Professor of Economics at Skidmore College
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I grew up in Hamburg, northern Germany, and have studied and worked in six countries, including South Africa, Italy, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Before and during my studies of economics at three different universities I gathered a number of years of work experience in the financial ...more

ALL CONTRIBUTIONS

The General Theory As “Depression Economics”?
This paper revisits Keynes’s writings from Indian Currency and Finance (1913) to The General Theory (1936) with a focus on financial instability.
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Big Guns Shooting Holes In The Sky
The New Keynesian monetary mainstream has brought out the big guns. Paul Krugman, Kenneth Rogoff, and Larry Summers have come out to shoot down the rising star known as “MMT,” which stands for Modern Monetary Theory.
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On Mondern Monetary Theory And Some Odd Twists And Turns In The Evolution Of Macroeconomics
Modern Monetary Theory is a call for action, alerting policymakers and the public that decisions about infrastructure, the environment, or progressive social programs are nothing but political choices within the fiscal powers of sovereign states.
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IMF Provides Cover For Europe's Dysfunctional Currency Union
The IMF's role is to monitor and support global stability. It is curious that the IMF provides cover for Germany and the eurozone to purse fiscal positions that require large and persistent current account surpluses to be realized.
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The "German Problem" Is Not A Problem For Anyone To Worry About. Or Is It?
The Eurozone is still massively unbalanced. It does not help to downplay the challenges this poses to Europe and beyond.
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Why Macron Should Not (And Cannot) Follow The German Model
It would be a mistake for France to try to copy the German model.
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Work Experience

Professor of Economics
Skidmore College
August 2006 - Present (17 years 1 month)

My teaching responsibilities include:
International Finance
International Trade
Economics of European Integration
Microeconomics
Macroeconomics

Research Associate
Levy Economics Institute
2001 - Present (22 years 9 months)
Inter-Regional Adviser
United Nations at Geneva
2006 - 2007 (1 year 6 months)

Education

University of Cambridge
M Phil, PhD
1992 / 1995
Economics
University of Hamburg
Diplom-Volkswirt
1986 / 1992
Economics
University of the Witwatersrand
Bachelors of Economics (honors)
1989 / 1990
Economics

Publications

How Germany’s Anti-Keynesianism Has Brought Europe to Its Knees
Joerg Bibow
The Levy Economics Institute Working Paper Collection
03/01/2017

This paper investigates the (lack of any lasting) impact of John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory on economic policymaking in Germany. The analysis highlights the interplay between economic history and the history of ideas in shaping policymaking in postwar (West) Germany. The paper argues that Germany learned the wrong lessons from its own history and misread the true sources of its postwar success. Monetary mythology and the Bundesbank, with its distinctive anti-inflationary bias, feature prominently in this collective odyssey. The analysis shows that the crisis of the euro today is largely the consequence of Germany’s peculiar anti-Keynesianism.