Sustainable finance and the EU's sustainability capitalism
I'm interested in the political economy of EU law and transnational governance. My research outputs seek to deepen our understanding of law's socioeconomic outcomes and overcome the silos between different disciplines and jurisdictional perspectives.
My research encompasses the following strands:
1. Mapping the sustainable finance universe
Sustainable finance regulations cover a wide array of initiatives, including general standards of what is sustainable (e.g. the Green Taxonomy), labelling obligations and new duties of market participants (banks, financial advisors, market infrastructures). My work systematises and problematises the flurry of reform being introduced at the EU and global levels, taking into account initiatives introduced across selected Member States.
2. Legal-institutional theoretical framework for analysis of sustainable finance
Building on the rich and extensive work of legal institutionalists, I ask questions about how sustainable finance regulations alter the relationships between firms, finance and the state. The starting point is the limited predictive value of a regulatory design underpinned by a vision of efficient markets which can “naturally” solve the problem of underinvestment in the sustainability transition.
3. Varieties of financial market sustainability transition and differentiated integration
Integrative frameworks, such as EU law, cannot shy away from the persistent differences between financial systems, in particular with those spanning different currency areas. My PhD (defended at the EUI in 2020) analysed how EU law could better govern cross-border bank groups with view to fairly balancing the interests of the constitutive entities. "The EU's sustainability capitalism" project meanwhile investigates the institutional contingency of the sustainability transformation. In this context, I explore questions of coordination across regulatory structures.
4. Economic governance, with a focus on the law of central banking and money
The emerging field of the law of central banking and macrofinance is a fertile ground for scholarship exploring questions of mandates, accountability and legitimacy. I'm interested in particular in the evolving role of the European Central Bank with regard to financial stability and climate change, as well as various forms of judicial accountability and democratic anchoring of monetary policy authorities.
You can read my publication list here.