Daniel Mertens
Biographic Data
| ID | 4137376 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Daniel Mertens |
| GIVEN NAMES | Daniel |
| FAMILY NAME | Mertens |
| SIGNATURE | MERTENS D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Goethe University Frankfurt |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2194-8293 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 113 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Domestic climate finance and the state
State-owned investment banks (SIBs) are gaining prominence as industrial policy and financing tools for decarbonization, yet their actual capacity to deliver on climate goals remains underexplored. In this article we investigate the factors shaping the transformative capacity of SIBs, developing an analytical framework that integrates public governance and political economy scholarship. We apply this framework in a most-likely case study of Germa…
Puzzling, powering, profiting
Constructions, cleavages, and complementarities
The complexities and contradictions of ‘green’ finance demand multidimensional perspectives in critical socioeconomic research. Current studies often remain fragmented, focusing either on global financial structures or micro-level practices without fully integrating both. This essay advocates for a more integrated analytical approach, employing three components: constructions, cleavages, and complementarities. At the micro-level, green finance is…
Decarbonization under geoeconomic distress? Energy shocks, carbon lock‐ins, and Germany's pathway toward net zero
How can decarbonization governance endure under increasing geoeconomic distress? Global tensions threaten to divert financial and political resources from the green transition toward national security issues. However, we lack the analytical tools to assess decarbonization governance in this age of global rivalries. To address this gap, we develop an analytical framework to study the effects of geoeconomic shocks through investment, operational, a…
Politische Ökonomie
Investing in the single market? Core-periphery dynamics and the hybrid governance of supranational investment policies
This article examines the impact of supranational investment policies on the resilience of the common market project and its impact on core-periphery dynamics. Reconstructing the hybrid governance processes around the Investment Plan for Europe (2015–2020) and its geographical distribution, it finds that these policies were effective in channelling funds to the Southern periphery after the Eurozone crisis, but aggravated the core-periphery dynami…
Between distribution and allocation
Comparative political economists typically analyze taxation as a matter of distribution. This article, by contrast, develops an allocational explanation of tax policy choices: as taxes channel resources into some economic activities and restrain others, they become subject to the allocational concerns of different sectors of the economy. We argue that sectoral coalitions straddling the class divide substantially influence the development of tax s…
Comparative Capitalism, Growth Models and Emerging Markets
Over the past decade, the study of emerging markets has become one of the most vibrant fields of Comparative Capitalism (CC) scholarship. CC studies have not only mapped a range of different emerging market capitalisms but have also identified both functional and dysfunctional types that further differ based on their integration into the global economy. The article reviews the evolution of these ideal-typological efforts, ranging from the notion …
Building a hidden investment state? The European Investment Bank, national development banks and European economic governance
The European Commission’s Investment Plan for Europe and the enduring economic crisis has brought state-owned development banks again to the fore of public and scholarly debate in Europe. This article proposes to place these banks’ activities and recent institutional co-operation in the context of European integration and assumes a historical perspective on European economic governance and development banking. Most importantly, it argues that the…
Finanzialisierung und Wohlfahrtsstaat
Der Beitrag bietet Konzepte zur Erfassung der Beziehungen zwischen Finanzsektor und Wohlfahrtsstaaten in der sozialen Sicherung von Privathaushalten. Anhand von Beispielen aus den Bereichen Alterssicherung, Wohnen, Kredit/ Schulden und “Social Impact Investing“ zeigen wir, dass das Finanzwesen in einem ambivalenten Verhältnis zur staatlichen Sozialpolitik steht: Finanzmärkte können sowohl Garant als auch Beschränkung für (traditionelle) Sozialpol…
Borrowing for social security? Credit, asset-based welfare and the decline of the German savings regime
This article investigates the question to what extent Germany fits into the recent trend of credit-based social policy that has originated in Anglophone economies. In the course of the financial crisis and with its preceding increase in private indebtedness in mind, a growing number of scholars have argued that loans to households have become a central component of contemporary welfare states. Because of comprehensive savings-promotion schemes, h…
Putting ‘merchants of debt’ in their place
Why did household debt in Germany not increase after the year 2000? This article offers a supply-side explanation for this deviant debt trajectory by tracing the historical evolution of retail banking in the German political economy. It argues that at the end of the 1990s and in the light of European Monetary Union, profitability issues and banking fragmentation became severe enough to interrupt the path towards credit-based financialisation as p…
Politik im Defizit. Austerität als fiskalpolitisches Regime
Seit Anfang der 1970er Jahre lässt sich eine graduelle Verschärfung der fiskalischen Situation moderner Staaten beobachten. Chronisch gewordene Defizite und eine dramatisch gestiegene Staatsverschuldung sind zu einer beherrschenden Rahmenbedingung wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Politik geworden. Das Papier beschreibt für die Bundesrepublik die langfristige Etablierung eines Regimes fiskalpolitischer Austerität. Die mit diesem verbundene Einengung des disk…
Building a hidden investment state? The European Investment Bank, national development banks and European economic governance
The European Commission’s Investment Plan for Europe and the enduring economic crisis has brought state-owned development banks again to the fore of public and scholarly debate in Europe. This article proposes to place these banks’ activities and recent institutional co-operation in the context of European integration and assumes a historical perspective on European economic governance and development banking. Most importantly, it argues that the…
Comparative Capitalism, Growth Models and Emerging Markets
Over the past decade, the study of emerging markets has become one of the most vibrant fields of Comparative Capitalism (CC) scholarship. CC studies have not only mapped a range of different emerging market capitalisms but have also identified both functional and dysfunctional types that further differ based on their integration into the global economy. The article reviews the evolution of these ideal-typological efforts, ranging from the notion …
Putting ‘merchants of debt’ in their place
Why did household debt in Germany not increase after the year 2000? This article offers a supply-side explanation for this deviant debt trajectory by tracing the historical evolution of retail banking in the German political economy. It argues that at the end of the 1990s and in the light of European Monetary Union, profitability issues and banking fragmentation became severe enough to interrupt the path towards credit-based financialisation as p…
Borrowing for social security? Credit, asset-based welfare and the decline of the German savings regime
This article investigates the question to what extent Germany fits into the recent trend of credit-based social policy that has originated in Anglophone economies. In the course of the financial crisis and with its preceding increase in private indebtedness in mind, a growing number of scholars have argued that loans to households have become a central component of contemporary welfare states. Because of comprehensive savings-promotion schemes, h…
Between distribution and allocation
Comparative political economists typically analyze taxation as a matter of distribution. This article, by contrast, develops an allocational explanation of tax policy choices: as taxes channel resources into some economic activities and restrain others, they become subject to the allocational concerns of different sectors of the economy. We argue that sectoral coalitions straddling the class divide substantially influence the development of tax s…
Decarbonization under geoeconomic distress? Energy shocks, carbon lock‐ins, and Germany's pathway toward net zero
How can decarbonization governance endure under increasing geoeconomic distress? Global tensions threaten to divert financial and political resources from the green transition toward national security issues. However, we lack the analytical tools to assess decarbonization governance in this age of global rivalries. To address this gap, we develop an analytical framework to study the effects of geoeconomic shocks through investment, operational, a…
Puzzling, powering, profiting
Investing in the single market? Core-periphery dynamics and the hybrid governance of supranational investment policies
This article examines the impact of supranational investment policies on the resilience of the common market project and its impact on core-periphery dynamics. Reconstructing the hybrid governance processes around the Investment Plan for Europe (2015–2020) and its geographical distribution, it finds that these policies were effective in channelling funds to the Southern periphery after the Eurozone crisis, but aggravated the core-periphery dynami…
Politik im Defizit. Austerität als fiskalpolitisches Regime
Seit Anfang der 1970er Jahre lässt sich eine graduelle Verschärfung der fiskalischen Situation moderner Staaten beobachten. Chronisch gewordene Defizite und eine dramatisch gestiegene Staatsverschuldung sind zu einer beherrschenden Rahmenbedingung wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Politik geworden. Das Papier beschreibt für die Bundesrepublik die langfristige Etablierung eines Regimes fiskalpolitischer Austerität. Die mit diesem verbundene Einengung des disk…
Putting ‘merchants of debt’ in their place
Why did household debt in Germany not increase after the year 2000? This article offers a supply-side explanation for this deviant debt trajectory by tracing the historical evolution of retail banking in the German political economy. It argues that at the end of the 1990s and in the light of European Monetary Union, profitability issues and banking fragmentation became severe enough to interrupt the path towards credit-based financialisation as p…
Borrowing for social security? Credit, asset-based welfare and the decline of the German savings regime
This article investigates the question to what extent Germany fits into the recent trend of credit-based social policy that has originated in Anglophone economies. In the course of the financial crisis and with its preceding increase in private indebtedness in mind, a growing number of scholars have argued that loans to households have become a central component of contemporary welfare states. Because of comprehensive savings-promotion schemes, h…
Finanzialisierung und Wohlfahrtsstaat
Der Beitrag bietet Konzepte zur Erfassung der Beziehungen zwischen Finanzsektor und Wohlfahrtsstaaten in der sozialen Sicherung von Privathaushalten. Anhand von Beispielen aus den Bereichen Alterssicherung, Wohnen, Kredit/ Schulden und “Social Impact Investing“ zeigen wir, dass das Finanzwesen in einem ambivalenten Verhältnis zur staatlichen Sozialpolitik steht: Finanzmärkte können sowohl Garant als auch Beschränkung für (traditionelle) Sozialpol…
Building a hidden investment state? The European Investment Bank, national development banks and European economic governance
The European Commission’s Investment Plan for Europe and the enduring economic crisis has brought state-owned development banks again to the fore of public and scholarly debate in Europe. This article proposes to place these banks’ activities and recent institutional co-operation in the context of European integration and assumes a historical perspective on European economic governance and development banking. Most importantly, it argues that the…
Comparative Capitalism, Growth Models and Emerging Markets
Over the past decade, the study of emerging markets has become one of the most vibrant fields of Comparative Capitalism (CC) scholarship. CC studies have not only mapped a range of different emerging market capitalisms but have also identified both functional and dysfunctional types that further differ based on their integration into the global economy. The article reviews the evolution of these ideal-typological efforts, ranging from the notion …
Between distribution and allocation
Comparative political economists typically analyze taxation as a matter of distribution. This article, by contrast, develops an allocational explanation of tax policy choices: as taxes channel resources into some economic activities and restrain others, they become subject to the allocational concerns of different sectors of the economy. We argue that sectoral coalitions straddling the class divide substantially influence the development of tax s…
Investing in the single market? Core-periphery dynamics and the hybrid governance of supranational investment policies
This article examines the impact of supranational investment policies on the resilience of the common market project and its impact on core-periphery dynamics. Reconstructing the hybrid governance processes around the Investment Plan for Europe (2015–2020) and its geographical distribution, it finds that these policies were effective in channelling funds to the Southern periphery after the Eurozone crisis, but aggravated the core-periphery dynami…
Politische Ökonomie
Decarbonization under geoeconomic distress? Energy shocks, carbon lock‐ins, and Germany's pathway toward net zero
How can decarbonization governance endure under increasing geoeconomic distress? Global tensions threaten to divert financial and political resources from the green transition toward national security issues. However, we lack the analytical tools to assess decarbonization governance in this age of global rivalries. To address this gap, we develop an analytical framework to study the effects of geoeconomic shocks through investment, operational, a…
Puzzling, powering, profiting
Constructions, cleavages, and complementarities
The complexities and contradictions of ‘green’ finance demand multidimensional perspectives in critical socioeconomic research. Current studies often remain fragmented, focusing either on global financial structures or micro-level practices without fully integrating both. This essay advocates for a more integrated analytical approach, employing three components: constructions, cleavages, and complementarities. At the micro-level, green finance is…
Domestic climate finance and the state
State-owned investment banks (SIBs) are gaining prominence as industrial policy and financing tools for decarbonization, yet their actual capacity to deliver on climate goals remains underexplored. In this article we investigate the factors shaping the transformative capacity of SIBs, developing an analytical framework that integrates public governance and political economy scholarship. We apply this framework in a most-likely case study of Germa…
Economics (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Politics (7 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (6 works) · Economic system (5 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (5 works) · Corporate governance (4 works) · Economic policy (4 works) · Market economy (4 works) · State Capitalism and Financial Governance (4 works)