Mattias Vermeiren

This paper raises critical questions about (over)using public-debt-to-GDP as a measure of debt sustainability. Debt/GDP is at historic highs, but interest/GDP and debt/equity show flat or falling patterns. Better theory, smarter metrics and less focus on debt/GDP needed.

We are happy to release the Paths to Power Dashboard. It is the perfect tool for politics nerds!

You can find it here: ptp.isv.sv.uio.no/ptp/

It allows you to explore governments from 1966-2021 using the PtP and WhoGov datasets. See examples below.

The app has been programmed by Stuart Bramwell.

Cédric Durand, Michel Aglietta, NLR 156, November–December 2025 A tribute to the founder of the Parisian Regulation School of heterodox economics, with its striking combination of elite statistical training, rich conceptualizations and long-range economic history....

Tribute to Michel Aglietta in @newleftreview.bsky.social: "a tireless thinker, committed to the proposition that we should aim to comprehend our changing historical times in their totality, which meant grasping the inter-relationships of their many moving parts." newleftreview.org/issues/ii156...

Green financial power in geoeconomic times: Development banks between Wall Street and Paris - Paula Haufe, 2025 Public climate finance in the third decade of the 21st century is awkwardly positioned between the Wall Street Consensus (WSC), state capitalism, and climate ju...

📢 Very timely new paper by @paulahaufe.bsky.social - give it a read!

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

De Federal Reserve onder vuur: lessen voor links — Denktank Minerva Hoe Trumps aanvallen op de Federal Reserve het debat over centrale bankonafhankelijkheid en democratisering van monetair beleid herdefiniëren.

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...

De opgeblazen migratiefactuur van Mark Elchardus<br/> — Denktank Minerva Het aantrekken van voldoende migranten is noodzakelijker én lonender dan Mark Elchardus en andere migratiesceptici ons willen doen geloven.

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...

A chart with year-by-year data on interest paid to banks on reserves created by QE, banking sector profits as implied by tax receipts, and taxes on banking sector including corporate tax, bank levy, and bank surcharge. Total taxes banks paid over period: £100.1 bln. Total interest paid to banks: £109.3 bln Sources: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/paye-and-corporate-tax-receipts-from-the-banking-sector-2025 Interest calculated from BoE database series RPWZ4TM and Bank Rate

Over the last 11 financial years, the UK Treasury has spent more on paying interest to the banking sector on their reserves than it has taken in from them in corporate and sector-specific taxes. In 2024-25, it paid over 3 times as much for interest on reserves as it received from taxes on banks.

In the past 20 yrs, China extended >$800 billion in loans to emerging market and developing country economies to finance infrastructure, energy etc. China’s loan portfolio surpassed those of the World Bank, the IMF, and all 22 Paris Club creditor governments combined.

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.

Could there be a clearer sign that the RN believes France enjoys more effective monetary sovereignty inside the € than outside it (as I have long argued)? www.tumblr.com/rajakorman/6...

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."

🚨New publication with Kristijan Kotarski:

Enduring Structural Power? Assessing the Dominance of the Anglosphere in Global Finance Before the Trump Turn

Includes novel visualizations of global finance (banking, portfolio inv & FDI) showing persistent US centrality

hrcak.srce.hr/clanak/487488

A reminder that the U.S. is defacto the most sovereign sovereign in the world. Which in turn means that any attempt to reduce the asymmetry U.S. enjoys in terms of “sovereign intrusions” will likely be construed as an intrusion on US sovereignty. open.substack.com/pub/sankaran...

Thanks, Ben!

Love this forensic analysis of the ECB's discourse around rate hikes during the 2021-23 inflation shock. A brief sellers inflation – aka Another-World-Is-Possible – moment (blue), before the empire (green) strikes back with overwhelming force.

+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?

Depoliticising monetary tightening: how the European Central Bank managed the 2021–2023 inflation shock The 2021-2023 inflation shock fuelled a heated public debate about the role of the monetary tightening strategy as the key strategy to the return to price stability. Central banks' rate hikes were ...

📢 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....

Depoliticising monetary tightening: how the European Central Bank managed the 2021–2023 inflation shock The 2021-2023 inflation shock fuelled a heated public debate about the role of the monetary tightening strategy as the key strategy to the return to price stability. Central banks' rate hikes were ...

Our research highlights how a macroeconomic model—the NKPC—becomes a "storytelling device" to present a political choice as a technical necessity. Critical questions remain about the ECB’s self-representation as a neutral player. Read the full article: doi.org/10.1080/1356...

ECB Executives argued that dampening demand was needed not only to cool off labour markets but also to force firms to absorb higher wage costs into lower profit margins, leading to "profit-led disinflation." Monetary tightening was presented as distributionally neutral, even as real wages fell.

After initially blaming "transitory" external factors, their narrative shifted to the risk of second-round effects and "tit-for-tat" inflation: they increasingly stressed the role of overly tight labour markets while also acknowledging the role of profits.

Our study is based on a qualitative content analysis of 128 speeches by ECB Executive Board members from 2021-2024. We track how they discussed inflation drivers (wages vs. profits) and justified rate hikes over time.

We identify 2 discursive strategies:

1. NECESSITATION: Framing tightening as essential to anchor inflation expectations and fix demand-supply imbalances

2. DIFFUSION: Masking the anti-labour bias by arguing that rate hikes curb both wage and profit inflation and are distributionally neutral in LT

We argue that that ECB Excecutives have used the New-Keynesian Phillips curve model as a discursive depoliticisation device that has helped them present rate hikes as the ONLY viable option and mask their distributional consequences.

When inflation surged post-pandemic, the ECB's rate hikes were criticised for weakening labour markets even though profits were rising + for being too blunt a tool deal with a supply-driven inflation shock. How did the ECB respond?

Depoliticising monetary tightening: how the European Central Bank managed the 2021–2023 inflation shock The 2021-2023 inflation shock fuelled a heated public debate about the role of the monetary tightening strategy as the key strategy to the return to price stability. Central banks' rate hikes were ...

📢 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....

River or sankey diagram showing the allocation of profits from global oil and gas companies to quantiles of the US wealth size distribution via financial system intermediaries, such as asset managers, and categories of ultimate beneficiaries, such as business owners, pension funds and shareholders in listed companies. The scale is hundreds of billions of US dollars, and ultimately 50.4% of profits reaching the US personal wealth distribution go to the richest 1% of households.

🚨NEW PAPER🚨
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

How do political institutions shape today’s wave of economic interventionism? 🇺🇸 vs 🇪🇺

Find out in our new article just out in @govjournal.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... @donatodc.bsky.social

The "45% tariff" equivalent on intra-EU trade line is everywhere, even in von der Leyen’s #SOTEU last week.

That number is misleading, as Smaghi explains. Lower intra-EU trade isn’t just about barriers but also consumer preferences for domestic products like food.

iep.unibocconi.eu/europes-inte...

“Pretty strong evidence” that the US current account is mostly driven by foreign dynamics is actually pretty weak evidence if you only focus on household balances and ignore the evolution of the sectoral balances of the US government and US corporations…

Skill‐Biased Policy Change: Governing the Transition to the Knowledge Economy in Germany, Sweden and Britain How have advanced capitalist democracies transitioned from a Fordist to a post-Fordist, knowledge-based economy? And why have they followed seemingly similar policy trajectories despite different eco...

💥 New article out @reggovjournal.bsky.social

Skill-Biased Policy Change: Governing the Transition to the Knowledge Economy in Germany, Sweden & Britain

@ndurazzi.bsky.social @federicofiletti.bsky.social @simonetonelli.bsky.social David Hope, Hanna Kleider

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...