Professor Andrew Baker

BSc (Bradford,) MA (Leeds), DPhil (Ulster)

Department of Politics and International Relations

Faculty Professorial Fellow in Political Economy

a.p.baker@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 1691

Modular Teaching Village

Full contact details

Professor Andrew Baker
Department of Politics and International Relations
Modular Teaching Village
Northumberland Road
Sheffield
S10 1AJ

Profile

Andrew Baker is Professor of International Political Economy. He joined the University of Sheffield as Professor in September 2016. Prior to this, Andrew spent 17 years at Queen’s University Belfast where he was Reader in Political Economy (from 2011), and Director of Research (from January 2015) in the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy. He was also co-founder of the University’s pioneer interdisciplinary research programme on Risk and Inequality.

He is currently a co-editor of the journal New Political Economy. From 2009-2015 was the lead editor of the Political Studies Association Journal, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations (BJPR).

His research has focused on various aspects of global economic governance and themes of crisis, transformation, norms and governance mechanisms, questions of social purpose and systemic economic vision, how to build sustainable, inclusive and just economic governance regimes both internationally and in specific local settings. He has had research projects funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy, the European Commission’s Horizion 2020 programme, and the Institute of New Economic Thinking.

He has worked closely with international organisations and in August 2022 was the co-author of a new set of international principles on tax policy and administration, which were approved by the General Council of the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency, based in Washington DC and includes the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Organisation for Co-operation and Development (OECD) as stewards. He has also been a guest scholar at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, and was one of five invited academic contributors to the organisation’s 90th Anniversary Volume.

His research on the Finance Curse has featured prominently in the Financial Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, the Independent, and the Guardian. His work on Hollow Firms in the Financial Times and the BBC, His work on Tax with Richard Murphy on Bloomberg, Yorkshire Post and International Monetary Fund websites, and in 2021 he was awarded the UK Social Policy Association’s Cambridge University Press Award for Excellence in Social Policy Scholarship.

He has held visiting positions in the Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School, Autumn 2011, and at the centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University Brisbane , Spring 3014. He was also an Honorary SPERI Fellow University of Sheffield from 2012-2016, and is an Associate of the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick.

Research interests

I work in the broad field of International Political Economy though my interests are much broader than this and I explicitly try to talk to multiple audiences in my research including policy makers and civil society. I aspire for my research to change and influence the way the world is governed internationally, domestically and increasingly at more local levels.

I have collaborated and co-authored with heterodox economists and econometricians, accountants, urban studies and sociologists, as well as political scientists and scholars of International Relations.

I am interested in the politics and usage of economic ideas and knowledge, the role of norms and narratives in governing the global economic order, the public interest agency of International Organisations, the political economy of change following financial and economic crises, ideas and governance mechanisms for ecological transformation including the role of finance and financial governance in such transformations, the politics of macroeconomic policy, central banks and financial governance, financial sector power, alternative forms of financial and monetary organization, NGO campaigning on these issues, and the future of the global financial and monetary system. More recently I have worked on questions of tax justice and transparency, considering tax as an instrument of social policy for promoting economic justice, social inclusion and the goal of net zero. To the this end I have been the author of a new set of international principles on Tax Transparency that have the support of the Bretton Woods Institutions. I have also had a recent ESRC funded project on systemic financial risk that sought to identify normative principles for governing systemic risk. I am interested in how these principles can inform international and national governance practice, as well as their potential application in informing ecological systemic risk governance.

I am the author of over 40 journal articles and book chapters on various aspects of international and comparative economic governance, and three books – The Group of Seven; Governing Financial Globalization; and Making Tax Work (an ebook and policy compendium). I’m currently working on a more academic version of Making Tax Work, - that draws on my work and involvement in seeking to create a new international regime of tax transparency and in writing new international standards to that end. I am also working on a manuscript on the limits of technocracy in governing the global financial system.

To read more about some the ideas behind my work this is a long Real World Economics Interview discussing them.

Publications

Books

Baker A, Hudson D & Woodward R (2005) Governing Financial Globalization International Political Economy and Multi-Level Governance. Routledge.
Baker A () The Group of Seven. Routledge.
Baker A () Governing Financial Globalization. Routledge.

Journal articles

Baker A & Murphy R (2020) Creating a race to the top in global tax governance: the political case for tax spillover assessments. Globalizations. View this article in WRRO
Baker A & Murphy R (2020) Modern monetary theory and the changing role of tax in society. Social Policy and Society, 19(3), 454-469. View this article in WRRO
Baker AP & Murphy R (2019) The Political Economy of Tax Spillover: A New Multilateral Framework. Global Policy. View this article in WRRO
Baker AP (2018) Macroprudential Regimes and the Politics of Social Purpose. Review of International Political Economy, 25(3), 293-316. View this article in WRRO
Baker AP & Wigan D (2017) Constructing and Contesting City of London Power: NGOs and the Emergence of Noisier Financial Politics. Economy and Society, 46(2), 185-210. View this article in WRRO
Baker A & Underhill GRD (2015) Economic Ideas and the Political Construction of the Financial Crash of 2008. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 17(3), 381-390.
Baker A (2015) Varieties of Economic Crisis, Varieties of Ideational Change: How and Why Financial Regulation and Macroeconomic Policy Differ. New Political Economy, 20(3: Towards a New Political Economy of the Crisis), 342-366. View this article in WRRO
Baker A & Widmaier W (2015) Macroprudential Ideas and Contested Social Purpose: A Response to Terrence Casey. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 17(2), 371-380.
Baker A (2014) The G20 and Monetary Policy Stasis. International Organisations Research Journal, Vol. 9. No. 4.(4), 22-39. View this article in WRRO
Baker A (2013) The gradual transformation? The incremental dynamics of macroprudential regulation. Regulation & Governance, 7(4), 417-434.
Baker AP & Widmaier W (2013) The Institutionalist Roots of Macroprudential Ideas: Veblen and Galbraith on Regulation, Policy Success and Overconfidence. New Political Economy, 19(4). View this article in WRRO
Baker A (2013) The New Political Economy of the Macroprudential Ideational Shift. New Political Economy, 18(1), 112-139.
Baker A (2012) The ‘public interest’ agency of international organizations? The case of the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance. Review of International Political Economy, 19(3), 389-414.
Baker A (2010) 13 bankers: the Wall Street takeover and the next financial meltdown. INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, 86(5), 1227-1228.
BAKER A (2010) Restraining regulatory capture? Anglo-America, crisis politics and trajectories of change in global financial governance. International Affairs, 86(3), 647-663.
Baker A (2010) Central Banking as Global Governance: Constructing Financial Credibilityby Rodney Bruce Hall. Political Science Quarterly, 125(1), 165-167.
Baker A (2008) The Group of Seven. New Political Economy, 13(1), 103-115.
Baker A (2006) American power and the dollar: The constraints of technical authority and declaratory policy in the 1990s. New Political Economy, 11(1), 23-46.
Baker A (2000) The G-7 as a Global “Ginger Group”: Plurilateralism and Four-Dimensional Diplomacy. Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 6(2), 165-189. View this article in WRRO
Hindmoor A, Baker A & McDaniel S () Performing Central Bank Independence: The Bank of England's Communicative Financial Stability Strategy. Regulation and Governance.

Chapters

Baker A (2020) Tower of contrarian thinking: how the BIS helped reframe understandings of financial stability In Borio C, Claessens S, Clement P, McCauley R & Shin HS (Ed.), Promoting Global Monetary and Financial Stability The Bank for International Settlements after Bretton Woods, 1973–2020 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. View this article in WRRO
Baker A & Lavery S (2019) Brexit and the Future Model of British Capitalism In Diamond P, Nedergaard P & Rosamond B (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of Brexit Routledge View this article in WRRO
Baker A (2014) When New Ideas Meet Existing Institutions: Why Macroprudential Regulatory Change is a Gradual Process In Moschella M & Tsingou E (Ed.), Great Expectations, Slow Transformation Incremental Change in Financial Governance ECPR Press
Baker A (2014) Macroprudential Regulation, Europe and the Governance of Global Finance (pp. 172-188). Oxford University Press
Baker A & Carey B (2014) Chapter 5: Flexible 'G groups' and network governance in an era of uncertainty and experimentation, Handbook of the International Political Economy of Governance (pp. 89-107).
Baker A (2013) Groups, Handbook of Safeguarding Global Financial Stability (pp. 371-380). Elsevier
Baker A (2011) Institutional competition and symbiosis in the gulf: The politics of efforts to establish an international Islamic financial policy forum, Shifting Geo-Economic Power of the Gulf: Oil, Finance and Institutions (pp. 75-89).
Baker A (2008) The Political Economy of International Financial Reform Since the Asian Crisis: The Case of Corporate Governance, Power and Politics After Financial Crises (pp. 102-122). Palgrave Macmillan UK
Baker A (2008) Financial Crises and US Treasury Policy: The Institutional and Ideational Basis of American Capability, Power and Politics After Financial Crises (pp. 31-51). Palgrave Macmillan UK
Baker A (2006) The Political Economy of the UK Compeitition State: Committed Globalism, Selected Europeanism, In Stubbs R & Underhill G (Ed.), Political Economy and the Changing Global Order Don Mills, Ont. : Oxford University Press
Baker A (2003) The G-7 and architecture debates: norms, authority and global financial governance, International Financial Governance under Stress (pp. 324-342). Cambridge University Press
(2003) International Financial Governance under Stress Cambridge University Press
() Accountability for Effectiveness in Global Governance Routledge
Baker A () Esteem as Professional Currency and Consolidation: The Rise of the Macroprudential Cognoscenti, Professional Networks in Transnational Governance (pp. 149-164). Cambridge University Press

Conference proceedings papers

Baker A (2009) Deliberative Equality and the Transgovernmental Politics of the Global Financial Architecture. Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, Vol. 15(2) (pp 195-218) View this article in WRRO
Baker A (1999) Nebuleuse and the 'internationalization of the state' in the UK? The case of HM Treasury and the Bank of England. Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 6(1) (pp 79-100)

Reports

Baker A & Murphy R (2021) Making Tax Work: A Framework for Enhancing Tax Transparency
Leaver A, Baker A, Haslam C, Murphy R, Seabrooke L, Stausholm S & Wigan D (2020) Against Hollow Firms: Repurposing The Corporation For A More Resilient Economy View this article in WRRO

Working papers

Baker A, Epstein G & Montecino J (2018) The UK's Finance Curse? Costs and Processes. SPERI report. View this article in WRRO

Research group

I’m available to supervise students across a broad range of areas in political economy, but my specialisms are on the political economy of money and finance, the politics of economic and financial crises, the political usages and applications of economic ideas, the politics of central banks and technocracy, financial reform since the financial crash and questions of legitimacy. Below are some of the PhD students I have supervised.

Completed Thomas Pfister “The Changing Nature of Citizenship in the European Union: Implementing Gender Equality in the UK, Germany and Hungary.” awarded 2007.
Completed Nicholas O’Brien “New Patterns and Trends in Irish Outward FDI: Evidence from China,” awarded 2008 (D Gov)
Completed Adeeb Alafiffi “The WTO and the Politics of Economic Liberalization in UAE” awarded 2010.
Completed, Brendan Carey “Complex Multilateralism in Global Economic Governance: The case of India, South Africa and the G20.” Awarded June 2013.
Completed second supervisor, Lucie Coley “The emergence of a European adult worker model (AWM). A solution to reconciling economic and social security for women?” Awarded June 2013.
Completed second supervisor Sarah Hamiduddian “Aid Transparency, Stake Holders and the BUSAN Process.” Awarded Spring 2016
First supervisor Fabian Espejo “Columbian Paramilitaries and the Political Economy of Corruption and Capture.”

Grants

H2020 Principal Investigator and supervisor to Marie Curie Fellow, Dr Jasper Blom “G20 Legitimacy and Policy” (G20LAP), September 2019-2022. DLV-845121, £300,000.
ESRC re-thinking Macroeconomics award. With Professor Fabian Schuppert (Philosophy, University of Potsdam), A Normative Theory of Systemic Risk, 2019-20 ES/R00787X/1, £80,000
British Academy Award Co-holder with Professor Andrew Hindmoor. Between a Rock and a Hard Place: On the difficulty of being the Bank of England in post-crisis Britain, SG162364. R/150050 2018-19. £10,000
Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET) grant with Len Seabrooke and Eleni Tsingou (Copenhagen Business School) for a project On Performing and Constructing Central Banking at the Annual Jackson Hole Symposim, £70,000
ESRC award Queen’s University Belfast, Award Res-156-25-0033, amount - Regulatory Regime Change in World Financial Markets: The Case of Sarbanes-Oxley. Running from September 2005 – September 2008. £190,000

Teaching activities

I have been teaching and convening a range of modules for 26 years. My approach to teaching involves fostering an interactive and inclusive learning environment, that is question led, encouraging students to raise and pose the right questions, and to formulate their own answers.

Political economy can sometimes appear an abstract and elite based phenomenon, but I always try to emphasise to students how it is all around us, shaping our everyday lives and how we encounter power and wealth, as well as our sense of justice and fairness. In this sense my modules generally emphasise how political economy is not a narrow technical enterprise, but relates to fundamental questions such as societal stability, legitimacy, inclusion, fairness, morality and distributions of influence, authority and wealth, and how these patterns are constructed internationally, nationally and through transnational and local mobilizations.

In this sense, I have always taught political economy that emphasises how the economy and its governance, is central to contemporary politics and political debate, in other words a big P approach to Political Economy, with a focus very much on politics.

I have in the past used online tools, videos, and animation in my teaching to emphasise how module material is relevant to and relates to contemporary societal and media debate, while ensuring that this is appropriately historically informed.

Professional activities and memberships

Co-editor of journal New Political Economy, 2020 impact factor 4.681
Member of the Senior Academic Peer Review Group of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
Advisory Board Member of the Northern Ireland Mutual Community Development Bank

Recent Media and Policy Engagement

2022 IMF piece “Developing and Using Global Tax Transparency Principles”
2022 Byline Times Piece “Mini Budget Opacity Resembled Failing State with barely functioning tax system.”
2022 Byline Times piece “From Stagflation to Stagffluence: The Hollowing Out of the Rentier Economy.”
2021 IMF piece “Making Tax Work: Pathways to Enhancing Tax Transparency.”
2020 Bank for International Settlements Podcast
2019 Conversation piece “If G7 are serious about tackling inequality they should implement our global tax framework.”

Supervision Expertise

Political Economy of transformation
crisis and change
Economic ideas and knowledge in international and comparative economic governance
Politics of taxation
macroeconomic policy and financial governance
concepts of systemic risk
green finance and governance for a just transformation
Norms and networks of global economic and financial governance (including IOs)
Just economic and corporate governance.