The Academy for New European Political Economics e.V. is a registered non-profit association dedicated to contributing to a renewal of economics and the social sciences. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, it became apparent to us that the analytical tools of mainstream economics and social sciences had proven themselves insufficient to develop a profound understanding of the historical situation europe and western civilization as a whole finds itself in today. Like during the great depression, mainstream economics is in crisis, and a search for a better economic theory is receiving broader attention, evident in institutes like INET, the International Initiative for Pluralism in Economics and others. We set up ANEP economics in 2016 in our role as concerned citizens to support and contribute to the process of developing better analytical tools and to communicate them into public discourse.
Our primary purpose so far has mainly been self-education and research through internal seminars and discussion, and presenting preliminary results of our approach for discussion at conferences centered around the search for a new paradigm for economics and the social sciences (see here).
A core insight up to this point has been that to understand capitalism from the ground up, we need to connect law – based upon and historically coming from roman law – to macroeconomics by way of business and national accounting, introduce intentional actors, and build a macroeconomic monetary circuit model with these elements. We take major inspiration from earlier attempts to build a law-based theory of economics, including scottish 19th century economist Sir Henry Dunning MacLeod, the american institutionalist John R. Commons, the german social-legal school (Stammler, Berolzheimer, Diehl, Kaulla and others), Legal Institutionalism, Legal Theory of Finance, Tsujimura&Tsujimura’s Balance Sheet Economics, and, especially and in a fundamental way, from Wolfgang Stützel’s work. The other tradition we build on is post-keynesian monetary economics, including Modern Monetary Theory (Randall Wray), Ownership Economics (Heinsohn&Steiger), Stock Flow Consistent Modelling (Godley&Lavoie), and the Money View (Perry Mehrling).
We plan to take part in public discourse on a broader basis as well eventually, as soon as we feel ready. Anyone interested in actively contributing to our project or in passively supporting it as a member or donator is welcome to join us.
Founding Members
Thomas Weiss studied mathematics and physics at the Technical University Munich and finished his PhD thesis on interacting stochastic processes in 2016. Alongside this scientific career, he started quite early to dive into the broad and disperse field of heterodox macroeconomics out of personal concern. Areas of study were focused primarily on monetary economics, including the works of Hyman P. Minsky, Perry Mehrling, Wolfgang Stützel and others. This private research took place within the ‘Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik’ (the German version of ISIPE), the Young Scholar’s Initiative of INET and also through political involvement, until co-founding ANEP economics in 2016. Since fall 2016 he is working as a financial industry consultant in Frankfurt am Main. Thomas presented our law-based version of Wolfgang Stützel’s integration of business and national accounting at INET’s 2016 Young Scholar’s Initiative Plenary, “Piecing together a New Paradigm” in Budapest, Hungary (click here for the video, presentation, and paper), and Wolfgang Stützel’s Theory of business cycles (part 1) at our introductory seminar at BI Norwegian Business school in Oslo (click here for the video). Thomas can be reached at thomas.weiss[at]anep-economics[dot]org
Nicolas Hofer studied business information systems engineering (“Wirtschaftsinformatik”) with a major in banking and finance at the University of Mannheim, Germany. His thesis on cryptocurrencies was published by the University of Mannheim in 2014. He has worked as a business analyst in the private sector (Sanoson, Vienna, Austria) and as a researcher in academia (Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria) since then. As an independent business and economic analyst he has traded stocks and derivatives from 2005 – 2012. Today he is focused on developing “New European Political Economics”, since he is convinced a new integrative monetary macroeconomic paradigm is desperately needed for a thorough analysis of the situation in Europe and the Eurozone specifically, as well as the rest of the world in general. Part of his work with Wolfgang Theil and others at ANEP economics was presented at the WINIR Symposium 2016 on Property Rights at Bristol University, UK (click here for the video, presentation and paper) and the WINIR Symposium 2017 “Institutions and Open Societies” in Utrecht (click here for the paper on “Freedom, the Law and the State: A Comparative and Historical Analysis of Three Core Institutions of Open Societies, with a Short View to the Future of European Integration” – presentation and paper). He presented our approach to accounting, money and banking in terms of law at our introductory seminar at BI Norwegian Business school in Oslo in 2017 (click here for the video). Nicolas can be reached at nicolas.hofer[at]anep-economics[dot]org.
Matthias Garscha is the historian on our team. He studied Business Administration in Worms and has worked as an entrepreneur in the telecommunications industry. As a long time accomplished amateur historian, he contributes his broad, detailed knowledge of european and global history to the comparative history aspect of the ANEP economics research program. This includes a comparative historical look at the formation of states and federal supra-states, the historical origins and development of law, accounting, credit and money including the history of classical antiquity and the roman republic, and 19th and 20th century european and world history, with a focus on the rise and fall of U.S. hegemony and the international financial system. Before co-founding ANEP Economics, Matthias was an active member of the Money and Finance Working Group of germany’s pirate party, and has conducted interviews with a number of experts on money and finance. He can be seen interviewing Richard Werner (here), Michael Kumhof (here) or Helge Peukert (here). His interview with Heiner Flaßbeck can be listened to here. Matthias can be reached at matthias.garscha[at]anep-economics[dot]org.
Andreas Tittert is a conference interpreter based in Munich, whose address serves as seat of our club. He studied Interpreting and Translating for English, French and German at the Sprachen and Dolmetscher Institut in Munich and finished his Master’s Degree at the University of Salford in England. He has worked as a freelancer and consultant in the language industry and has, by virtue of his specialist translation subjects, looked at economics through the lenses of various languages and philosophies. He promotes our understanding of economics by helping with the linguistic and semantic details of the ANEP economics research program. Before co-founding ANEP Economics, Andreas was one of the coordinators of the Money and Finance Working Group of Germany’s Pirate Party, and has conducted interviews with a number of experts on money and finance, such as Prof. Christian Felber (to listen, click here). Andreas can be reached at andreas.tittert[at]anep-economics[dot]org.