Ulrich Bindseil

Ulrich Bindseil (born 1970 ) is a German economist and has been Director General for Market Infrastructures and Payment Transactions on the Board of Directors of the European Central Bank since 2019 .

Life and career

Ulrich Bindseil studied at the University of Saarbruecken Economics . He received his doctorate in 1994 on the right of disposal in organized securities markets : investigated on the basis of the theory of incomplete contracts. Since 1994 he has worked in the area of central banking and initially worked in the economic department of the Deutsche Bundesbank . In 1997 he moved to the European Monetary Institute to help develop the liquidity management of the ECB. In September 2009, he took over as deputy head of this directorate-general, having previously been responsible for the risk management department at the ECB. Bindseil has headed the General Directorate for Financial Market Operations (DG-M) since May 2012.

The Board of Directors of the European Central Bank (ECB) appointed Ulrich Bindseil as Director General Market Infrastructures and Payments (DG-MIP) on November 1, 2019. He succeeded Marc Bayle, who switched to the private sector.

Publications

Central Banking before 1800 - A Rehabilitation, 2020

The Swedish Reichsbank has long been considered the first central bank in history. In his study, Bindseil shows that there were already about ten credit institutions that fulfilled the main characteristics of a central bank: central bank money (initially mostly deposit), a legal mandate and a special legal status. It was about making means of payment available to retailers. This resulted in the pursuit of stability, as the ability to exchange currencies into gold depended on it.

The first central bank was the Catalonian Taula de Canvi in 1401 , followed by the Casa di San Giorgio in Genoa in 1407 . In the 16th and 17th centuries, further central banks were added, in 1619 the Hamburger Bank , which met all the criteria of a central bank.

For Norbert Häring , what is special about Bindseil's publication is that he describes monetary state financing as a historical norm and in principle classifies it as a good thing. "The strict ban on state financing by the central bank, as it was included in the Maastricht Treaty on Monetary Union at German insistence , represents an extreme case in historical terms." Most of the central banks operating before 1800, according to Bindseil, had the express goal in their statutes of facilitating the financing of state tasks.

Positions

Target balances

In contrast to Hans-Werner Sinn , Bindseil sees no fundamental risk in target balances . He contradicts six theses that, in his opinion, shape the German point of view that had already been criticized by Willem Buiter or Karl Whelan.

• A restriction of the target positions, as requested by Sinn, would call the monetary union into question
• Contrary to what Sinn claims, they are not fiscal policy, but reflect intra-European payment flows.
• Not Germany should fear a credit crunch, but the indebted countries
• Peripheral countries do not live beyond their own means at the expense of Germany
• The Eurosystem could cope with excess liquidity in German banks.
• The over-indebted countries can only be put in a position to meet their obligations through a growth policy. "An elastic provision of central bank liquidity and a clear commitment to monetary union can help overcome the self-fulfilling confidence and liquidity crisis."

Zombification of the economy

Bindseil criticizes the accusation that the ECB would artificially keep “zombie” companies alive through low interest rates. He sees a fundamental mistake in the assumption that the central bank is granting the loans to companies. In fact, however, these are the credit institutions. These could allocate loans more efficiently than a "central authority". Bindseil considers the thesis of the zombification through monetary policy to be a "politically absurd and dangerous diversionary maneuver."

literature

• Monetary Policy Operations and the Financial System. Oxford University Press Sep 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-871690-7 .
• Institutions in perspective: festschrift in honor of Rudolf Richter on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. ISBN 978-3-16-149061-3 .
• Central Banking before 1800 - A Rehabilitation, Oxford University Press, 2020. ISBN 978-0-19-884999-5 .

Web links

• Discussion broadcast with Ulrich Bindseil, Markus Krall and Roland Tichy

Individual evidence

1. ↑ European Central Bank: ECB appoints Ulrich Bindseil as Director General Market Infrastructure and Payments. Retrieved May 30, 2020 (English). 
2. ↑ Michael Rasch, Frankfurt: Was the Hamburger Bank the first central bank in the world? | NZZ . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . ( nzz.ch [accessed on May 30, 2020]).
3. ↑ A German ECB manager shows that monetary policy has always served public finance - money and more. Accessed May 30, 2020 (German). 
4. ↑ Willem Buiter, Ebrahim Rahbari, Juergen Michels: Making sense of target imbalances. In: VoxEU.org. September 6, 2011, accessed May 31, 2020 . 
5. ^ Karl Whelan: All You Wanted to Know About TARGET2 But Were Afraid to Ask. Accessed May 31, 2020 (English). 
6. ↑ Position: Ulrich Bindseil: Germany and the Target2 balances . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed May 30, 2020]).
7. ↑ Jürgen Schaaf: ECB policy: The interest zombie theory - a regulatory nightmare . In: THE WORLD . November 25, 2019 ( welt.de [accessed May 30, 2020]).