Research
Current Research
FINTRANS-UK: Financing Large-Scale British Transformations
I lead FINTRANS-UK, an ESRC-funded research project investigating the hidden mechanics of how Britain has repeatedly funded the seemingly unaffordable across history. Drawing on archival research, longitudinal and administrative data, and semi-structured interviews, the project traces how the UK has engaged in public finance innovation to circumvent fiscal constraints and mobilise private capital for public purposes—from the Exchange Equalisation Account's role as a wartime off‑balance‑sheet fiscal agency, through the extraordinary public investment that built the post‑war electricity system, and specialist vehicles such as the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation and Finance Corporation for Industry that filled financing gaps for industry, to today's arm's‑length, market-shaping approach to financing the UK's Green Transition.
The project combines historical and contemporary analysis. The archival component draws on institutional records from the Bank of England and British National Archives—including Treasury correspondence, operational documents, and balance sheet data—to reconstruct how earlier financing vehicles were designed, operated, and justified. Using transactional balance sheet flow analysis and time-series data, it traces how these mechanisms allowed Britain to expand its effective fiscal capacity without formally abandoning fiscal discipline. The contemporary component analyses today's Green Transition financing through administrative data from regulatory bodies and market counterparties, complemented by semi-structured interviews with policymakers, financial actors, and energy market participants.
FINTRANS-UK develops both historical understanding and forward-looking policy insights, linking past financing innovations to current debates on how Britain can fund decarbonisation under tight fiscal constraints. By showing how earlier generations of policymakers used institutional creativity to finance large-scale transformations, the project identifies recurring patterns in how states reconfigure fiscal governance when conventional tools prove insufficient. This historical perspective informs contemporary policy design by revealing which institutional arrangements successfully mobilised private capital for public purposes, which mechanisms created hidden fiscal risks, and how the distributional consequences of off-balance-sheet financing shaped political sustainability over time.
Funded by: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) – £335,000
Duration: 09/2026–08/2028
Core Research Questions
Britain’s fiscal history shows a recurring pattern: when transformation demands exceed normal budget capacity (for financial or political reasons), the state creates special financing arrangements outside the core budget. During the world wars, instruments such as the Exchange Equalisation Account and the Ministry of Supply Account allowed the government to channel resources to the war effort while preserving the appearance of fiscal discipline.
Postwar reconstruction saw the creation of development finance institutions such as the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation and the Finance Corporation for Industry, which blended state backing with market-based funding to rebuild industrial capacity. The project maps these and related mechanisms over time, developing a typology of how Britain has repeatedly used institutional innovation to finance transformations that appeared unaffordable through standard fiscal channels.
Large-scale transformations do not only add new institutions; they reconfigure how the monetary and financial system operates as a whole. FINTRANS-UK uses balance sheet mapping to trace how wartime and reconstruction-era institutions repositioned the Treasury, the Bank of England, and private financial actors within a changing monetary hierarchy.
The project examines how wartime agencies reshaped credit flows, how postwar development finance bodies connected state guarantees to commercial finance, and how these arrangements persisted beyond the immediate crises that prompted their creation. This architectural perspective shows how temporary responses to extraordinary pressures became durable features of British state finance.
Britain now faces a transformation challenge comparable to war and reconstruction, with government estimates indicating tens of billions of pounds in annual investment needs for net-zero commitments. The project analyses how earlier British financing mechanisms mobilised private capital at scale, how they balanced fiscal orthodoxy with extraordinary expenditure, and which governance arrangements proved robust over time.
Drawing on this historical evidence, FINTRANS-UK develops policy-relevant lessons for contemporary institutions such as GB Energy and the UK Infrastructure Bank. The aim is to translate historical design principles into actionable strategies for financing decarbonisation under conditions of fiscal constraint and high public debt.
Research Agenda
My research sits at the intersection of political economy, monetary theory, public finance, and energy policy. I investigate three interconnected themes:
My research examines critical historical junctures when states confronted the challenge of building entirely new energy infrastructures—moments when existing systems proved inadequate and massive capital mobilisation became essential. These transitions share a common puzzle: how to finance infrastructures that appear fiscally unaffordable yet are deemed necessary for economic development, national security, or climate action.
I trace how Britain navigated such transitions across different eras: from the post-war challenge of electrifying the nation to today's imperative to rebuild the electricity system around renewable generation. Contemporary transitions add complexity through the renewables-security nexus—as states pursue energy independence while managing new vulnerabilities around supply chains, critical minerals, and grid resilience. Each transition required states to innovate financially, creating new instruments and governance arrangements to mobilise private capital for fundamentally public infrastructure projects.
This comparative approach reveals recurring patterns in how states reconfigure their fiscal and monetary architectures when confronted with energy system transformations—from post-war nationalisation to the contemporary marketised regime.
I research how wartime mobilisation and post-war reconstruction fundamentally reshaped modern finance. Wars represent extreme moments when states must finance objectives on a scale that dwarfs peacetime expenditure, forcing fiscal and financial innovations that permanently alter how these systems operate.
I analyse these transformations comparatively across different episodes: for instance, Germany during WWI (1914-1918) developed elaborate mechanisms to finance total war while appearing to maintain fiscal orthodoxy; Nazi Germany (1933-1945) pioneered camouflaged sovereign borrowing through specialised financial vehicles; Britain's WWII experience (1939-1945) saw the Exchange Equalisation Account repurposed as a wartime fiscal agency. Post-war reconstruction then demanded new institutions to rebuild industrial capacity when conventional public finance appeared inadequate.
These historical episodes reveal how extraordinary demands generate fiscal and financial innovations that persist long after the immediate crisis—government-sponsored enterprises, national development banks, special purpose vehicles that became enduring features of modern state finance.
I look at how states have progressively restructured their governing functions by turning to innovative financial mechanisms when direct public provision appears fiscally or politically untenable—representing a fundamental shift from direct provision toward orchestrating private capital through financial engineering.
My earlier research at LSE examined outcome-based finance and social impact bonds as mechanisms for funding social services. These instruments reflected states delegating not just financing but also risk, performance measurement, and policy implementation to private financial markets—reimagining state capacity as contract design and risk management rather than direct service provision.
Whether financing social services through impact bonds, electricity infrastructure through Contracts-for-Difference, or war through special financial vehicles, states repeatedly reconfigure capacity by enlisting private financial actors. The common thread reveals state capacity as not a fixed attribute, but a flexible repertoire of institutional arrangements that states continuously adapt to meet extraordinary demands.
Methodological Approach
My research combines:
- Archival research at various institutions and in various geographies
- Historical institutional analysis to trace policy evolution
- Quantitative analysis of administrative and longitudinal data in historical and contemporary settings
- Semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders