My latest for @projectsyndicate.bsky.social. The general argument is that starving an energy-hungry growth model of cheap renewables in an era of energy supply-chain shocks and booming AI data centers is bad economic policy. Common sense, really. prosyn.org/EjCZBmq

1/ The purpose of green industrial policy has inverted. It used to pay for a public good: clean energy that cost more, benefiting everyone. Now it captures advantages a country keeps for itself. That shift, from a shared cost to a prize seized, is the story of the transition.

How does rampant #assetisation and variation in #assetmanagement affect social conflicts? Our special issue co-edited with @theobourgeron.bsky.social in New Political Economy proposes a framework to analyse such asset struggles and brings together 7 papers with key empirical studies. 🧵

“Eventually, the platform becomes little more than a money-extraction machine—a hellscape for users and a barely profitable but inescapable black hole for business customers.” lareviewofbooks.org/article/gian...

A contribution with @pbougette.bsky.social to ORDO focusing on the blurred boundary between competition law and regulation, particularly when behavioural remedies are designed to be revisable over time. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi... @univcotedazur.bsky.social, @cnrscotedazur.bsky.social

The problem is not the service economy per se, but the *transition* to it. In the US, aggregate employment recovered, but the costs of adjustment were highly uneven, with job losses concentrated in specific regions.

Good piece by Palma Polyak. In a sense she is illustrating the global version of the Kalecki Paradox, or what Fed chairman Marriner Eccles explained in the 1930s: without rising consumption you cannot justify rising production, and without rising wages you cannot sustain rising consumption.

Europe is obsessed with Chinese industrial domination. But the more seriously I take the "China is winning" argument, the less sense China's endgame seems to make If European industry collapses, demand for Chinese exports collapses with it. My latest: brettoninthewoods.substack.com/p/chinas-gro...

JUST DROPPED: For years I thought industrial electrification potential was limited. How wrong I was. Engineering studies point to 90%+. Long term scenarios support this. Technology is much further ahead than we think. Question is whether policy keeps up. janrosenow.substack.com/p/industry-f...

That universities have *not* done this, and in fact have aided and abetted AI intrusion into our education system, is a clarion call for dramatic reform. (After we defeat the fascism, that is.)

I wish more editors were guided by what I call the "wtf test". It's more useful than it sounds. Let me explain. 1/4

Incredibly important work for souring the kool aid

“the most immediate risk is “mediocrity at scale,” a flood of work that isn’t wrong enough to dismiss but isn’t interesting enough to advance anything.” @pardoguerra.bsky.social pardoguerra.org/2026/05/09/i...

1/ New piece on the NEIS Center Substack by @luukschmitz.bsky.social: conditionality in industrial policy isn't just a safeguard against waste — it also has real costs. And those costs are systematically underweighted in the current debate. neiscenter.substack.com/p/industrial...

Must read by @danielagabor.bsky.social @benbraun.eurosky.social "This, we argue, is the pathway for the Santa Marta countries to achieve the decarbonized sovereignty imperative—the strategic pursuit of decarbonization as a matter of national security" www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/aga...

War → energy shock → inflation. This time: Iran. But we saw this already after Russia invaded Ukraine. Back then, the shock ignited some big debates on monetary autonomy and dollar dominance In a new paper w/@palmapolyak.bsky.social we go back to that moment. A short thread👇

There's a global race to secure EV battery gigafactories & reduce reliance on China. But not all clean-tech projects are created equal. Some generate good jobs & domestic capacities, others produce ecological harm & low value-added enclaves. New paper & thread 👇 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The New York Times is now blocking The Wayback Machine from accessing its articles. That means you'll no longer be able to view archived versions of NYT stories published in 2026 and beyond on archive.org. (All those posts you see tracking changes to NYT headlines and ledes? They relied on WBM).

I come out of this convinced that we know much abt European structural blindspots & strategic weaknesses (some US-caused); we know less how to handle the East politically. We get China's economic downstream impacts; now we need to learn how politicians & voters want to treat China’s economic might.

Enjoyed the conversations in Hannover at the political economy of European industrial policy event organized this week by Hellen Callaghan, @trgn.bsky.social & Bob Hancké. The presence, clear-eyedness and energy of the EC speaker, Maive Rute (DG Grow) were a highlight.

I am looking for a postdoc to join my team at the University of Bremen. 5-year-contract, top-up to 100% possible for most of the contract period. Apply by 04 May 2026. If you have questions about the position, send me an email! www.uni-bremen.de/en/universit...

🚨 Job Alert 🚨 We have an opening for a 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗱𝗼𝗰 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 @stawi-univie.bsky.social starting Aug/Sep 2026! Focus: political representation, party competition, political institutions, political economy, political behavior, or related fields 📅Apply by 29 April 2026 jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi...

Wir befinden uns in der größten fossilen Energiekrise. Die Ölproduktion is so stark gefallen wie die Nachfrage 2020 mit COVID. Die Bundesregierung sollte schleunigst darauf reagieren statt die Zeit mit Debatten über Mehrwertsteuererhöhung & Fracking zu vergeuden. Mein Beitrag im @freitag.de heute.

Over at the newsletter I wrote about the unholy scourge that is "CEO said a thing!" journalism:

Does AI do p-hacking? Yes it does open.substack.com/pub/causalin...

1/9 Reuters: "China said that Mexico's trade measures against it, including tariff increases, ​constitute trade and investment barriers and that it had ‌the right to take countermeasures." rld/china/china-says-it-has-right-retaliate-against-mexicos-tariff-hikes-2026-03-25/

We are hiring a tenure track (!) senior researcher in political economy! This is obviously a great job (permanent without teaching obligation) and I hope you all apply. However, I would like to take a moment to share just how significant this is in the German academic context ⬇️

📢 Call: Tenure Track Position The MPIfG Political Economy Research Area led by Lucio Baccaro is seeking a Senior Researcher. Open to candidates with at least two years’ postdoc experience. Please share widely! 🗓️ Apply by April 20, 2026 s.gwdg.de/WPMPp1

Das Kolloquium des Fachgebiets Soziologie in der Sozialökonomie an der @uni-hamburg.de zeigt im SoSe 2026, wie die historische Soziologie der Wirtschaft sozialökonomische Transformationen analysiert @dgswisoz.bsky.social. Mit @ueberdruss.bsky.social, Virginia Kimey Pflücke und @trgn.bsky.social.

The world energy shock is coming — it will deepen inequality in ways we've seen before. Our new @newstatesman1913.bsky.social piece argues that without urgent government action, the Strait of Hormuz crisis will ripple through our economies and rip apart our societies. Here's why. 1/

The economic fallout from the Strait of Hormuz isn't a hypothetical — it's already there. Most people in Europe and the US just can't feel it yet. A threat on our new @newstatesman1913.bsky.social article: what's heading our way, and why the burden won't be shared equally. 1/

I'm Europe. This is my energy strategy. x.com/meme_ec/stat...

Australia....on DAY 19 @katemac.bsky.social

Also finding it hard to keep up with new research? I built something to fix this. SciLove — swipe through recent papers in your field. The feed learns from your saves. Also matches you with researchers saving your work back (opt-out if you prefer). www.scilove.app 3,000+ journals, updated daily

*breathing into a paper bag*

🚨 Just published in Socio-Economic Review! 🚨 @sasemeeting.bsky.social The "power to pollute" and "post-neoliberal" climate finance By Benjamin H. Bradlow and Aishwarya Swamidurai The article is available open access at the following link. doi.org/10.1093/ser/...

War is reshaping global markets. I have a paper under review that asks: who wins or loses when supply chains meet geopolitics, and what are the political implications? Since the world is changing faster than our overburdened peer-review system can handle, here's the 📃 + a🧵 osf.io/preprints/so...

𝗥𝗜𝗣 Noch kürzlich unterhielte ich mich mit KollegInnen über das Auseinanderfallen von gesellschaftlicher Entwicklung auf der einen, seines – im Grundgedanken demokratisch-antiautoritären – Werkes auf der anderen Seite und, wie schmerzlich diese Erfahrung sein muss.

Fossil fuels have "a disproportionate capacity to increase inequality when their prices rise" -- very pleased to be quoted on the impacts of high oil and gas price on profits and inflation inequality in @theguardian.com Thank you, @guardianheather.bsky.social for covering our research!

2 wars in 4 years. This war will dramatically accelerate Solar +Batteries + EVs as real Energy Security. "The rest of the world will learn an important lesson from China. Build out your renewables so you aren't as dependent on imported fossil fuels and the whims of idiots" bsky.app/profile/just...

Doing Industrial Policy in a Geotech World: Challenges and Opportunities. New Special Issue eds Salih Işık Bora, @fbulfone.bsky.social & Timo Seidl www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandg...

What a day to cover this topic. Short version: Financial hegemony is when you don't need to start wars to get what you want; and also when, if you 𝘥𝘰 start a war*, your borrowing cost goes down and your currency goes up. * Which you'll be tempted to start one regularly.

amazing Merz came back from China peddling neoliberal 'we dont work hard enough' nonsense instead of ' the Chinese State can do industrial policy like no one else' He's the Keir Starmer of Germany, learning nothing, doubling down on the same disastrous strategy

📢 JOB ALERT! Fully funded 3-year PhD in Climate & Comparative Politics at @sciencespo-cee.bsky.social. Starting in September. The project is on the political consequences of climate policies in carbon-intensive communities across Europe. 🗓 Deadline: May 17 www.sciencespo.fr/centre-etude...

I have a new, open-access paper out in the European Journal of Sociology: “Commodification and Social Reproduction: Theory and Mixed-Method Evidence on the Effect of Privatization on Childbearing.” After a long journey, it’s finally published online. 1/10 👉 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

🚨New piece in Politics & Society! w/ @maxkiefel.bsky.social @mathiaslarsen.bsky.social Internationalizing Industrial Policy: How China and the United States Use State Capacity to Secure Critical Minerals for Electric Vehicles 🇨🇳 🇺🇸 doi.org/10.1177/0032...

Financial war in response to trade war and territorial threats? More and more people appear to be calling for it. So I updated my post on U.S. Treasuries holdings—now with the latest data. benjaminbraun.org/posts/treasu...