WD warum die heutige Ausgestaltung der Konjunkturkomponente der Schuldenbremse nicht mehr fit for purpose ist. Hört sich technisch an, aber es geht um Milliardenbeträge. Eine Zusammenfassung: (1/n)

https://twitter.com/Zeitschrift_WD/status/1428648520353988608

@fl_schuster @PhilippaSigl @Zeitschrift_WD Was ist die Konjunkturkomponente (KK)? Sie ist das Element der Schuldenbremse, das konjunkturgerechte Fiskalpolitik ermöglichen soll (siehe Abb. 1): im Abschwung größere Defizite, im Aufschwung ausgeglichenere Haushalte. Vier Probleme plagen ihr jetziges Design: (2/n)

🚨Thread alert🚨
I spent most of last year studying #sustainablefinance. The results are now out in a report for @Academie_be & SFPI-FPIM. Here's the gist (🧵, 1/n):

academieroyale.be/Academie/docum… 1) the philosopher's stone of sustainable finance is figuring out how to distinguish sustainable from non-sustainable investments. (2/n)

Delighted to say that @nullnein and I won second prize in the @demokratieghst essay competition (ghst.de/essaypreis/)! The essay will be published in @wiwo the coming weeks, hopefully in German and English. In the meantime, here’s a rough sneak peek at our argument (1/n): Capitalism and democracy have a complicated relationship. Particular institutional and normative settlements have stabilised it in the past, but none durably so. We sketch 1) the current settlement 2) how we got here 3) why it's failing/flailing and 4) what might come next (2/n)

Just finished Perry Anderson’s review of @adam_tooze’s Crashed. As @zeithistoriker already pointed out, engagement with Tooze‘s first book conspicuously absent. In my eyes, this seriously blunts the force of the critique (1/n). What’s the critique? Anderson attacks Tooze for “running with the hare, hunting with the hounds.” Roughly: criticising Europe’s establishment for gutting Greece but refusing to condemn “the European project.” Clarity on the bank bailouts (massive upwrds redistribution), but (2/n)

@adam_tooze I’ll do a quick and dirty translation later this afternoon! @adam_tooze Here it goes: George Orwell is spinning in his grave, at high velocity. Why? The lead programmatic proposal for the upcoming @CDU party conference. Thread (1/N).

First in a series #PWR/#BWR. Every Friday for the next few weeks I’ll tweet a “Paper/Book Worth Reading.” All assessments entirely subjective, no refunds offered, but responses/feedback much appreciated.

1st #PWR: @JedediahSPurdy and Grewal 2017, scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewconten… The paper’s point of departure: the trente glorieuses were not just an economic anomaly, but they left deep traces in political, economic, and legal thought. They shaped the mapping of the world most of us grew up with, the assumptions we were educated into.