Bio

Biographical Note

Contributions to research and teaching in the fields of
- Fractional reserve banking and its dysfunctions as well as development of the sovereign money approach to monetary reform since the mid 1990s
- Theory and policies of ecological modernisation (greening of the industrial metabolism, 1980–2000s
- General innovation and modernisation theory, 1990–2000s
- Dual economy theory (formal and informal sector of work and the economy), 1980s
- Promode and Anamode, archetypes of cultural dynamics, 1980s
- Theory and practice of alternative economies, 1975–1980s.

1992–2012 Chair of Economic and Environmental Sociology, Martin-Luther-University, Halle, Germany.
1981–1992 professor adjoint at Free University Berlin. Fellowships and guest and interim professorships at Science Center Berlin, University Zürich and Technical University Vienna. 
1975–77 project team staff of prof. Ota Šik, Business School St. Gallen, Switzerland.
From the 1980s conducting studies and serving as a policy advisor to various governments, politicians and companies on matters of economic and ecological modernisation.
In the 1980s pioneer of green-ethical banking.
1996–2014 member of the eco advisory board of Umweltbank AG (Environmental Bank) Nürnberg.
1999–2001 working with James Robertson on monetary reform on behalf of the New Economics Foundation, London. The report “Creating New Money” has offered a frame of reference for quite a number of monetary reform initiatives after 2000.
In 2009 co-founder of Monetative e.V. Berlin, a monetary reform organisation advocating sovereign money. 

Selected Publications in English

On monetary modernisation

•   The Monetary Turning Point. From Bank Money to Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), Palgrave Macmillan 2023.

•   Sovereign Money. Beyond Reserve Banking, London: Palgrave Macmillan 2017.

• Digital Currency. Design principles to support a shift from bankmoney to central bank digital currency, real-world economics review, issue no. 88, 10 July 2019, 76–90.

•   Split-circuit reserve banking. Functioning, dysfunctions and future perspectives, Real-World Economics Review, no.80 June 2017, 63-84

•   Modern Money Theory and New Currency Theory. A comparative discussion, Real-World Economics Review, no.66, January 2014. 

•   Creating New Money, co-authored with James Robertson, London: New Economics Foundation 2000| Italian > |  German >

•   Plain Money. A Proposal for Supplying the Nations with the Necessary Means in a Modern Monetary System, Der Hallesche Graureiher 1999–3, Forschungsberichte des Instituts für Soziologie der Martin-Luther-Universität 1999 

On ecological modernisation

• Key Environmental Innovations, SSRN Journal, ssrn.com/abstract=677901  or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.677901, March 2005.

• New Technologies and Environmental Innovation, Cheltenham UK: Edward Elgar Publ., 2004.

• Pioneer Countries and the Global Diffusion of Environmental Innovations, Global Environmental Change, Vol. 18, No. 3, August 2008, 360–367.

• Technological environmental innovations in a chain-analytical and lifecycle-analytical perspective, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 16, No. 18, 2008, 1980–1986.

• Towards Industrial Ecology: Sustainable Development as a Concept of Ecological Modernisation, in Redclift, Michael R. / Woodgate, Graham (eds), New Developments in Environmental Sociology, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2005, 251–267. First publ. in: Andersen, Michael / Massa, Ilmo (Eds), Ecological Modernization, Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, Special Issue, 2 (2000) 269–285.