Forget decoupling. German automakers go back to China to stay alive in the EV race.

It has become received wisdom in Brussels and Washington that there is a new “euro-sclerosis”: that the EU economy is lagging the US This view is wrong A little primer on the measurement of productivity – and why reports of the economic death of Europe are greatly exaggerated🧵

Macron in Chengdu The yard keeps growing. And the fence around China keeps shrinking. geoeconomic.substack.com/p/macron-in-...

US is playing big old imperial haggling games in Europe this week end. But go to the monetary engine room is see that monetary hegemony is over. geoeconomic.substack.com/p/so-this-is...

🚨New article🚨 The consensus is that contestation pushed central banks to talk 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 about inequality & climate. Our theory: At first, CBs seek to ward off politicization by talking 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 about controversial topics. We tested this 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐡𝐲𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬.🧵 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Forget derisking. 2025 is about the the quiet MAGA-fication of the European mainstream, one green regulation rollback and green subsidy cut at a time. geoeconomic.substack.com/p/the-wartbu...

When Adam Smith was first translated in China and why that matters today geoeconomic.substack.com/p/the-long-m...

Theory: Economic decline feeds the far right. Romanians be like

To survive in the bond market, libertarianism needs subsidies. My latest geoeconomic.substack.com/p/spare-a-st...

🚨 Today, Common Wealth launches the Green Planning Commission. A major new initiative to tackle the twin crises of our era: climate breakdown & the affordability crisis. To meet these challenges, we need a new era of democratic planning. 🧵 https://www.common-wealth.org/green-planning-commission

For most of the post-Cold War era, Europe never intended to build autonomy in critical minerals. Why would it?https://geoeconomic.substack.com/p/the-smelter-and-the-sovereign

already 10+ years ago wade jacoby said that europe was a trade dependent status quo power in a world in which the status quo was disintegrating and trade was stagnating and this (car industry lobbying) is one big reason why the EU is not up to the challenge h/t @palmapolyak.bsky.social

When central banks were asked to "do smth" about climate, the Fed sat it out, the ECB experimented then retreated but the PBOC planned green and brown money at scale. geoeconomic.substack.com/p/central-ba...

China’s approach to venture capital isn’t Silicon Valley 2.0 — it’s industrial strategy with a term sheet. And it explains better than subsidies or state banks why the country is a technological innovation superpower. geoeconomic.substack.com/p/vc-a-la-ccp

Washington thought coercion would keep China down. But as @yelingtan.bsky.social @Mark Dallas @himself.bsky.social & @abenewman.bsky.social show, it did the opposite. Dependence became danger — and China learned to turn US pressure into its own power. geoeconomic.substack.com/p/america-th...

China is not just building clean energy faster than anyone else. It is trying to become something new. Call it the electrostate. Still, big caveats loom, says Chris Saltmarsh in a superb @ripejournal.bsky.social article geoeconomic.substack.com/p/party-stat...

Friends, I have a substack with my thoughts and others on current events and megatrends from an international political economy perspective. geoeconomic.substack.com

Thread. China’s GGFs are the quiet giants of industrial policy. While Western debates obsess over subsidies, Beijing has built a massive state–market financial infrastructure to channel capital into strategic tech sectors. Let’s unpack.

This new paper by Xuan Li and @cornelban.bsky.social is so great I have a nickname for it and it’s VC à la CCP. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Just out: How China builds strategic dominance in high-innovation niches fracturing the economic status quo in the world: Government Guidance Funds turn fiscal money + SOE assets into venture capital with planning discipline. A different game than Europe or Korea. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

No one in European automotive will worry about Chinese EVs now

Must read

Weiss and Thurbon’s (2021: 477): economic statecraft is when state actions are designed to fend off, outflank, or move in step with clearly defined rival powers’ in key sectors. US and increasingly Europe acknowledge they lost to China on green tech. www.politico.eu/article/eu-d...

Even the best of European clean tech firms groan and fold under the combined weight of frayed European macro-finance and Trumpian climate nihilism. www.ft.com/content/eb76...

Sandbu: "Maga antipathy for anything green strengthens the case for doubling down on incentives to make more profitable in Europe the decarbonisation investments that have just become less profitable in the US." How to pay, given US-demanded defence spending and more US LNG dependence?

Generally import substitution is not a great idea in technology. Unless you are China and weaponized US export controls force you to focus decades of investment in technoscientific capabilities on homegrown innovation. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/t...

The US green coalition and its manufacturing base was too weak for a sustainable green derisking state to survive political cycles even with geoeconomics in place. The IRA was too little to change the balance of power inside US capital. Fossil, finance and tech have green capital for breakfast.

There is probably a Latin expression for this.

My new article on IMF economic ideas and climate advocacy explores how the IMF highlights environmental tipping points and call for deep decarbonization, yet its technocratic, economistic approach neglects fossil-fuelled capitalism‘s political power dynamics. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

the British derisking state, promising to partner with AI firms while doling out more austerity for public services and calling it the 'golden age of public service reform'- @cornelban.bsky.social

Why it's probable that in open competition (big if) big Western legacy automakers will likely go out of business in the coming decade or become niche producers. Kind of like mechanical watchmakers going into jewelry watches and the rest disappearing. cleantechnica.com/2024/12/24/w...

When states are not good at industrial policy it is municipalities that can develop that muscle. And not just city states, but cities of 500k as well if they have what it takes. New article in Competition and Change with @Medve-Balint and @Clara Volintiru journals.sagepub.com/eprint/T56CA...

Excellent

I'm skeptical of Pettis arguments in this piece. Even with tariffs, China (& others) have spent decades building manufacturing expertise, supply chains, and infrastructure. You can't simply price-advantage your way past that kind of industrial ecosystem. 1/ www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

I wrote this short review of an essential book on the role of the EU in reshaping welfare states & labor markets, pushing commodification under the guise of governance, while opening unexpected decommodification windows. The neo-Polanyian book of the year! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

FT are correct in highlighting how China’s industrial policy, rare earth abundance and subsidies have left Europe lagging behind in the race to electrify the automobile industry. But this narrative obscures more than it reveals. Thread www.ft.com/content/a73c...

Indicative planning can mitigate the climate crisis. But under capitalism it only happens when the stakes are sky-high: wars, energy crises, post-war rubble. Jacob Hasselbalch and I took a dive in the topic. #GreenState #PoliticalEconomy #ClimateAction www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Below their very top tier, Europe’s policy elites have conventional careers with little public–private mobility or high-end educational prestige. Furthermore, these elites have ‘fidelity’ in staying with public organizations. New paper with Leonard Seabrooke www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....