Wow... Writing this paper was a bit like watching a soap opera unfold. But it's out now in @bjpir.bsky.social The big story is still: The ECB marched forward, with clear democratic authorisation, but not the Fed. Green central banking is much more democratic than people think.

📄 Under the EU’s new economic governance framework, the Debt Sustainability Analysis #DSA plays a growing role in shaping national budgets. A recent ETUI paper by research associate, Christos Pierros, argues that this framework systematically undervalues public investment. 🔎 Read more: etui.org/4ZG

Trump wil de FED onder zijn controle. Onafhankelijkheid van centrale banken staat onder druk. Maar is depolitisering wel democratisch? @mattvermeir.bsky.social (UGent) pleit voor debat over democratisering van monetair beleid. www.denktankminerva.be/opinie/trump...

ASEAN is emerging as a leader in transport electrification, with rapidly rising EV shares now outpacing legacy auto markets. 🇻🇳 Viet Nam: 38% of new car sales in 2025, double of 2024’s 🇸🇬 Singapore: 45% 🇹🇭 Thailand: 21% 🇮🇩 Indonesia: 15% https://loom.ly/pMmY5Y8

"Around Europe, labor parties have alienated their base by forming grand coalitions with the center-right . In Denmark, Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats have pursued this strategy with the same dismal results." From my analysis Jacobin on the state of Danish politics after the local elections

That plot on real exports is brutal. Like a live view of the ECB going through the five stages of grief over the death of export-led growth. Seems we're one projection away from acceptance.

According to Oxford professor of energy Jan Rosenow, rapid electrification of Europe's industry, not rolling back the EU's Green Deal, will save European industry.

IMF: "only about half of fiscal consolidations achieve their fiscal targets, including debt reduction. A broad range of econometric methods, based on well-established methods in the empirical literature, confirm that fiscal consolidations do not reduce debt ratios, on average."

Impossible to repost or discuss this chart too many times. A tale of two crises & two policy responses. One of them we still inexplicably talk about as a success, & one we still inexplicably talk about as a failure. 1.5 years of modestly high inflation did a number on us.

Migratie kost miljarden? 📉 Niet volgens NBB, OESO en IMF. 📈 Migratie zorgt voor groei, jobs en een sterkere welvaartsstaat. Analyse van @hielkevd.bsky.social (Denktank Minerva) & @flordidden.bsky.social (@11.be) op @sampolmaandblad.bsky.social en hier 👇 🔗 www.denktankminerva.be/opinie/de-op...

How dare you accuse me of saying “threshold”.

Mockery (and insults) have been part of anyone going against the established consensus (including me), but now even the IMF agrees... 😎 www.ugent.be/ps/politieke...

Crystal-clear policy implications:

💥🤯Shocking findings from this new IMF working paper: inflation outcomes were similar between inflation targeting and non-inflation targeting countries, despite more aggressive rate hikes by the former. 🔗 Read more: www.imf.org/en/Publicati... #MonetaryPolicy #Inflation #CentralBanks

Now out in Party Politics 🎉 Our study (@jbpilet.bsky.social)suggests that when a mainstream right-wing party signals willingness to rule with the radical right, support for the radical right rises — while the mainstream gains nothing. 👉 A legitimisation effect. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

"To help unlock the investments needed to achieve energy sovereignty, and ensure we stop handing over billions of dollars a year to the Kremlin, we urge you to push for spending on renewable and low-carbon energy to be counted as part of the Nato 1.5% target." 👏 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

📢 New paper out in New Political Economy: "Depoliticising monetary tightening: how the European Central Bank managed the 2021–2023 inflation shock" Thread here below 👇 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

On the macroeconomic dividend of public investment: 🙏 "Each euro of public investment generates approximately €1.30 in inflation-adjusted output within three years—a cumulative multiplier of 1.3." 👉 Great and necessary piece by @heimbergecon.bsky.social www.socialeurope.eu/europe-needs...

We show that interest rate hikes by central banks are less powerful in reducing inflation than conventional wisdom suggests. Correcting for publication bias, the output cost of reducing inflation increases. Based on our meta-study of 145,000 point estimates and confidence bounds.

+1,5 miljoen werkenden tussen 1996 & 2023 Maar werkgeversbijdragen aan sociale zekerheid: 50% → <40% Gevolg: overheid vult het gat met hogere belastingen of schulden. Geen economische wet, maar politieke keuze. Tijd voor eerlijk debat: wie draagt bij, wie profiteert?

The car crisis tops today’s EU summit but leaders keep staring at the wrong problem The issue isn’t the 2035 engine ban - it’s demand falling off a cliff today With @sandertordoir.bsky.social and @lucasguttenberg.bsky.social, we show why flipping regs won’t help - and what the EU can do instead.

15 (!) keer méér managementvennootschappen sinds 2010. Explosieve groei.

"Loonmatiging heeft helaas een geringere productiviteitsgroei tot gevolg. Zo schatten Vergeer en Kleinknecht dat 1 procentpunt minder reële loonstijging tussen 0,32 en 0,46 procent minder groei van de toegevoegde waarde per arbeidsuur tot gevolg heeft." esb.nu/verhoog-nede...

De teruglopende ontvangsten van staat en sociale zekerheid, een bewuste politieke keuze, dragen veruit het grootste deel van de verantwoordelijkheid voor de oplopende begrotingstekorten. 👇

Monitoringcomité juli 2024 vs. september 2025: → Bijna NEGEN MILJARD (!) MINDER INKOMSTEN voor federale overheid & sociale zekerheid door beleid-De Wever. Welk begrotingstekort? 🤷

🚨 Hugely important message to EU and national leaders: 💥 Forget deregulation drive and ill-guided focus on fiscal consolidation. Ignite public investment boom and focus on domestic growth drivers. 🙏 History will thank you later.

In a new paper, we provide fresh evidence on the macroeconomic effects of public investment in 27 EU member states. We find that public investment has favorable effects on output and unemployment; doesn't crowd out private investment; and doesn't jeopardise debt sustainability.

Policy inertia + wrong-headed frugalism > Euro's global moment 🤦‍♂️ www.reuters.com/business/fin...

“De begrotingsplannen van De Wever? Magisch wensdenken.” @hielkevd.bsky.social van @denktankminerva.be in @sampolmaandblad.bsky.social over 50 miljard staatsteun voor bedrijven, besparingen voor sociale zekerheid, en begrotingsbeleid gestoeld op een Excel-fout. www.sampol.be/2025/10/begr...

🌱🪙 In their introduction to the Special Issue "Puzzling, powering, profiting: The politics of sustainable finance in Europe", editors @danmertens.bsky.social and @nataschavanderzwan.bsky.social define EU sustainable finance & outline how best to analyse it 💡 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

"The US right gets more fascist, mainstream figures pretend they didn’t, presenting a fictional version that liberal elites find reasonable. That creates a new baseline, which fascists use to go further, ..." open.substack.com/pub/arcdigi/...

"Under pressure from illiberal forces leaders are increasingly trading longstanding principles for the illusion of stability... What was once extreme is increasingly treated as normal, putting the rule of law and democracy under strain across the continent." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This is remarkable in so many ways. Essentially Bidenomics, but against self-inflicted tariff wounds, and with a bit of cronyism which is all paid for by extortion of allies.

8/9 The real risk to Europe lies not in overinvesting in clean energy, but in locking itself into new forms of fossil dependence—exposing economies to the very vulnerabilities they have worked to escape.

The illiberal Migration paradox: "Meloni’s tactics are a long-standing sleight of hand practised by many governments, making noise about a small easily-demonised category of immigrants to distract from admitting workers on a much bigger scale." www.ft.com/content/ea4b...

Radical right accommodation really does not work. New paper out with this exceptionally talented team @katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk doi.org/10.31235/osf...

This is behind a pay wall but here's the final 2 paras with #AltText added. @brettchristophers.bsky.social is well worth following.

Des simplismes et des analogies fautives : la politique d'austérité est fondée sur des bases erronées. Dette publique et déficits budgétaires : une analyse des mythes fondateurs, par @hielkevd.bsky.social. www.denktankminerva.be/analyse/2025...

Countries with monetary policy that responded earlier and more forcefully (i.e. stronger interest rate hikes) to the post-Covid inflation surge still ended up experiencing more inflation, not less.

Great chart from WaPo. Print it out. Next time someone says EU carmakers are doomed because Tesla was born in a garage and embodies US business acumen they can’t match, remind them the story is incomplete. Musk’s rise was fuelled by $38 billion in gov contracts, loans, subsidies & tax credits.

MIT’s NANDA initiative found that 95% of generative AI deployments fail after interviewing 150 execs, surveying 350 workers, and analyzing 300 projects. The real “productivity gains” seem to come from layoffs and squeezing more work from fewer people not AI.

Does fiscal policy deliver more growth and convergence when it is financed and coordinated at the EU level, as opposed to being paid for and run nationally? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

In “Financial dominance: why the ‘market maker of last resort’ is a bad idea and what to do about it” (CJE 2025) I argue that bank regulators failure to understand what it is that banks do, why they are important, and how they help stabilize financial markets doi.org/10.1093/cje/... 1/18

New research reveals China's transformation from technology imitator to innovation leader in clean energy. China now dominates not just manufacturing, but the fundamental research and patents that will define our energy future. 1/12 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

"monetary [policy] tightening causes the largest employment losses for low-paid workers who are employed in high-paying firms before the tightening. Monetary tightening further causes a reallocation of workers to lower-paying firms."

To understand money is to shed the falsity of the commodity theory and embrace the robust credit theory. utahvanguard.medium.com/the-true-nat...

Deeply honored to have participated in a panel at the @ecb.europa.eu Forum in Sintra. My remarks focused on the risk that high legacy debt may push part of the euro area into fiscal stagnation, and how a pro-growth approach to fiscal policy can mitigate this risk.

It makes sense to expect a new age of inducements for institutional capital pools to hold sovereign debt (aka financial repression), as @martinsandbu.ft.com argued last week. Alas, it appears state managers are too macrofinancially incompetent to pull that off and instead are self-sabotaging bigly.