There's a global race to secure EV battery gigafactories & reduce reliance on China.
But not all clean-tech projects are created equal. Some generate good jobs & domestic capacities, others produce ecological harm & low value-added enclaves.
New paper & thread 👇
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Social structures appear in social action. This is why different views on how and why we act demarcate differences in theory.
My intro-level course "theorizing social action" is designed to help bring these perspectives to life by inviting students to theorize.
Posting the syllabus here 1/2
🚨Reminder: The deadline for applications is next Monday, April 20, 2026! 👇
We are very happy to welcome political scientist Regine Paul to the MPIfG as of today!
Paul joins the Institute as head of the new research group “Technology and Statehood,” which will explore competition statehood in global tech races and their social and political implications. s.gwdg.de/BWmRAN
Very much looking forward to be teaching @mpifg.bsky.social signature #economicsociology PhD course this year. The course is a slightly modified version of the one developed by Jens Beckert featuring three amazing guest lectures I look particularly forward to!
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✍️ Apply to our ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship!
The European Institute is looking to support a Postdoctoral Fellow for the 2026/27 academic year.
🗓️ Deadline: Monday 1 June, 23.59 (UK time)
👉 Find out more: www.lse.ac.uk/european-institute/resea...
This paper on the Italian output gap controversy in the run-up to the Covid-19 crisis documents the profound disagreement between the European Commission and the Italian government over Italy’s output gap - with major implications for assessing compliance with EU fiscal rules.
While 23% of the rich are entirely invisible, a small minority accounts for the lion's share of press attention, including several media owners. Further, owners of wealth originating in the interwar and National Socialist period are less likely to appear than those with older or younger fortunes.
The first paper of my dissertation is published now in @sociologyjnl.bsky.social!
Press coverage of the richest Germans is rare but focused on a minority of highly visible individuals and varies along the historical origins of fortunes.
doi.org/10.1177/00380385261428292
very interesting study on the German super-rich @emmaischinsky.bsky.social @mpifg.bsky.social
"The German super-rich are largely absent from public discourse. Coverage is concentrated on a small minority of highly visible individuals, including several media owners."
doi.org/10.1177/0038...
Job opening: Student Assistant for the research group on Technology and Statehood. Deadline: April 17, 2026.
📢 Join our team in Cologne as a student assistant!
We are looking for a student in political science, sociology, economics or a comparable discipline interested in joining the research group “Technology and Statehood”, led by Regine Paul.
🗓️ Application deadline: April 17, 2026
s.gwdg.de/jKmyN6
❇️ The 2026 Joint Sessions #ecprjs26 are officially underway! Wishing all participants across our 3️⃣3️⃣ Workshops an enriching week ahead ⛰️
Not in Innsbruck this week? You can still join us for the Stein Rokkan Lecture by @siljahausermann.bsky.social, streaming FREE as part of #ECPRHouseSeries 👇
Happy Easter from Finance and Society team!
Here is our special easter egg for all of you: a fresh Call for Papers for this year's Finance and Society conference happening again at CBS Copenhagen!
Deadline: May 1st
Hoping to see many of you there!
In börsennotierten Unternehmen in Deutschland haben Arbeitnehmende ein vergleichsweise starkes Mitbestimmungsrecht – über Aufsichtsräte sind sie direkt an wichtigen Entscheidungen beteiligt. Asset-Manager wie BlackRock möchten diese Strukturen schwächen. Eine Analyse von @dustinvoss.bsky.social. 👇
Welcome, Hanna! We are looking forward to your stay with us in Cologne 😊
Today political economist and MPIfG Director Lucio Baccaro celebrates his 60th birthday. His work lies at the intersection of international and comparative political economy and has shaped debates in both areas significantly over the years.
We wish him a happy birthday! 💐
www.mpifg.de/baccaro60-en
We are hiring a tenure track (!) senior researcher in political economy!
This is obviously a great job (permanent without teaching obligation) and I hope you all apply.
However, I would like to take a moment to share just how significant this is in the German academic context ⬇️
Our new article on the limits of green concertation with @lucacigna.bsky.social is out in New Political Economy (in open access - thanks to @mpifg.bsky.social🙏)
Tenure Track Position: Senior Researcher, Political Economy. Application Deadline. April 20, 2026
📢 Call: Tenure Track Position
The MPIfG Political Economy Research Area led by Lucio Baccaro is seeking a Senior Researcher. Open to candidates with at least two years’ postdoc experience.
Please share widely!
🗓️ Apply by April 20, 2026
s.gwdg.de/WPMPp1
This chart goes a long way in explaining why Orbán’s system is under real pressure for the first time. The growth that sustained it has stalled—and with it, the political bargain that kept voters on board. I tried to unpack what that means.
👉 brettoninthewoods.substack.com/p/can-hungar...
Just wrapping up the first day of the Fourth Doctoral Conference on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy co-organized with fantastic colleagues at the @mpifg.bsky.social. Many great presentations and papers from diverse perspectives.
Call for Visiting Researchers, Political Economy and Economic Sociology. Application Deadline: April 30, 2026.
📢 Call for Visiting Researchers
Join us in Cologne for 2–12 months (Winter 2026/27)!
Open to researchers in economic sociology and comparative and international political economy, from Germany or abroad, at all career levels.
🗓️ Apply by April 30, 2026
Please share widely!
s.gwdg.de/jmmUQL
Group photo showing the attending trustees, from left to right: Ferdos Forudastan (CIVIS Medienstiftung), Carsten Fiedler (BurdaForward), Andrea Blome (Stadt Köln), Andrea Kienle (Ministerium Kultur und Wissenschaft NRW), Witich Roßmann (DGB-Stadtverband Köln), Barbara Albert (Universität Duisburg-Essen), Michael Hüther (IW), Martin Börschel (NRW.Bank). Photo by Nina Poppe.
We were happy to welcome our Board of Trustees at the Institute this week.
@eneimanns.bsky.social presented his research on the links between house prices and wage setting, and the Trustees discussed current developments at the MPIfG with our managing director. Thank you for your valuable input!
Journalist in Residence Fellowship. Für Medienschaffende mit Schwerpunkt Politik - Gesellschaft - Wirtschaft. Bewerbungsschluss 30. April 2026.
📢 Journalist in Residence Fellowship
Zeit für Recherchen zu einem Projekt Ihrer Wahl und den Austausch mit Forschenden am Kölner MPIfG.
🗓️ Bewerben Sie sich bis zum 30. April für einen Aufenthalt von 6-12 Wochen.
s.gwdg.de/iWNwRq
As states weaponize supply chains, warnings of deglobalization and aggregate welfare losses have proliferated. But neither has materialized: trade volumes remain high and supply chains continue to span the globe. This paper argues that the surprising resilience of aggregate trade obscures a large-scale redistribution creating K-shaped divergence among firms navigating geoeconomic reordering. Who wins and who loses depends on two dimensions of corporate power: the strategic indispensability of what firms produce and their organizational capacity to reconfigure operations around geopolitical constraints. Because strategic designation attaches to specific outputs rather than broad industry categories, these capacities vary sharply among firms nominally facing identical pressures. Drawing on an original dataset of over 21,000 corporate earnings calls annotated using large language models alongside firm-level financial data, I demonstrate that sector membership explains remarkably little outcome variance. Adaptation operates hierarchically within industries, not between them. Firms controlling chokepoints or possessing reconfiguration capacity capture concentrated gains; those lacking strategic position bear recurring adjustment costs. As these costs cluster in regions previously affected by deindustrialization, supply chain restructuring risks intensifying the geographic polarization that fueled political demand for economic statecraft in the first place.
War is reshaping global markets. I have a paper under review that asks: who wins or loses when supply chains meet geopolitics, and what are the political implications?
Since the world is changing faster than our overburdened peer-review system can handle, here's the 📃 + a🧵
osf.io/preprints/so...
Time: March 18, 13:00. Title: "Coalition Formation and the Sovereignty of Tax Havens: A Comparative Historical Analysis of the Bahamas and Bermuda". Speaker: Lukas Hakelberg, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Up next in our online series on comparative political economy (MAX CPE):
Lukas Hakelberg on “Coalition Formation and the Sovereignty of Tax Havens: A Comparative Historical Analysis of the Bahamas and Bermuda”.
🗓️ March 18, 13:00 -14:00
📍 online
📧 Sign up: maxcpe@mpifg.de
s.gwdg.de/2MkmvR
📢 Call: Lise Meitner Research Groups
@maxplanck.de invites applications for the Lise Meitner Excellence Program, which recruits outstanding early-career researchers to lead independent research groups.
The MPIfG welcomes applications aligned with its research program.
Please share widely!
🎉Celebration Day! 🎉
The @mpifg.bsky.social library’s search portal, elibrary, will be available in a completely revised version and at a new address today!
🪩 mpifg.disco.mpg.de 🪩
#librarylife #community #teamwork #vufind #discovery #selfmade #opensource #library #Bibliothek #muffins
