Policy Punchline

Are you constantly getting inundated by notifications from your phone? Do you fondly remember the good-old-days when cellphones were just a tool and not an extension of our personalities? How can we make sure that phones and tech products do not induce anxiety in our lives but can actually improve our living quality? ... In this episode, we talk to Kaiwei Tang, Founder of Light Phone, a product th...

Shaun Stewart is currently the CEO of New Lab, a frontier tech incubator located in Brooklyn supporting over 150 startups and 600 entrepreneurs who work on innovations ranging from quantum computing to hydroponic gardening, from autonomous driving to AI in medicine… In this episode, Shaun discusses the process of incubating frontier tech innovations and supporting entrepreneurs through business de...

Ian Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist specializing in writing about China’s long-term social issues, such as the country’s search for faith and values, as well as its political and religious challenges. In this episode, Mr. Johnson explains the complexity of Chinese religion and how it is often misunderstood by Westerners, the nuanced relationship between religion and the Chinese gove...

Blair Effron is one of the most successful American financiers today, having co-founded elite boutique investment bank Centerview Partners and prominently involved in Democratic politics. In this episode, Mr. Effron tells us about his journey as an investment banker, the importance and intellectual excitement of advising companies through their lifecycles, his take on the socio-political gridlock...

In this interview, Prof. Tim Besley of LSE highlights issues in development economics and introduces a series of new concepts such as "fragile states" and "the Curse of Denmark" that provide much needed nuances in discussions about development. As an introduction to this interview, we want to highlight one important point from Prof. Besley’s talk on state fragility in Princeton. He noted how the U...

Investment banks undoubtedly serve an integral function in our financial markets. They help raise capital for companies through equity or debt offerings, provide corporate finance advice on mergers and acquisitions, aid in restructuring processes, and facilitate our economic activities among many other important tasks. But what is the future for investment banking services as more junior-level num...

On their way back to Prof. Stefan Eich's office after the interview, Tiger told Prof. Eich that he had been considering pursuing a Ph. D. because he values intellectual curiosity and derives a lot of joy from constantly learning about new ideas. Prof. Eich chuckled and told Tiger that academia might be one of the most anti-intellectual places of all because people are so focused on their niche and...

Jeff Kreisler is just a typical Princeton educated lawyer turned author, speaker, pundit, comedian and advocate for behavioral science. He uses humor & research to understand, explain and change the world. In this interview, Jeff explains the urgent issues of financial literacy that America currently faces, and he brings in perspectives from behavioral science and economics to shine a new light on...

44% of Americans do not have enough cash to cover a $400 emergency. In 2016, the average college student graduated with $37,000 in debt. 44% of Americans said they would rather discuss death, religion, or politics rather than talking about personal finance with a loved one. Financial literacy is clearly a huge problem in our society today, and we are very glad that Princeton is hosting a financial...

We recorded this interview with Trade Talks host Chad Bown back in February. That was a time when we were still uncertain whether a deal would be reached on March 1 between China and the U.S. on whether the 10% tariffs would rise to 25% for the $200 billion Chinese imports to the U.S. Things have really evolved in the past few months with both good and bad times. The 25% tariffs became a reality,...

What is the history of American healthcare reforms through the past four administrations? Americans seem to value choice and freedom a lot, so does it mean that a single-payer health system would never work because of such a cultural factor? How should we approach the quintessential problem of balancing storytelling and the day-to-day politics when rolling out long-lasting policies?... In this epi...

What makes a design artful? The realm of design expands from fine arts to technological innovations, from concrete objects to abstract ideas, and this question about the artfulness of design thus not only relates to the aesthetics, but also to a wide range of topics such as ethics and moral philosophy. What are some of the issues we should keep in mind when designing a tech product? How does art r...

Jacques Bughin is a senior partner at McKinsey and a director of the McKinsey Global Institute, the firm’s business and economics research arm, and one of its three global co-leaders. He is also a leader in McKinsey’s Media and Entertainment, Corporate Finance, and Strategy Practices and co-leads the Digital Economy Initiative, a recently launched McKinsey knowledge program. Since joining the firm...

What causes enduring unemployment? What are the impacts of housing booms and manufacturing decline on employment growth? How can we come up with potential solutions for rising healthcare costs? How should we reconcile normative judgments and empirical analysis in debates about issues like unemployment and healthcare?   An applied microeconomist, Prof. Matthew Notowidigdo studies a broad set of top...

Jeffrey R. Shafer is the former Vice Chairman of Citi's Global Banking and Senior Asia Pacific Officer in New York where he was responsible for key Asia Pacific government and corporate client relationships. From 1993 to 1997, Shafer was Assistant Secretary and subsequently Under Secretary of the U.S. Treasury for International Affairs. At the Treasury Department, he was responsible for internatio...

Americans gave $410 billion in 2017, and the U.S. non-profit sector now totals to 11% of the total workforce and 6% of GDP. Philanthropy is such an important sector that is often overlooked by people, so we want to ask some important questions related to charity: What’s the trend in donations by common people today? Is the US charity space oversaturated? How can we distinguish effective non-profit...

How does Germany’s health system operate? What lessons can the U.S. health system learn from it? Should refugees have European health care? Would Europe be able to support its increasingly older population?… In this conversation, Prof. Reinhard Busse explains Germany’s complex yet well-functioning health system. He highlights how Americans can learn from a multi-payer system like Germany’s and wha...

What are some of the structural issues with big stock exchanges like NYSE and Nasdaq? What are some of the ways people could take advantage of them? IEX Group hopes to address those issues as an alternative to those traditional exchanges and as a fintech startup. In this episode, our guest Mr. Laurence Latimer, who leads IEX Ventures, explains how stock exchanges work, what some of the existing pr...

What role did the SEC play in the past decade shaping up new financial regulations in the aftermath of the crisis? Is the agency capable of reinventing itself for change? What is the future for SEC regulations for the financial markets and institutions? How can we encourage more IPOs in our public markets? ... In this episode, Mr. Norm Champ, former Director of Investment Management Division at SE...

Do you ever think about what your Google searches say about you? What can data tell us about issues in our society like racism, depression, child abuse, and our deepest fears and insecurities? Many years after the emergence of the term “big data,” we truly need a fresh perspective to understand ourselves. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is here to answers those questions. Seth is the author of New York T...

More so than for other countries, the management of water resources is an important aspect of public policy and politics. Today we’re going to try to identify some of the common themes of the relationship between water, politics, governance in contemporary China and the rest of the world. Our guest for this episode is Dr. Scott Moore. He’s the Director of the Penn Global China Program at Universit...

Mr. Bill Dudley succeeded Tim Geithner as the New York Fed’s president in 2009 after the financial crisis. He has since then become a forceful advocate for cultural change at large financial institutions and argued for keeping a tight rein on banking activities. Mr. Dudley retired from the position after a 10-year term but still actively voices his opinions on the financial sector and will be teac...

Bringing up the Superbowl at a Sunday BBQ is cool, but bringing up science is much less “socially acceptable”… Likewise, people read about politics and celebrity gossips, but why not the science section in newspapers and magazines? Is it just because science journalism is fundamentally less interesting? Or is it because our society lacks appreciation for science and intellectual discourse? Mr. Mik...

Where does the future lie for Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria? Should President Trump pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan or not? What should policy makers think about when considering whether to intervene in another country’s affairs and exporting democracy? Is the U.S. retreating itself from the global order? Has the Trump administration done any damage to the foreign services system? … Here to ans...

It’s been ten years since the 2008 financial crisis, and scholars and policy makers are still reflecting on its causes and effects. The world has gone through a series of tightening regulations and de-risking; the transparency and interdependence of the financial sector have improved… But is the crisis truly over? In 2018, 10 years after the crisis, a compelling analysis of what really happened wa...