Short profile

Steffen is a political economist specialized in international money and finance. He carries out a research project on the transformation of the Eurozone monetary architecture as a postdoctoral fellow at the Global Development Policy Center of Boston University and the Monetary and Economic Department of the Bank for International Settlements. At Global Climate Forum, he develops an application of the monetary architecture framework on the question of financing the Green Transition.

Previously, Steffen had postdoctoral affiliations at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs of Harvard University, the City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC) at City, University of London, and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), Potsdam. He holds a PhD in International Political Economy from City, University of London (2017); a Magister Artium in political science, philosophy and international law from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München (2012); and a Bachelor of Science in economics from LMU München (2011).

Research interests

Monetary theory; monetary history; the international monetary system; the European Monetary Union; financing the Green Transition

Selected publications

Guter-Sandu, A. and Murau, S. (2021) ‘ The Eurozone’s Evolving Fiscal Ecosystem. Mitigating Fiscal Discipline by Governing through Off-Balance-Sheet Fiscal Agencies’, New Political Economy, pp. 1-19,  https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2021.1910648.

Braun, B., Krampf, A. and Murau,S. (2021) ‘Financial globalization as positive integration. Monetary Technocrats and the Eurodollar market in the 1970s’, Review of International Political Economy, 28 (4), pp. 794-819, https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2020.1740291.

Murau, S, Pape, F and Pforr, T (2021) ‘The Hierarchy of the Offshore US-Dollar System. On Swap Lines, the FIMA Repo Facility and Special Drawing Rights’, Boston University, Global Development Policy Center, Global Economic Governance Initiative, GEGI Study February 2021, Boston, MA, https://doi.org/10.48440/iass.2021.005.

Murau, S (2020) ‘A Macro-Financial Model of the Eurozone Architecture Embedded in the Global Offshore US-Dollar System’, Boston University, Global Development Policy Center, Global Economic Governance Initiative, GEGI Study July 2020, Boston, MA, https://doi.org/10.2312/iass.2020.041.

Murau, S and Pforr, T.(2020) ‘What is Money in a Critical Macro-Finance Framework?’, Finance and Society, 6 (1), pp. 56-66, https://doi.org/10.2218/finsoc.v6i1.4409.

Murau, S and Pforr, T (2020) ‘Private Debt as Shadow Money? Conceptual Criteria, Empirical Evaluation and Implications for Financial Stability’ (with Tobias Pforr), Private Debt Project: Philadelphia, PA, May 2020.

Murau, S., Rini, J. and Haas, A. (2020) ‘The Evolution of the Offshore US-Dollar System. Past, Present and Four Possible Futures’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 16 (6), pp. 767-783, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137420000168.

Murau, S. (2017) ‘Shadow Money and the Public Money Supply. The Impact of the 2007-9 Financial Crisis on the Monetary System’, Review of International Political Economy 24 (5), pp. 802-838, https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2017.1325765.

Murau, S (2017) ‘The Political Economy of Private Credit Money Accommodation: A Study of Bank Notes, Bank Deposits and Shadow Money’, PhD thesis, City, University of London, November 2017, http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/19010/.

Murau, S. and Spandler, K. (2016) ‘EU, US and ASEAN Actorness in G20 Financial Policy-Making. Bridging the EU Studies-New Regionalism Divide’, Journal of Common Market Studies 54(4), pp. 928-943, https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12340.