Mark Cassell

Mark Cassell is a professor of political science at Kent State University, where he teaches public policy and administration courses, European politics, comparative public policy, and urban politics. His scholarship is mainly concerned with understanding public sector transformations. Professor Cassell's scholarship includes a number of books, including his most recent work, Banking on the State: the Political Economy of Public Savings Banks(2020). The book examines how Germany's public savings banks survive and thrive in the too-big-too fail world of global finance. The book includes a chapter on the United States' efforts at establishing public banking alternatives. Cassell and his co-author, Susan Hoffmann, published Mission Expansion and the Federal Home Loan Bank System. The book explores the history and development of the Federal Home Loan Bank System. And finally, Cassell also published the award-winning book, How Governments Privatize: The Politics of Divestment in the United States and Germany .

Professor Cassell’ s topic and title is “The Political Economy of German Savings Banks", in which he will review the nature of the decentralized system of public German savings banks.