📣 News from the OBFA-TRANSFORM project 📣 Our Emmy Noether research group is fast approaching its halfway point and we’ve recently received confirmation of funding from @dfg.de for the second project period from 2026 to 2029 🎊 That's why we are launching our new website at obfa-transform.eu

things are happening in the OBFA-TRANSFORM film studio today... 👀 @steffenmurau.bsky.social @olanmcevoy.bsky.social @ fanny without bluesky

Gemeinsam mit Armin Haas und @steffenmurau.bsky.social argumentieren wir in einer neuen Studie bei der @swp-berlin.org, dass solche Einrichtungen auch heute wieder eine Rolle spielen könnten: 👉 Link: www.swp-berlin.org/publikation/...

Nimmt der Staat zu viele Schulden auf? Ob das tragfähig ist, ist eine Frage des Finanzsystems. Das entscheidende Stichwort lautet »Fundierung«, schreiben @steffenmurau.bsky.social und Moritz Kapff.

The growth of wind and solar power is happening rapidly in all kinds of countries. Except one. Which tells its own story www.ft.com/content/c406...

NEW: The first evidence of a solar take-off in Africa☀️✈️ x33 rise in Algeria solar panel imports in the 12 mths to June 2025, compared to previous 12 mths. x8 in Zambia x7 in Botswana x6 in Sudan x3 in each of Liberia, DRC, Benin, Angola, Ethiopia 🧵

What does a Nobel Prize on ‘innovation-driven economic growth’ actually reward? A historian’s perspective on how to deal with the Nobel frenzy beatricecherrier.wordpress.com/2025/10/13/w...

New report out now with @granthamlse.bsky.social CETEx: "A framework for central banks navigating political uncertainty in the transition" cetex.org/publications...

Over the past few years, Beijing has been mirroring the U.S. economic-security toolkit. China is developing its own architecture to manage risk, preserve chokepoints, and respond in kind. It's also learning from the United States.

🇵🇱 My @thetimes column: Poland’s economic miracle 12 out of 17 Polish regions are now richer than West Wales. It has faster internet, cheaper electricity and more high speed rail than Britain When it comes to regional development it’s the UK, not Poland, that needs to catch up 1/3

It's absolutely astonishing: In just about 13 years, Norway has skyrocketed from virtually no sales of zero-emission battery electric vehicles to nearly 100% of all new passenger car purchases.

Thrilled that my first article is out in @jeppjournal.bsky.social ☺️ It looks at why renewable energy buildout in Europe has been *so* unsteady - tracing the evolution of/conflict over the regime for RE derisking over the last two+ decades... It's open access! 👉 doi.org/10.1080/1350... Short 🧵 ...

I'm really pleased to be featured in @justmoney.bsky.social's current scholarship post. Looking at the Bank of Japan and Fed archives, I argue that QE was always linked to public-sector support, but that effect was deliberately suppressed in central banks' public research and other comms.

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....

The amount of cash pouring into renewable energy products has reached a new record high. $386 billion USD was invested during the first half of 2025 alone, a 10% jump from the same time last year, according to new data from BNEF. The boom is mainly being driven by fast, small-scale solar.

Southern Europe is on fire

nice to see our climate litigation against ING has not gone unnoticed in this interesting review of CSO campaigns against banks (p.4) - too bad the article focuses on reputational issues without taking account of other impacts of campaigns journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

🧵1) Today @davidrbakersf.bsky.social & I published a deep dive on green hydrogen. Depending on who you ask, the fuel is either a crucial solution to reduce greenhouse gases or an overpriced, overhyped distraction. Here are some key takeaways so you can decide. www.bloomberg.com/explainers/g...

Last week, we examined the 8 companies that Ireland invests in that have links to illegal Israeli settlements. Here's an update on these investments following the publication of the National Treasury Management Agency's latest annual report:

In my latest op-ed just out in Environmental Finance, Calvin Quek and I asses what policy tools are most central in how China finances green industries. Taxonomies, disclosure, and green bonds get most attention but these are not that impactful. www.environmental-finance.com/content/anal...

In the age of asset manager capitalism, do asset owners still matter? And what does this mean for the green transition? @nataschavanderzwan.bsky.social and I investigate this through an in-depth study of how some of the most important asset owners - pension funds - invest. Now out in SER! 🧵

Since the great financial crisis, much has been written in CPE on the fate of South European economies. Have they really morphed into export-led growth models? With what outcomes? Are their trajectories convergent? In this new DP, we use granular data to put claims from the literature to the test 🧵

Pay varies hugely across England: in 2024 weekly pay was just £610 in Liskeard to £1,130 in London. Is this because high‑earning areas attract inherently higher‑earning people, or because the jobs located there pay more to any worker? Our new @resfoundation.bsky.social report finds out.

If you're struggling to have faith in humanity today, here's 2 facts: ☀️ In June solar power generated more electricity globally than nuclear - it's now the world’s 4th largest power source 🔋 Ireland is the latest coal-free country around and there are 15 in Europe. Progress is slow but possible 💫

"The last coal plant in the country has officially closed...after more than 40 years in operation, state utility ESB said. Also this year, Italy will shut two major stations, and Spain’s remaining ones will be decommissioned or transformed into gas plants." 🔌💡 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

📊NEW ANALYSIS📊 Just 3% of the UK population take 30% of the fights. When this government expands UK airports, this 3% benefit the most. Who are these people? Introducing... the ultra-frequent flyer. Our research with Possible. 1/5

Very happy to see that the article @moritzecon.bsky.social and I have written on Germany's "fiscal ecosystem" has just been published online and in print in Surplus Magazine www.surplusmagazin.de/staat-schatt...

10 years of the UK's changing electricity mix😊

🚨 Publication Alert 🚨 Out now in @jei-publication.bsky.social with @steffenmurau.bsky.social @agutersandu.bsky.social and Armin Haas: Issuing EU debt despite fiscal rules, what we can learn from the limitations of the EU covid recovery fund, and what it all has to do with a famous cat ⬇️ 🧵

Finally out #openaccess! Why does the largest trading bloc on the planet have a miniature-sized currency? With Trump, the EU will again much regret this. 🎈We set out to theorise failure and develop a new IPE perspective that foregrounds offshore money. Quick thread 🧵

EU Enlargement is back! In this new article, we detect with @matthiasthiemann.bsky.social and Dan Mocanu the rise of a state-like network led by DG ENEST, networked through @eib.org, the EBRD and national development banks, defined by the logic of blended finance. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Wall Street won’t rewild the planet. Or decarbonize mining. Or defossilize agriculture. For @phenomenalworld.bsky.social I unpack why chasing investability harms climate goals in sectors beyond energy & transport - & what states can do with derisking failures www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/unb...

Mark Blyth and I sang a duet. It’s about how a country’s growth model shapes its state capacity to decarbonize - both the advantages and disadvantages. Enjoy! @ripejournal.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Thrilled to see my article w. @seanoriain.bsky.social on Ireland's Corporate Tax Games w. @ripejournal.bsky.social, drawing on global wealth chains @lenseabrooke.bsky.social, coding of capital by Katherina Pistor & infrastructural power @benbraun.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The key chart right now: Usually US economic pain is cushioned by falling bond yields and a strengthening dollar, which mean lower interest rates and more spending power for consumers. This time we’re seeing the opposite, meaning the pain will be amplified.

New blog post: What does international trade actually look like? Where I made some pretty network graphs

That was forward guidance.

An absurd deportation order making explicit reference to „Staatsräson“. A crucial test for German rule of law whether this order gets rescinded or overturned. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

New post focusing on how we got into this mess. We'll probably publish one more primer before digging into current events.

It's forgotten now, but Britain's decision to go protectionist and institute Imperial Preference in the 1930s was a more fatal blow to the international trading system than Smoot-Hawley.

If the U.S. did indeed set tariffs according to the calculation mentioned below, the resulting tariff rates (if they were not in the EU) would be approximately:​ Ireland🇮🇪: 39.80% Italy🇮🇹: 30.17%​ Germany🇩🇪: 25.94%​ bsky.app/profile/heim...

🚨 The stupidest chart you'll see today ... Trade tariffs by Dunning-Kruger on.ft.com/3FTu2Dd

🚨 Not an April Fools' joke! 🚨 OBFA-TRANSFORM is now on YouTube! Our first video? A deep dive into Steffen Murau’s PhD thesis on private money with Gerhardt Kaltenherberg—serious content, no pranks. As DoP & Editor, I made sure it looks as good as the theory sounds. 🎥 youtu.be/YaMGfMB2FMc

🚨 New Working Paper published: Out of the light, into the dark: how ‘shadow carbon financing’ hampers the green transition and increases climate-related systemic risk 🛢️💸🏝️ papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... A 🧵 with our main arguments:

📚✨ New paper alert: Derisking as Worldmaking → Why finance is a worldmaking force → Why derisking undermines itself → Why we need a Smart Green State instead Full article: "Derisking as Worldmaking: Climate Finance and the Politics of Uncertainty" (in RIPE) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

What role can central banks play in addressing climate change today? In our just-published article, we argue that we are at a critical juncture in which the future is highly indeterminate. Written with @matpaterson.bsky.social + 14 other amazing scholars /1 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The day of reckoning is fast approaching for a country which once styled itself as being "closer to Boston than Berlin"

Will get around to a proper pinned post, but here's one interesting thing I do - the Green Economy Tracker. greeneconomytracker.org 41 countries, 21 policies, crowd sourced assessment of green transitions. Evolution in progress... 🧬