In person icon Finance and the State in Europe

Abstract

This panel brings together leading international scholars in the politics of finance in Europe to explore both historical and contemporary developments in the field. Two papers deal with the issue of ‘too big to fail’ large banks, analysing the divergence in national-level responses to bank structural reform following the 2008 crisis across four European countries, as well as the EU and US (paper by Howarth and James); and explaining the more recent shift in the ECB’s position in supporting the development of large and competitive banks as being driven by national finance ministries (Massoc). The other two papers consider the political economy of changing state-finance relations: assessing the empirical and analytical relationship between financialization and different European growth regimes (Ban and Helgadottir); and the development of the ‘state guarantee model’ to circumvent EU fiscal rules in order to finance infrastructure spending in Denmark.

Title	Details
Large banks in the ECB’s eyes: from curse to blessing. Tracing the diffusion of the “blessing” idea from national Finance Ministries to the ECB’s executive council	View Paper Details
Stealthy state investment in an age of austerity: The Danish state guarantee model and infrastructural mega projects	View Paper Details
Bank Politics: Structural Reform from a Comparative Perspective	View Paper Details