Mattias Vermeiren

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/...

The U.S. has lost 78k manufacturing jobs this year

Screenshot from FT.com. Heading: Technology sector: Big Tech bosses court favour with Trumps at White House dinner Image: video still. Mark Zuckerberg addressing Donald Trump, with caption of remarks reading "...together and you know I think you know all of the companies here are..."

The video on the FT.com front page right now is one for the ages - the collective heads of US big tech fawning over the 'leadership' of President Trump. Their participation tells you about their values. Their specific emphasis reveals what they are getting out of it.

I’m in @financialtimes.com on Trump’s recent move to make the Pentagon the top shareholder in the US only rare earths mine. This is the “worst of all worlds” resource nationalism: a toxic mix of environmental harm, militarism, Big Tech, financial de-risking, and asset appreciation. Link below ⬇️

If you are interested to know more about how EU industrial policy is being financed, in this SOMO long read, I am outlining key features of InvestEU, its redistributive effects and how it empowers financial capital - at the expense of democratic oversight and the urgently needed green transition.

Opinie | Kopen is niet superieur aan huren Huren vs. kopen: Doordat het woonbeleid al decennialang de koper bevoordeelt boven de huurder, is de woningmarkt verworden tot een veroorzaker van ongelijkheid, ziet Cody Hochstenbach.

De partijen die de afgelopen jaren aan de knoppen hebben gezeten, is er veel aan gelegen de voordelen voor huiseigenaren te beschermen. Ten koste van de volkshuisvesting.

Ik schreef voor NRC een essay over wonen als verkiezingsthema. Morgen in de krant, nu online:
www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Re: Trump v Fed: Some (very hastily written and heavily edited) reflections on the nature of central bank–government interdependence in the era of crisis and how financial- not fiscal dominance is what should be keeping us up at night. Also Powell is Thomas Becket.

jacobin.com/2025/08/cent...

Financing technological innovation in China: neo-developmental financial statecraft through government guidance funds This paper examines China’s distinctive approach to financing innovation, contributing to debates on the derisking state, neo-developmentalist alternatives, and economic statecraft. It focuses on t...

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....