EconoFact Chats

U.S. unemployment remains low, while inflation has fallen, even though it remains above its 2 percent target. But there remain public concerns about the economy. Binyamin Appelbaum of The New York Times, Scott Horsley of NPR, Greg Ip of The Wall Street Journal, and Heather Long of The Washington Post join EconoFact Chats to discuss some of the sources of current economic discontentment among voter...

“Grexit,” Greece dropping out of the Eurozone, seemed the most likely outcome of that country’s debt crisis in the early 2010s. There were fears that Grexit would be followed by a more widespread splintering of the Eurozone. But Greece and its creditors came to an agreement that enabled the country to service its debt and contributed to its subsequent recovery (and the preservation of the Eurozone...

The spring 2024 edition of the IMF's influential World Economic Outlook (WEO) projects 'steady but slow' growth of the world economy over the next two years. But Maurice Obstfeld, widely recognized as among the world’s leading expert in international economics, notes that while the recovery from the pandemic has proved surprisingly resilient, the WEO forecast could be derailed by the buildup of un...

Taxation is among the central ways citizens interact with their government. On this episode of EconoFact Chats, Michael Klein speaks with Michael Keen of the International Monetary Fund and Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan about their new book, Rebellion, Rascals and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisdom Through the Ages, highlighting the challenges governments face when taxing their citizens,...

Argentina has, in the last 120 years, fallen from one of the richest countries in the world to one that has seen numerous episodes when national income cratered, multiple debt defaults (forcing it to turn repeatedly to the IMF for bailouts), and hyperinflation. What have been the sources of these crises? Are the radical plans of the country’s new president, Javier Milei, likely to turn the corner...

In 2019, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office projected that net immigration in 2023 would total 1 million. More recent estimates from the agency put net immigration for 2023 at 3.3 million. How has increased immigration affected the post-COVID economic recovery in the U.S.? More broadly, what role does immigration play in the American economy? What parts of the economy are particularly dependent...

In the wake of COVID, many colleges dropped SAT and ACT test requirements. Recently however, schools including Dartmouth, Yale, and Brown have mandated standardized test scores once again. Could the move hurt less economically privileged applicants? David Deming joins EconoFact Chats to highlight that even though standardized tests can be gamed by more privileged students through extensive test pr...

Economic analysis does not offer many answers when it comes to valuing efficiency gains versus disruptions to people and communities from changes brought about by international trade or technological change. Jeff Frieden joins EconoFact Chats to highlight that politics, while often messy, remains one of the only ways societies put a value on things economists can’t easily measure. Jeff is a Profes...

At over $840 billion, the United States Department of Defense budget request for 2024 accounts for ~3% of national income, almost half of all Federal discretionary budget outlays, and over 35% of global military spending. Michael E. O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution joins EconoFact Chats to put these figures in historical context, and discuss how decisions about the size and type of defense ex...

Much of global trade in goods and services is denominated in U.S. dollars. The dollar is widely used for bilateral trade between countries other than the United States. And the use of the dollar is even more dominant in global financial transactions. What advantages accrue to the United States from the dominance of the dollar? Are there costs associated with it as well? Does the importance of the...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics samples about 80,000 products and services each month to estimate headline inflation. But the published inflation rate, like many other aggregate statistics, masks very different price changes across categories of goods. What information can we glean from a more fine-grained look at price changes across more disaggregated categories of goods and services, or even par...

The Supplemental Poverty Measure put the 2022 U.S. child poverty rate at 12%, more than double the 5% rate in 2021. Child poverty is especially high for families with children under 5, children in single-mother households, children of color, and children in immigrant families. Even families who are not poor face financial burdens and difficulties, especially with respect to securing good, safe, an...

The world is facing a 'poly-crisis' of interconnected economic, environmental, geo-political, and governance challenges. Lawrence Summers is particularly well placed to discuss these issues, given his wide experience in government, and the impact his research has had on economics. In a wide-ranging discussion, Larry discusses the unprecedented fall in world poverty over the past half-century, the...

Are policies from over a century ago that addressed concerns about large trusts like Standard Oil and the American Tobacco Company appropriate today? Or does the source of the market power of high-tech companies like Meta and Alphabet require a new paradigm? Naomi Lamoreaux joins EconoFact Chats to discuss the historical shifts in anti-trust policy from the late 19th and early 20th century to toda...

The United States economy surprised many in 2023 with its low inflation, high employment, and strong economic growth. In spite of this, American consumer sentiment had been relatively negative until recently, but now has begun to improve in line with this good performance. Binyamin Appelbaum of The New York Times, Scott Horsley of NPR, Greg Ip of The Wall Street Journal, and Heather Long of The Wa...

Distrust is based on experience – and there are many historical experiences that give rise to distrust among African-Americans of economic institutions in the United States, including the laws of the Jim Crow era and discrimination in hiring, lending, and access to education and health care. Trevon Logan discusses historical experiences, and the long shadow cast by them, in this EconoFact Chats ep...

About one-fifth of women who graduated from college between 1900 and 1920 were in the labor force in their mid to late twenties. In contrast, more than four-fifths of women graduating from college between 1980 and 2000 worked outside the home in their mid to late twenties. A flip side of this is the proportion of women married by age 30; 50% for those who graduated college between 1900 and 1920 an...

The federal government’s debt is just under 100 percent of GDP – and it is projected to grow to 115 percent of GDP in a decade, and 180 percent of GDP in thirty years.  Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics, discusses the reasons debt increased significantly before the pandemic, its dramatic rise since then, and its expected further increase. He also explains how high debt adversely aff...

Zero-sum thinking - the belief that gains for some necessarily come at the expense of others - can shape support for economic redistribution, race- and gender-based affirmative action, and immigration policies. Drawing on new survey data, Stefanie Stantcheva joins EconoFact Chats to discuss her research on what determines whether people view the world as zero sum. Her analysis demonstrates that vi...

Working from home was relatively rare before COVID. It became a necessity as the pandemic raged. Today, it remains more common and, to some extent, a choice. But is it a choice that both workers and employers agree upon? More than three years after the start of the pandemic, what do we know about the preferences for working from home for employees, and for employers? What do we know about its effe...

In 2021, Americans donated nearly $500 billion to charity. One-quarter of all Americans also report volunteering their time. What does economic analysis add to our understanding of volunteering time and giving money to charities, activities typically considered moral or religious duties? To what causes do people donate time or money? And what makes people more or less likely to give to a particula...

The very highest-income individuals and families typically pay lower taxes, as a share of income, than middle-class individuals and families. Part of the reason is that much more of their income comes from investment and business incomes that are tax-favored as compared to wage and salary income. The very wealthy also benefit from tax rules and regulations that diminish taxes paid on inheritances....

The income tax was established in 1913 with the ratification of the single sentence of the 16th amendment. Tax rules and regulations have undergone many revisions and changes in the 110 years since then, including the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act. One provision of that act, concerning multinational corporations repatriating income, is being challenged in the case Moore v. United States. Oral argument...

In what ways are children particularly hard hit by poverty? How does growing up poor affect early-life development? Lisa A. Gennetian joins EconoFact Chats to answer these questions, drawing on preliminary results from 'Baby’s First Years,' a large-scale, multi-decade interdisciplinary study on the impact of poverty on brain development among infants. A Principal Investigator at 'Baby's First Year...

The U.S. Congress has stated its intention to extend many of the tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act beyond 2025. But, as Kim Clausing highlights, Congress is also likely to rethink some of the act's provisions. Kim joins EconoFact Chats to discuss which parts of the act made for good tax policy, which didn't, and what policy changes could put the U.S. on a path of greater fiscal sustainability....