Central Banking and its Discontents: The Role of Monetary Policy in Contemporary Capitalism

The international conference “Central Banking and its Discontents: The Role of Monetary Policy in Contemporary Capitalism” is organized by the University Witten/Herdecke and will take place on July 11-13 at the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation in Berlin (invite-only).

Some of its keynotes will be livestreamed:

Keynote I

Katharina Pistor: “Central Banks as Liquidity Conduits”
Monday, 11 July, 15-16:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29KPsJz4414
 
Capitalism is built on two deeply imbricated social resources: money and law. Three functions are commonly attributed to money: it serves as a means of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. Missing is liquidity, which should be added as (state) money’s fourth, and in contemporary money system most central, function. Only money that is backed by a monetary sovereign is truly liquid. Managing liquidity has taken center stage not only in times of crisis but in day-to-day monetary policy. This mirrors a transformation of central banks from guardians of broad public mandates, such as price stability or full employment, into liquidity conduits for the private sector.

Keynote II

Mark Blyth: “If Capitalists Institutions are Hardware, and Economic Ideas are Software, what are Central Banks?”
Tuesday, 12 July, 9:15-10:45
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MycXuLr734

 Imagine capitalist institutions as hardware and economic ideas as software. If we take specific governance institutions and techniques as being ‘regime dependent’ - that is - dependent upon the specific model of growth that typifies a particular period - then do periods of regime change render specific governance technologies/combinations of hardware and software, redundant? If, for example, the shift from wage led to profit led growth in an environment of inflation necessitated the ‘hardware modification’ of independent central banks in the 1980s and 1990s, does the new inflationary environment of today, which is far different from that of the 1980s, make central banks core agents once again? Or does it render them redundant?
 

Keynote III

Daniela Gabor: “States as Collateral Factories”
Tuesday, 12 July, 14:30-16:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOrhKb_Jl04

Monetary financing – central banks buying large amounts of government debt – has returned and is likely here to stay. But why are central banks doing something that ostensibly goes against their independence? The paper distinguishes two regimes of monetary financing. In the subordinate regime, predominant before the 1970s, central banks support governments by keeping borrowing costs low. In the shadow regime, central banks buy sovereign bonds to anchor inflationary expectations and stabilise the inherently fragile market-based financial system, whereby sovereign bonds play a critical macro financial role. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, we are in the shadow regime. The COVID19 pandemic showed again how crucial it is for central banks to intervene in government bond markets to protect our economies from financial turmoil. But this new regime of monetary financing is ill-suited for the challenges of the climate crisis. Instead, we need a ‘coordination without subordination’ approach to the relationship between governments and central banks to tackle the low-carbon transition.
 

Keynote IV

Paul Tucker: “Post Pandemic Central Banking: Legitimacy Affirming or Depleting?”
Wednesday, 13 July, 9:15-10:45
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJtAXNB4BY8

A talk on central banking, incentives, and democracy: 
When people talk about politicising central banking, do they have an overly thin conception of democracy? How can central bankers' incentives be harnessed to society's goals?
 

Roundtable

Isabella Weber, Mark Blyth, Nicolo Fracarrolli & Leah Downey: “The Politics Of Inflation: Price Controls, Monetary Tightening And Future Prospects”
Wednesday, 13 July, 14:30-16:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf0WjnALWu4

“That 70s Model” - Thinking Through the Inflationary Moment

One of the ironies of today’s inflation is that it reappeared at the very moment the academic mainstream was turning away from what might be turned "that 70s model” where inflation is always and everywhere monetary and an ever present danger. The post 2008 liquidity dump where deflation became the threat helped produce a world where Phillips curves were dismantled and endogenous money displaced fears of crowding out. And then suddenly inflation came back due to pandemic and war induced supply chain breakdowns. At that moment “that 70s model” shot back to prominence despite the fact that the world we live in today is manifestly not that of the 1970s. This panel discusses ongoing work that attempts to make sense of this moment.

With the registration you will receive an e-mail with all links to the livestreams 24hs before the event.

Information:
Sarah Ribbert
Project Officer Division International Politics
Heinrich Böll Foundation
E-mail: ribbert@boell.de