Monetary authority and (de-)liberalisation: constitutional dimensions of foreign currency activities in advanced economies

Presentation

Long-stay fellows at the Paris IAS meet every week to attend a presentation by one of their colleagues on their research project and to discuss the methods, research areas and perspectives adopted, in a spirit of dialogue and openness. Lasting three hours, these weekly internal seminars begin with a 45-minute presentation. They enable fellows to develop fresh perspectives on their research and encourage interdisciplinary and transnational discovery.

The aim of these discussions is to build fruitful, original and innovative dialogue between researchers from different scientific backgrounds.

Each presentation is followed by a critical commentary from a guest discussant affiliated with a Parisian university. The sessions are closed to the public, in the spirit of an academic seminar, and chaired by the Director and the Executive Director. The freedom of discussion they allow leads to productive exchanges.

Programme

On Tuesday October 20, he internal seminar will be devoted to Will Bateman's research project, Monetary authority and (de-)liberalisation: constitutional dimensions of foreign currency activities in advanced economies.

Will Bateman is a professor at the Australian National University, College of Law, Governance and Policy. He joined the Institute in September 2026 for a ten-month residency.

His project begins with a question: what do central banks do when they operate in foreign currencies? Market interventions, reserve management, currency swaps, gold transactions… These operations are little known, yet they underpin the global financial system. By studying four institutions – the Eurosystem and the Banque de France, the US Federal Reserve, the Swiss National Bank and CLS Bank – over the period from 1995 to 2025 – from the stability of the 1990s to the 2007 financial crisis, and on to the decline of economic and political liberalism since 2020 – Will Bateman aims to gain a better understanding of the role of these public institutions in the foreign exchange market and to integrate them into democratic constitutional theory.

How to attend

Seminar closed to the public.