We explore European economic policy with a focus on the common currency, the Euro. We will employ political, economic and philosophical perspectives to discuss a variety of key aspects: why and how did the Euro come into being? What does sharing a common currency imply for the Member States? How is the euro area governed … Continue reading The Political Economy of the Eurozone

What is capital and income, and how have they evolved over time? How unequally are they distributed?  And what are the moral implications of this? To answer these questions, in this seminar, we will study Thomas Piketty’s ‘Capital in the 21st Century’ and will put it into the context of the modern financial system.  We … Continue reading Capital, finance and justice

We use epistemology, the study of knowledge and justified belief, to investigate decision making in social, political and financial situations. Against the backdrop of debates about financial bubbles, fake news and populism, we investigate what we can know and what we are justified in believing. We approach applied epistemology through two lenses: epistemic virtues (individual), … Continue reading What to believe now? Applied epistemology, information markets, and networks

Human decision makers are increasingly replaced by self-learning computer algorithms in economic decision making. Such algorithms use personal data (ranging from one’s post code to medical history and Facebook friends) to score and rank people. Such rankings, in turn, can determine who gets offered a job, who gets offered a loan and under what conditions … Continue reading The Ethics and Governance of Algorithmic Decision Making

In its most popular form, the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) is the claim that asset prices reflect all publicly available information. The EMH is an important cornerstone for most asset pricing models. But it is also highly controversial. Critics claim that models based on the EMH are to blame for the inability of predicting and … Continue reading The Efficient Market Hypothesis

Complexity science provides new ways of modelling the financial system as a complex system. It challenges dominant views of linearity, predictability, and responsibility in finance. On the philosophical side, this could have implications for how we think about morality in financial markets. On the policy side, the complexity approach could require a rethinking of how … Continue reading The Complexity Science Approach to the Financial System

How can we respond to sovereign debt crises in a fair way? In this seminar, we will tackle core philosophical and economic questions that arise in sovereign debt crises, with a special focus on Europe, and in particular on Greece. We’ll tackle the following normative issues: In what way are states morally bound by sovereign … Continue reading Debt and Democracy

The financial crisis has brought financial stability to the forefront of economic policy debates. New institutions with the mission to pursue financial stability have sprung up, financial regulation has been reformed, and a major stress test of European banks is under way to assess the resilience of the financial system. But what is financial stability, … Continue reading Achieving Financial Stability?

What kinds of risk are there in the financial system, and how should financial regulators deal with them? Complex financial systems create credit and enable businesses, households, and states to share risks, but they are also prone to financial crises. Financial regulators seeking to achieve financial stability need to assess systemic risks in the financial … Continue reading Risk in Finance