Benjamin Braun

@benbraun.bsky.social

9.1K followers 960 following 840 posts

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

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Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · Jul 1

🚨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/...

Screenshot of the title page of linked article:
"Noisy Politics, Quiet Technocrats: Strategic Silence by Central Banks"
By Benjamin Braun and Maximilian Düsterhöft

Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · 2h

“Nice bubble you got there—shame if it got popped by some badass UCITs.”

Daniela Gabor @danielagabor.bsky.social · 2h

Europe has tools at its disposal - including an eyewatering USD 2.4 trillion of European money invested in US stock markets via open-ended equity funds - that it could deploy as leverage in a Europe first strategy against US threats.

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

Daniela Gabor @danielagabor.bsky.social · 2h

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

Stefan Ouma @econgeo.bsky.social · 14h

@financialization folks: Over the past months I have been flooded with papers by authors from China in economics/business journals that carry the term "financialization" in the title, but got little to do with the critical political economy perspective of much of the lit. Any idea what's happening?

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

herman mark schwartz @thunen.bsky.social · 1d

Here’s the better long form on the “interiorization” of the border regime and the coercive side of the US empire:
www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/enf...

Reposted by Scott L. Greer, Benjamin Braun

Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 2d

”Trump’s growth strategy appears to rely on an AI sector that looks exceedingly like a bubble, fossil fuels with which the world is currently amply supplied and a pointless attempt to reshore basic manufacturing through tariffs.”
@alanbeattie.bsky.social on the money:
www.ft.com/content/8073...

Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · 2d

This year I'll start my course with this pair of clippings.

"In one version of the course, this is the only slide. You would have still learned a lot, but it would be a bit of a rip-off. Fortunately, I teach a slightly different version."

FT: UK hedge fund trader Chris Rokos pays himself £477mn

Nick Train apologises again for poor fund performance
Star fund manager says he is ‘acutely disappointed’ and feels ‘the opposite of pride’ about returns for investors

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

Daniela Gabor @danielagabor.bsky.social · 4d

In all honesty, what is happening?

Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · 4d

Are you not entertained.
www.ft.com/content/70ad...

Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · 4d

The real estate presidency is coming for the private equity presidency

Reposted by Daniela Gabor

Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · 4d

Are you not entertained.
www.ft.com/content/70ad...

Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · 4d

As per my little lecture chart, the constant USD spot crude oil price has now fallen to below bottom-of-the-global-financial-crisis levels. That's extremely cheap by any standard. You really wonder.

Reposted by Diane Coyle, Benjamin Braun, Antonio Fatás

Iñaki Aldasoro @aldasoro.bsky.social · 4d

Y’all look like you a need a break from the news cycle. Why not read our new Bulletin on the how the financing of the AI boom is shifting from cash flow to debt financing!?

www.bis.org/publ/bisbull...

Financing the AI boom: from cash flows to debt

www.bis.org

Reposted by Benjamin Braun, Dominik Wiedenhofer, Els Torreele , and 2 more Benjamin Braun, Dominik Wiedenhofer, Els Torreele, David Murakami Wood, Prokla Redaktion

Isabella M. Weber @isabellamweber.bsky.social · 4d

With the world's eyes on US oil interests, let's not forget who benefits: The richest of the rich. Our research shows: 50% of the record fossil fuel profits in 2022 went to the wealthiest 1% of US Americans, the bottom 50% only received 1%.

Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

Xan López @xanlopez.xyz · 5d

❤️ www.ft.com/content/ad94...

Who’s who at X, the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter
A look inside Elon Musk’s big tent

Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · 5d

Spotted a Waymo on a London street the other day. And I'm with this plain-spoken MIT Mobility Initiative fellow.
www.ft.com/content/781c...

Europe doesn’t need driverless cars
The roadways are already safe and robotaxis risk increasing traffic
David Zipper

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

Aurélien Goutsmedt @aurelien-goutsmedt.com · 6d

New working paper with Thomas Delcey and Alexandre Truc:
“One Sentence at a Time: A Quantitative History of Rationality in Economic Thought”
▶️ osf.io/preprints/so...

We study how rationality changes in economics over the long 20th century using ~290000 journal articles (1900–2009)

#rstats #EconSky

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

Karthik Sankaran @rajakorman.bsky.social · 7d

My theory is that 1970s gas lines are to the lore of American political economy what the 1920s hyperinflation is to the lore of German political economy.

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

Jan Eijking @janeijking.com · 8d

Worry not — the guardians of the rules-based international order are “waiting for the facts” and “monitoring the situation”

Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · 9d

h/t @aldasoro.bsky.social

Reposted by David Peetz, Iñaki Aldasoro

Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · 9d

Of all the ways in which crypto is a scourge, this is the most bonkers.

2025, year when brutal home invasions to steal laptops and crypto wallet passwords surged.

Crypto Thieves Move Offline to Terrorize Investors at Home

Rising prices and the irreversible nature of crypto transactions have led to a surge of brutal home invasions and kidnappings.

www.bloomberg.com

Reposted by Benjamin Braun

Jim Kane @kanejim.bsky.social · 9d

“Weaker appetite for long-dated debt could also complicate European governments’ efforts to fund higher defense and other public spending by ramping up bond sales. Some sovereign issuers, including the Dutch, have indicated they will gradually tilt borrowing toward shorter-dated bonds…”

How Dutch Pensions Overhaul Is Rippling Through Bond Markets

The Netherlands is overhauling its pensions to adapt to an aging population and a labor market where people no longer remain with the same employer for their entire working lives.

www.bloomberg.com

Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · 9d

The IPE flagship journal saw a 50% increase in submissions in 2025. Growth of IPE and increasing prestige of @ripejournal.bsky.social are good. Still, this is clearly not healthy, and it’s not just AI. How do we get serious about resetting publishing norms?

Review of International Political Economy @ripejournal.bsky.social · 12d

RIPE had a banner year in 2025. Prior to this year, submissions to the journal were consistently increasing by about 2-10% per year. In 2025, submissions jumped by nearly 50%. RIPE received 910 manuscripts compared to 618 in 2024 and 552 in 2023, a significant deviation from our long-term trend.

Reposted by Fabián Muniesa, Benjamin Braun

Jérôme Deyris @jdeyris.bsky.social · 9d

Our Happy New Year present for 2026: a new, clearer version of our ShinyApp to explore central banker speeches!

Please try it out, and reach out if you encounter any problems, or have any suggestions to improve it for your use case (and of course, our underlying CBS database is still open access)