Benjamin Braun

This all-star team just published what's easily the best paper on how to think about private equity as it exists today. There's no longer a single answer, private equity is several things at once. @rooseveltinstitute.org rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...

How I read your posts about Mbappé apologising to the Chinese people for having referred to Mao as a dictator.

Has this post-doc ad been circulating among political scientists? If not, please share! It is an amazing 2 year post doc. I was a fellow and my life was changed forever (I even work in Toulouse now!). It is the French version of the Nuffield post-doc ! www.tse-fr.eu/iast-researc...

This all-star team just published what's easily the best paper on how to think about private equity as it exists today. There's no longer a single answer, private equity is several things at once. @rooseveltinstitute.org rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...

Reminder that net corporate equity issuance reached the dotcom bubble peak already in 2026-Q2. Gross issuance at all time highs in both Q1 and Q2. That's before before the ANT IPO and Meta's announced share sale.

​Applications for 2027–2028 visiting fellowships at Harvard's Center for European Studies are now open! Join our vibrant intellectual community in Cambridge for the academic year. ​🗓️ Deadline: November 1, 2026 🔗 Apply here: ces.fas.harvard.edu/opportunities/visiting-scholars

Went to Chicago, where these hot commodities came into my possession.

Went to Chicago, where these hot commodities came into my possession.

The kind of fact pattern David Foster Wallace used to rack his brain to invent.

Just as a private equity firm buys out a corporation and strips it for parts, a consultant class is raiding the Democratic Party and getting “generationally wealthy” along the way New from me and @adambonica.bsky.social newrepublic.com/article/2163...

Truly Shocking. Roberto Mangabeira Unger formally gave his support to Flávio Bolsonaro in 2nd round of the 2026 Elections! Wants a position in Bolsonaro govt: "Mangabeira is well-regarded for a position within a national strategy secretariat , with a focus on intl relationss."

I keep hearing people saying the data shows the cost of living crisis is a myth. A lot of this from the US admittedly where economic growth is stronger. But there is plenty of evidence the economy for most people is bad and has been for a long time now. Here’s some UK data

Fun teachable moment forthcoming

This was the right way to think about credit ratings in the run-up to 2008, and it is the right way to think about them now. Rating agencies have a function; that function is *not* to prevent booms and busts. Quite the opposite, in fact. www.ft.com/content/09f5...

Fun teachable moment forthcoming

Rising income inequality links the two things: top 10 and even more so 1% have too much money ➡️ flows into equity mkts (plus AI hype); inequality lets stupid billionaires support stupid policy as long as taxes go down ➡️ reduced state capacity to do anything.

There’s will be talk today about UK pension funds failing to invest in UK private markets. I’m onboard with the idea UK workers’ capital could be more productively invested in the UK. But does investing in UK PE necessarily deliver better jobs & pay? Errr no tompowdrill.substack.com/p/private-eq...

The situation is not great but let's appreciate the hopeful moments. This is a big one – just think about how utterly unimaginable it would have been just a few years ago that an economist of @isabellamweber.bsky.social's stature publishes a widely read and discussed book on anti-fascist economics.

Our article Cryptomercantilism vs Monetary Sovereignty with Eric Monnet and Edoardo Martino is now out #openaccess in the Journal of Financial Regulation. Here: academic.oup.com/jfr/advance-... A quick thread

"complicates the idea that secure property rights are a precondition for growth. Mulder’s point is ... that excessively rigid property rights could themselves become a barrier to modernisation. Successful states developed both the capacity to protect property and the capacity to rearrange it."

The wait is over… Anti-Fascist Economics is out now! 🌹🌾 Writing a book is a very lonely journey, and yet no one can do it alone. I’m so, so grateful to my family and friends who have had my back throughout this process and for all the guidance from my editors across three countries and my agency.

New post on why the French are (always) unhappy, backed by some European Social Survey data alexandreafonso.substack.com/p/why-are-th...

at its simplest level, the private equity model was borrowing money at historically low interest rates to buy firms, borrowing more to give themselves extraordinary dividends, and then selling the firm to someone else borrowing at historically low rates. now rates are up and... h/t ritholtz.com

The Bauchschmerzen Tweet to end all Bauchschmerzen Tweets

@tabouchadi.bsky.social und ich schlagen einen neuen Blick auf das Verhältnis von Arbeiter:innen und AfD vor. Die Arbeiterklasse ist nicht nach rechts gerückt. Stattdessen wurde ihr rechter Flügel mobilisiert, ihr linker demobilisiert. Für linke Parteien birgt das strategische Potenziale. Mehr hier:

Hochgradig amüsant, dass der Parteichef scheinbar ohne Ironiebewusstsein zur grünen Jugend geht, um sie zu belehren, dass man aus strategischen Gründen gute Beziehungen zu den Konservativen unterhalten müsse.

Für die @republik.ch, haben @lwestheuser.bsky.social und ich über den Mythos des Rechtsrucks der Arbeiterklasse geschrieben. Empirisch falsch und basierend auf einem Zerrbild hält er die Linke davon ab, Arbeiter:innen effektiv anzusprechen und zu mobilisieren. www.republik.ch/2026/10/19/d...

Habe seit ich klein war auf diesen Rudi Tweet gewartet

Habe seit ich klein war auf diesen Rudi Tweet gewartet

Hochgradig amüsant, dass der Parteichef scheinbar ohne Ironiebewusstsein zur grünen Jugend geht, um sie zu belehren, dass man aus strategischen Gründen gute Beziehungen zu den Konservativen unterhalten müsse.

I will read, share, and treasure every big tribute or little anecdote people share about Perry. Here's Adam Tooze's: adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-...

Step 1: EU gets tough on China. Step 2 EU imposes a sanction on a Chinese company. Step 3: China responds by restricting rare-earth exports to a tiny company that no one has heard of that brings the chip machine maker ASML come crashing down Thanks for playing EU-China trade war!

Extremely funny cato.org landing page this week.

Very interesting paper. Finds that rather than theatre, BIS activity in payment & settlement genuinely aims at countering the infrastructural power of private financial actors by developing public alternatives, or at at by least bolstering central bank control. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

2018: Inflation is a domestic demand-side variable under central bank control. 2022: There may be a global supply-side element to it. 2026: The pre-Midterm US CPI target rate of the IRGC, Houthi, and Ukrainian bombing campaigns against fossil fuel infrastructure across Eurasia is 4%.

Inflation targeting ceasing to be a metaphor.

Grateful to @lpeblog.bsky.social for the opportunity to reflect on Pistor's work and to express my very Marxist doubts about legal institutionalism.

Agree. An AI crash is almost inevitable, and following that policy rates will go down, perhaps all the way to zero, and longer rates will follow. (The hard question as always is when.)

How neoliberalism ends.

2018: Inflation is a domestic demand-side variable under central bank control. 2022: There may be a global supply-side element to it. 2026: The pre-Midterm US CPI target rate of the IRGC, Houthi, and Ukrainian bombing campaigns against fossil fuel infrastructure across Eurasia is 4%.

Habe sie einmal kurz persönlich gesprochen. Gespräch zu dritt mit einem berühmten Kollegen aus dem Ausland. Nach einer Minute redete sie von Schülerinnen aus Syrien mit Kopftuch in der Klasse ihrer Tochter und wie schlimm das sei für die anderen Kindern. Mein Herz war erreicht.

Today CPE is publishing some revisionist history about BIL and IRA: Because the laws didn't touch muni markets and focused more on infra grants than loan authorities, they didn't adequately juice local economic development. Here's how we can change that: publicenterprise.org/long-term-li...

On the microeconomic foundations of macro stabilisation: The Hall-Woodford prize in historical perspective beatricecherrier.wordpress.com/2026/10/12/o...