The Erasmus Center for Economic and Financial Governance is an international multidisciplinary network of leading researchers and societal stakeholders initiated by researchers from Erasmus School of Economics and Erasmus School of Law. ECEFG conducts interdisciplinary research (law, economics and political science) and contributes to current debates in public and in academia on issues relating to European and global economic and financial governance.
Understanding decisive processes
ECEFG facilitates scientific cooperation of researchers and research groups with different disciplinary backgrounds and with expertise in the different areas linked to economic, monetary and financial (market) governance. The aim is to gain a holistic understanding of processes that have a decisive influence on economic and financial governance in the European Union and beyond, which form the key to devising a sustainable system for the future.
"Virtually nobody has a comprehensive view of the situation. We aim to help bridge the communication gap, particularly between economists, legal specialists and politicians." - Fabian Amtenbrink, Professor of European Union Law
Need for interdisciplinary research
The global economic and financial crisis and the ensuing European financial and euro area sovereign debt crisis raise highly complex issues linked to law, economics, political and social science and even philosophy. But in practice, the contribution of fundamental and applied research until now is often limited. Proposed solutions are mostly based on mono-disciplinary research, disregarding important insights from other scientific disciplines, thereby disregarding that what may be sensible from an economic point of view may not be feasible from a legal or ethical perspective.
Thus, for example, economic research focuses on the economic causes of the economic and financial crisis and seeks solutions that are in line with contemporary economic thinking, whereas the constitutional legal and societal causes of the crisis and consequences of proposals remain underexposed. In a similar vein, legal research focuses on the constitutional legal implications of certain institutional arrangements, as well as procedural and formal enforcement mechanisms, more often than not disregarding insights from other social sciences, such as economics, political science and psychology.
Towards sustainable public policies
The Erasmus Center for Economic and Financial Governance aims at contributing to sustainable public policies regarding major societal challenges linked to economic and financial governance. It does so by striving for broad methodological bases in the context of developing and testing fundamental theories and principles to solution approaches that results in the implementation of holistic and sustainable public policies.
History
The Erasmus Center for Economic and Financial Governance (ECEFG) started its life in 2014 as the European Research Centre for Economic and Financial Governance (EURO-CEFG), which was a cooperation between Leiden University, TU Delft, and Erasmus University Rotterdam (Leiden-Delft-Erasmus strategic alliance).