Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
Hosted by David Beckworth of the Mercatus Center, Macro Musings pulls back the curtain on the important macroeconomic issues of the past, present, and future.
Author
Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Category
Podcast website
Latest episode
Jul 6, 2026
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Episodes
Barry Eichengreen on the History of Global Currencies 06.07.2026 57:09
Barry Eichengreen is well known author, economist, and economic historian from the University of California, Berkeley. In Barry's first appearance on the show he discusses a career in untangling the world's monetary history, the origins of his new book Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto , the first uses on currencies in the 7 th Century BC, the unexpected start of the d...
Yesha Yadav, Chris Odinet, and Andrea Tosato on the Moneyness of Stablecoins 29.06.2026 1:11:31
Yesha Yadav is a professor of law, the Milton R. Underwood Chair, the Associate Dean & Robert Belton Director of Culture & Community, and the Co-Faculty Director, Master of Laws (LL.M) Program at the Vanderbilt University Law School. Chris Odinet is a professor of law, Mosbacher Research Fellow, and Affiliate Professor of Finance at Texas A&M University School of Law. Andrea Tosato is professor of...
Jeffrey Lacker on What a New Fed Treasury Accord Might Look Like 22.06.2026 56:30
Jeffrey Lacker is the former president of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank and is a senior affiliated scholar at the Mercatus Center. Jeff returns to the show to discuss the history of the Fed Treasury Accord, the state of fiscal dominance, his five proposals for a new Fed Treasury Accord, his calls for reform around the discount window, a memorial to his friend and colleague Charlie Plosser, and...
Nik Bhatia on Bitcoin and the Case for Using Stablecoins for Statecraft 15.06.2026 59:16
Nik Bhatia is an author of two economics books, a visiting fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute and the founder of The Bitcoin Layer. In Nik's first appearance on the podcast, he discusses his niche in the Bitcoin community, the role of Bitcoin as a transaction asset, the threat or lack thereof of quantum computing on Bitcoin, his issues with the current eurodollar market, his new proposal to u...
Bryan Cutsinger, Peter Ireland, and Will Luther on Lessons Learned from the Fed Framework Review 08.06.2026 1:03:46
Bryan Cutsinger is an assistant professor of economics at the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University. Peter Ireland is a professor of Economics at Boston College. Will Luther is an associate professor of economics at the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University and is the director of the American Institute for Economic Research's Sound Money Project. Bryan, Peter, and Will r...
Brendan Greeley on the 500 Year History of the Dollar 01.06.2026 1:02:40
Brendan Greeley is a veteran journalist from the Financial Times and current PhD student at Princeton studying monetary history. In Brendan's first appearance on the show, he discusses why he went for a PhD after being a journalist for 20 years, why the dollar's history goes far beyond America's founding, when America actually achieved a currency union, the untold origins of the dollar, how Herber...
David Zaring on Skinny Charters and the Future of Banking 25.05.2026 55:50
David Zaring is legal scholar and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In David's first appearance on the show, he discusses the role the Great Financial Crisis played in FinReg scholarship, how he came up with the term "skinny" in the new skinny Fed master accounts, the tumultuous road of Custodia vs. the Fed, a reimagined way to look at federal bank charters, whether commerce and bankin...
Bill Beach on the Future of United States' Economic Statistics and Fiscal Position 18.05.2026 52:53
Bill Beach is the former commissioner of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the current executive director of the Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill. In Bill's first appearance on the show he discusses a career in and around public service, the important niche his new organization fills, the frightening fiscal outlook of the United States, exactly how long we have before Social Security runs out, why h...
Tyler Goodspeed on Challenging the Way Economists Look at Recessions 11.05.2026 1:01:06
Tyler Goodspeed is the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors and is currently a chief economist in the private sector. In Tyler's first appearance on the podcast he discusses his new book highlighting a different way of looking at recessions, the challenge of breaking away from the human inclination of ascribing patterns to random phenomena, whether recessions are more Dorian Gray or...
Peter Conti-Brown and David Beckworth on All Things Financial Regulation 04.05.2026 54:56
Recorded live in front of the Wharton Financial Regulation Conference, former guest Peter Conti-Brown joins David Beckworth as a Macro Musings co-host on this week's episode. Peter and David discuss the inflection point of 2008 in FinReg scholarship, how Macro Musings has become just as much a show about financial regulation as about macro, what to make of the Trump administrations changes to bank...
Basil Halperin on Macroeconomic Policy in an Age of Transformative AI 27.04.2026 56:21
Basil Halperin is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia. In Basil's first appearance on the show he discusses the famous but flawed Citrini essay, why Silicon Valley's growth expectations aren't showing up yet in interest rates, the impact of Less Than Zero by George Selgin, what the true frictions in the economy are, the differences between Calvo and menu-cost pricing,...
Rich Clarida on Navigating Monetary Policy in Choppy Waters 20.04.2026 52:16
Rich Clarida was the vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and is currently a professor of economics at Columbia University and a managing director at PIMCO. Rich returns to the program to discuss whether we give the Fed too little credit for its soft landing, the problem of persistent inflation, how the Fed should respond to rapidly succeeding negative supply shocks,...
Kris Mitchener on What Actually Anchors the Price Level 13.04.2026 56:02
Kris Mitchener is a professor of economics at Santa Clara University and is an economic and monetary historian. In Kris's first appearance on the show, he discusses how he fell in love with building data sets out of old dusty archives, the origins and fall of bimetallism, the pros and cons of the gold standard, the problem of operating losses on the Fed's balance sheet, what truly anchors the pric...
Steve Kamin and Mark Sobel on the Outlook of Dollar Dominance 06.04.2026 1:01:20
Steve Kamin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and was previously the director of the Division of International Finance at the Federal Reserve Board. Mark Sobel is the US chairman of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum and is a veteran of the US Department of Treasury. Steve and Mark return to the show to discuss the status of dollar dominance, the future th...
Ruth Judson on Chasing Dollars Around the World 30.03.2026 50:35
Ruth Judson is a monetary economist, economic historian, and veteran of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. In Ruth's first appearance on the show she discusses her career at the Fed, field trips tracking counterfeit dollars around the global, how we know how much currency is held overseas, why money doesn't matter anymore, the problem with cashless societies, how to understand TIC data, the p...
Bill Nelson on the Future of the Fed's Balance Sheet 23.03.2026 55:32
Bill Nelson is a chief research officer and chief economist at the Bank Policy Institute. In Bill's 10 th appearance on the show he discusses his infamous email list, the ratchet effect from QE, his congressional testimony, the BPI's Bank Treasurers Survey, how he thinks the Fed should shrink the balance sheet, whether the Fed is profitable, and much more. Watch the full length video on our new...
Neha Narula, Anders Brownworth, and Daniel Aronoff on Understanding Stablecoins in the GENIUS Era 16.03.2026 57:04
Subscribe to the new Macro Musings YouTube Channel ! Neha Narula is the director of the Digital Currency Initiative which is based out of the Media Lab at MIT. Anders Brownworth is veteran software engineer in the crypto space and is a Senior Research Advisor at DCI. Daniel Aronoff is Research Affiliate in the MIT Department of Economics and a Collaborator at DCI. Neha, Anders, and Daniel join the...
Jesús Fernández-Villaverde on the Quandary of Global Demographic Decline 09.03.2026 1:04:01
Subscribe to the new Macro Musings YouTube Channel ! Jesús Fernández-Villaverde is a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Jesús returns to the show to discuss his rise on X, how to frame global demographic decline, the three accelerants of demographic decline, the role of housing in family size, how AI will play a role in global demographics, what we know about AGI, the questi...
Chris Meissner on the History of Globalization 02.03.2026 1:00:25
Subscribe to the new Macro Musings YouTube Channel ! Chris Meissner is a professor of economics at University of California at Davis and is the author of the recent book One from the Many: The Global Economy Since 1850 . In Chris's first appearance on the podcast he discusses the historical bend towards greater globalization, how we should really define the global economy, the impact of the Great...
Raghuram Rajan on the Impact of the Ratcheting Effect of The Fed's QE Program 23.02.2026 1:01:46
Subscribe to the new Macro Musings YouTube Channel ! Raghuram Rajan is a finance professor at the University of Chicago and leads the Group of 30. Previously he was the chief economist at the IMF and the governor of the Reserve Bank of India. In Raghuram's first appearance on the show, he discusses his famous 2005 Jackson Hole speech, how he righted the ship on India's emerging economy, the conseq...
Andrew Martinez on the Art of Forecasting 16.02.2026 55:38
Andrew Martinez is a former Treasure economist and currently is an assistant professor of economics at American University. In Andrew's first appearance on the show, he discusses his career as a forecaster, the current state of forecasting, the intersection of AI and forecasting, the role of the SEP and monetary policy surprises, his work with David on the NGDP Gap measure, and much more. Che...
Dan Awrey on the Future of the U.S. Payments System in a Digital World 09.02.2026 56:32
Dan Awrey is a professor of Law at Cornell University and the author of the new book Beyond Banks: Technology, Regulation, and the Future of Money. Dan returns to the show to discuss his new book, the shadow monetary system, the case for markets to correct this problem, Gresham's new law, his proposals for fixing the payments system, and much more. Check out the transcript for this week's episod...
Scott Sumner on Monetary Policy Confusion in Our Current Policy Debates 02.02.2026 1:05:14
Scott Sumner is the Ralph G. Hawtrey Chair Emeritus of Monetary Policy and the founder of the Monetary Policy Program at Mercatus. Scott returns to the show, to discuss his life post Mercatus, nominal GDP counterfactuals of the pandemic and the Great Financial Crisis, the role of QE in inflation, the fears about Fed independence, and much more. Check out the transcript for this week's episode, n...
Tyler Muir on How to Understand the Fed's Quantitative Easing 26.01.2026 55:43
Tyler Muir is a professor of finance at UCLA. In Tyler's first appearance on the show, he discusses how he became a leading scholar on quantitative easing, what things the Fed can learn in responding to crises, why QE matters, how QE transformed the bond market, the new "Tyler Rule", QE's role in the COVID Pandemic, and much more. Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links....
Richard Berner on Growth of the Private Credit and the Role of Fiscal Dominance on Treasury Markets 19.01.2026 59:08
Richard Berner is the former director of the Office of Financial Research and was a counselor of the Treasury Secretary. In Richard's first appearance on the show, he discusses a career that included public service and Wall Street, the fragility of global liquidity, the implications of fiscal dominance, the expansion of private credit, the 2023 SVB banking turmoil, and much more. Check out the tr...
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