Age of Planning?
Kick-off conference of the Einstein Foundation Project 'Heterodox Planning (HP)'

If you’d like to attend the conference please register here: 
https://forms.gle/6tFCKHbuX8NXmWnA9
Details on and registration for the MacroHub practice workshop here: 
https://www.plurale-oekonomik.de/rethinking-macroeconomic-planning-in-europe/

In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic and the accelerating climate crisis, the failure of markets to address urgent collective problems has pushed the question of economic planning back onto the academic and political agenda. While much of the debate remains focused on models of post-capitalist planning, the “Age of Planning?” returns to the departure point of the new planning debate, that is, the observation that planning is already endemic in capitalism. Empirical work that engages with the concept of planning remains fragmented across three largely separate literatures: one tracing how corporations increasingly coordinate production, supply chains and investment outside of price signals ("corporate planning"); one tracing how states are returning to industrial policy, state ownership and green economic planning amid a new wave of state capitalism ("state planning"); and one tracing how the conscious decisions of central banks and institutional investors increasingly divorce investment decisions and funds available for them from previous market competition ("financial planning").

"Age of Planning" brings these three strands into direct conversation for the first time. The guiding questions:

• How do we define planning in our different fields?
• Is planning making a comeback across such different fields and if yes why? How can we measure an increase or decrease of planning?
• What connects corporate, state and financial planning conceptually and empirically?
• How can we theorize these transformations in a way that also speaks to a normatively grounded, democratic perspective on planning?

Format

The conference opens on the morning of 15 October with "Rethinking Macroeconomic Planning in Europe" (MacroHub), a public policy workshop organised by the Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik in cooperation with the research project "Heterodox Planning" (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin / Einstein Foundation). From 9:00–12:00, Ilias Alami (Cambridge University), Jacob Hasselbalch (Copenhagen Business School) and Hannah Bensussan (LADYSS Paris) will discuss how strategic public coordination can help navigate Europe's fiscal rules and steer the green transition, moderated by Maxine Fowé. Registration and further information: https://www.plurale-oekonomik.de/rethinking-macroeconomic-planning-in-europe/

The academic conference continues through the afternoon of 15 October and all of 16 October, with panels on financial planning, digital platforms, supply chain planning, decarbonization, social reproduction, municipal planning, state planning capacity and legitimacy, and the broader politicization of the economy.

The conference will be hybrid, combining in-person presentations by Ilias Alami (Cambridge), Hannah Bensussan (Paris), Florian Butollo (Frankfurt), Jacob Hasselbalch (Copenhagen), Irina Herb (Jena), James Jackson (Manchester), Franziska Paul (Glasgow), Dominik Piétron (Frankfurt), Lea Schneidemesser (Frankfurt), Christoph Sorg (Berlin), Philipp Staab (Berlin), and Silke van Dyk (Jena). They will be joined by online presentations by Paul Adler (Los Angeles), Cornel Ban (Copenhagen), Benjamin Braun (London/Princeton), Rosie Collington (Copenhagen), Mathias Larsen (LSE), Autumn Mitchell (UC Berkeley), Yousaf Nishat-Botero (Birmingham), Cecilia Rikap (London), and Dylan Riley (Berkeley).

The Future Histories Lab will be media partner of the conference and record a live episode during the conference.

The conference will be held in English.

Background

The conference is the kick-off event for the research project "Heterodox Planning", and builds on a growing body of work arguing that planning is not the antithesis of capitalist market economies but an endogenous feature of them. Firms plan production and investment ex ante within their own boundaries, states plan indirectly via markets to secure accumulation and legitimacy, and finance increasingly mediates between the two by allocating credit on the basis of anticipated rather than realised profitability. Bringing corporate, state and financial planning into a shared framework is the starting point for the conference's discussions, which then builds a foundation for further debates about how to organize planning democratically and direct it at needs within planetary boundaries - and (so far mostly lacking) how to get there.

Both events are supported by the Einstein Foundation Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik, and the German Network for Democratic Economic Planning, with the Future Histories podcast as media partner.

Program

Day 1: October 15th 2026

Day 2: October 16th 2026