Short Profile:

Verena Gradinger works as a doctoral researcher within the OBFA-TRANSFORM group at the Global Climate Forum. She has been awarded a doctoral fellowship from the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung. Her work focuses on the political economy of climate-related financial risks, with a particular interest in balance sheet contraction and the macro-financial implications of asset stranding.

In 2024-25, she has pursued a Masters degree in Development Economics at SOAS University of London. She holds a Bachelor degree in economics from the University of Business and Economics Vienna as well as a Bachelor degree in political science from the University of Vienna. Her research is driven by an interest in how structural power is exercised through financial institutions and how this shapes the role of the state in large-scale economic transformations.

Prior to joining GCF, Verena worked at the Department of Economics at WU Vienna, coordinating teaching and student engagement, and at the Austrian National Bank

Research Interests:
Macroeconomic policymaking; asset stranding and financial stability; off-balance-sheet fiscal agencies; international finance and macroeconomics; political economy of the state

Selected Publications:

Guter-Sandu, Andrei, Verena Gradinger, Olan McEvoy, and Steffen Murau (2025), From Stabilisation to Strategic Mobilisation. The Exchange Equalisation Account as a Wartime Off-Balance-Sheet Fiscal Agency, 1932-1945, OBFA-TRANSFORM Working Paper No. 9-EN, Berlin: Global Climate Forum.

Haas, Armin, Verena Gradinger, Andrei Guter-Sandu, and Steffen Murau (2025), Après le Déluge. Managing Balance Sheet Contraction after the First World War, OBFA-TRANSFORM Working Paper No. 8-EN, Berlin: Global Climate Forum.