Benjamin Braun
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benbraun.bsky.social
Benjamin Braun
@benbraun.bsky.social

Political economist @ LSE | Finance, central banking & more | benjaminbraun.org

Economics 77%
Political science 12%
Pinned
🚨New article🚨 The consensus is that contestation pushed central banks to talk 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 about inequality & climate.

Our theory: At first, CBs seek to ward off politicization by talking 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 about controversial topics.

We tested this 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐡𝐲𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬.🧵
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

I recommend @benbraun.bsky.social's Exit, Control, and Politics to anyone who hasn't been following this day-to-day.

"the largest asset managers are engaged in a multilevel game that, besides corporate governance, also comprises regulatory politics and the market for asset management services"
Exit, Control, and Politics: Structural Power and Corporate Governance under Asset Manager Capitalism* - Benjamin Braun, 2022
The power of finance vis-à-vis the nonfinancial sector is changing. Macroeconomic developments and financial innovations have reduced financial actors’ exit opt...
journals.sagepub.com

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

Leave BlackRock alone -- they just want to take the politics out of pensions! 🙄

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

🟢💶🌐 New Böll EU Brief "Green euro rising: Positioning the euro as the world’s green currency", by @apsmolenska.bsky.social & @jvtk.bsky.social 👉 eu.boell.org/en/green-eur...
🧵👇
@boell.de @janalbrecht.bsky.social @antonmoeller.bsky.social @rasmusandresen.bsky.social @baseickhout.bsky.social
"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
In Denmark, Social Democracy Is Failing
Around Europe, old labor parties have alienated their base by forming grand coalitions with center-right forces. In Denmark, Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats have pursued this same strategy with t...
jacobin.com

That’s nothing: Where I’m from, “junior scholar” lasts to 42.

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

Adolescence lasts to 32, say brain scientists
Adolescence lasts to 32, say brain scientists
www.thetimes.com
My pre-budget take for the LSE Politics blog is up:

Labour are unable to articulate any vision or sense of purpose.

Much of the left has convinced itself that government spending can be maintained without broad-based tax increases.

Not a great budget backdrop.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...
Wealth tax and looser fiscal rules won’t save the Budget | British Politics and Policy at LSE
The narrative on the left that a wealth tax and looser fiscal rules would solve the Chancellor's 2025 Budget headaches has got out of hand.
blogs.lse.ac.uk
🚨 LSE Assistant Professor in Political Science 🚨

We’re hiring a tenure-track assistant professor - any area of empirical political science - to join our wonderful Government Dept @lsegovernment.bsky.social

Any questions, please reach out to me

📣 Please share! 📣

jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...
Honored to serve on Mayor-elect @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social Transition Committee on Technology. For too long, too many New Yorkers have been left behind. NYC deserves governance that centers affordability, equity, and the public good-looking forward to the work ahead. www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news...
NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announces transition committees
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani​ announced Monday the creation of 17 transition advisory committees made up of more than 400 people.
www.cbsnews.com
Everything about this might be the saddest thing I’ve ever seen

Reposted by John Hogan

The story of Rockefeller bankrolling the establishment of the University of Chicago is fascinating (he paid for everything). He generally abstained from meddling but somewhow the one guy who got fired was a political economists who advocated for ... public ownership of the energy infrastructure.

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

Guess I don’t understand what’s going on anymore.
you’ll never believe the newest meme pair for “Find someone who looks at you like…”
you’ll never believe the newest meme pair for “Find someone who looks at you like…”
TRUMP [after spending 5 minutes with Zohran]: surplus value, it’s a very wonderful thing, very wonderful, and they’re stealing it. Can you believe that?

We’re going to be looking very strongly at the bourgeoisie, what they’re up to
One thing I absolutely love in central bank rhetorics: declare a boundary, then elegantly step right over it.

Here's Richard W. Fisher (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas) on Obama's 2008 fiscal package

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

A new piece for @thenation.com on everyone's favourite industry -- private equity; in conversation with one of the many new books on PE, by Megan Greenwell.

Here:
Can We Blame Private Equity for Everything?
Did PE firms make the world worse? Or was it something else?
www.thenation.com
Thrilled to see our latest paper published in @iojournal.bsky.social! 🥳
"Dollar Diminished: The Unmaking of US Financial Hegemony Under Trump" co-authored with Tobias Pforr (@eui-eu.bsky.social) and @fabianpape.bsky.social 🙂

doi.org/10.1017/S002...
New essay, written for the excellent @transitionsec.bsky.social
Propelled by the climatic and hegemonic transitions, military-imperial forms of state capitalism are confiscating our collective right to a safe, green, tech-powered future.
transitionsecurity.org/imperial-sta...
@campolis.bsky.social

Reposted by Lucy Barnes

We'll have to go back to studying history and institutions don't we. Even elites, Lord help us. Like in the Dark Ages.

Reposted by Jonathan Hopkin

The political science singularity is here.
new paper by Sean Westwood:

With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research
new paper by Sean Westwood:

With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

The rest of us in 2009: Oh I see now what Mark Schwartz has been saying. All of political economy is about housing.

The rest of us in 2025: Omg all of 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 is also about housing 😱

Turns out all unhappy social democracies are unhappy in the exact same way.

Öffentliche Stellungnahme vom Verein Palästinensischer und Jüdischer Akademiker*innen (PJA), der Allianz für kritische und solidarische Wissenschaft (KriSol) und dem DAVO-GfW zur Absage der LMU-Veranstaltung „The Targeting of the Palestinian Academia“. 👇

Unbelievable.
Harvard's endowment now has almost $443 million invested in BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF
Submissions for ISSUE #3 – AIRBORNE, are now open!

We are accepting pitches exploring the importance of air in the climate and ecological crises, its role in environmental history and activism, and its future on a transformed planet.

More details 👇
Pitching
What We Publish We’re interested in original ideas and clear, compelling writing that breaks down complex subjects for an engaged but non-expert audience. The best guide to what we might like is to…
www.break-down.org