The Financialisation of Sovereign Debt

An Institutional Analysis of the Reforms in German Public Debt Management

Bibliographic Data

ID6263161
AuthorsChristine Trampusch (0000-0003-1024-2065, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume24
Issue2
Pages119-136
Publication date2015-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGerman Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0964-4008 • E-ISSN: 1743-8993
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09644008.2015.1021791
OpenAlexW2048592169
LanguageEN
Citations received18

This study explores the financialisation of sovereign debt through an in-depth study of institutional change in German debt management. Between 1998 and 2006, the Ministry of Finance fundamentally altered the management of federal public debt by not only disempowering the Bundesbank and Federal Debt Administration as debt managers and outsourcing this task to a new agency, the Federal Finance Agency; moreover, the conservative debt strategy was replaced by strict market orientation. Conceptualising this change as institutional innovation, the paper argues that the Ministry of Finance played a leading role in the reform process. It shows that the arrival of the Euro brought with it a power struggle between the Ministry and the Bundesbank. The evidence fits better the concept of institutional innovation as a result of entrepreneurship than approaches which conceptualise institutional innovations as consequences of profit maximisation or layering and displacement

Agency (philosophy · Business · Debt · Debt levels and flows · Debt-to-GDP ratio · Economic policy · Economic system · Economics · External debt · Financial system · German · Internal debt · Market economy · Senior debt · European Monetary and Fiscal Policies · Finance

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