Macro Musings with David Beckworth

Roger Farmer is a Distinguished Professor of Economics at UCLA. He joins the show to discuss his new book, Prosperity for All: How to Prevent Financial Crises. He and David also discuss his criticism of the natural rate of unemployment hypothesis, an important proposition in mainstream macroeconomics. David's blog: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ Roger's personal website: http://www.rogerf...

Mark Koyama is an Assistant Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a Senior Fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center. He joins the show to discuss his research on the economic history of ancient Rome from the rise of the Roman Republic to the transition to the Roman Empire to the Empire's eventual fall. David's blog: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ Mark's Medium p...

Rüdiger (Rudi) Bachmann is a Stepan Family Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame. He joins the show to discuss the economic history of his native Germany. David and Rudi also discuss how the German approach to macroeconomics is distinctly different from the approach taken in the United States. David's blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ Rudi's Notre Dame webpage: http...

Narayana Kocherlakota is the Lionel W. McKenzie Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester, and he previously served as president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. He joins the show to discuss to discuss what it is like working as a Fed president and a member of the Federal Open Market Committee. He also shares some of his thoughts on the drawbacks of current proposals...

Izabella Kaminska is a writer for the Financial Times at its premier blog, FT Alphaville. She joins the show to discuss her work on blockchain technology as well as current proposals on monetary and fiscal policy. Finally, Izabella and David, who are both big sci-fi fans, talk about economics in the Star Trek and Star Wars sagas. David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth Izabella Kaminska's Twitter: @izaka...

Claudio Borio is the director of the monetary and economic department at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). He joins the show to discuss his career in monetary policy, banking, and macroprudential regulation. In particular, he and David discuss problems afflicting the Eurozone and how to address massive financial imbalances across the world. David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth Claudio's bi...

Andrew Levin is a professor of economics at Dartmouth College and a former Federal Reserve Board economist. For two years, he worked as a special adviser to Chairman Ben Bernanke and Vice Chair Janet Yellen. He joins the podcast to discuss his experiences at the Fed  and the need for more accountability. His ideas include increasing transparency, setting term limits, and fostering diversity of tho...

Morgan Ricks is a law professor at Vanderbilt University and an expert on financial regulation. From 2009-2010, he was a senior policy adviser at the U.S. Treasury Department where he focused on financial stability initiatives. Morgan joins the show to discuss his new book, "The Money Problem: Rethinking Financial Regulation," which argues that shadow banking institutions create large sums of priv...

Ryan Avent is an economics columnist for The Economist and author of the new book, The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power, and Status in the Twenty-First Century. He joins the show to discuss his new book, which explores how the Digital Revolution is dramatically changing the economy and our lives. He also discusses how he previously worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and as a private sector cons...

Michael D. Bordo is a professor of economics and the director of the Center for Monetary and Financial History at Rutgers University, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has also been a visiting scholar at numerous central banks across the world. Michael, a prolific scholar, joins the show to discuss a...

Peter Ireland is the Murray and Monti Professor of Economics at Boston College, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a member of the Shadow Open Market Committee. He joins the show to discuss his experience as a student at the University of Chicago as well as the nuts and bolts of how the Federal Reserve sets out to achieve its short-, medium-, and long-term object...

Hugh Rockoff is a professor of economics at Rutgers University and has done extensive work in U.S. monetary history. He joins the show to discuss the criteria for an ideal monetary union and argues that the U.S. didn't really become an optimal currency area until the 1930s. David and Hugh then discuss whether a present-day example, the Eurozone, fits these criteria. They also talk about interestin...

Douglas Irwin, professor of economics at Dartmouth College and author of Free Trade Under Fire (Princeton University Press, 2015), joins the show to discuss the economic arguments for free trade and the reasons for the heated politics surrounding trade. He describes the history of U.S. trade policy from the Embargo Act of 1808 to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 to the North American Free Trade Agr...

Nick Rowe is a professor of economics at Carleton University in Ottawa, a member of the CD Howe Institute's Monetary Policy Council and of Carlton University's Centre for Monetary and Financial Economics, and a popular blogger at "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative." He developed an interest in macroeconomics as he came of age in the United Kingdom during the high inflation period from the late 1960s...

Jason Taylor, professor of economics at Central Michigan University and editor-in-chief of "Essays in Economic & Business History," is an expert in U.S. economic history, particularly during the Great Depression and World War II. He joins the show to discuss the causes of the Great Depression and the policy responses under Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt. David and Jason look at policies...

J. Bradford DeLong – professor of economics at UC-Berkeley, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury during Bill Clinton's presidency – joins the show to discuss his new book, "Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and Policy." Brad's book, co-authored with Stephen Cohen, argues that rather than rel...

David Andolfatto is a vice president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank and a professor of economics at Simon Fraser University. He joins the show to discuss life at the St. Louis Fed, equity-based finance as a means of averting financial crises, and challenges in using monetary policy to drive nominal growth. Finally, David also clarifies some of the misconceptions surrounding Blockchain techn...

Robert Hall, professor of economics at Stanford University and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, has written on macroeconomic issues since the 1960s. Bob is also the chairman of the National Bureau of Economic Research's Committee on Business Cycle Dating, which maintains the chronology of U.S. business cycles. He joins the show to discuss the difficulties of measuring gross domestic produc...

In this week's episode, David speaks with Mark Thoma, professor of economics at the University of Oregon and author of the popular blog, "Economist's View." Mark discusses his journey into econometrics and the application of econometric techniques to macroeconomic and monetary issues. Looking back at the 2008 crisis, Mark makes the case that fiscal stimulus should have been much stronger. He and D...

As a Federal Reserve official, Joseph Gagnon played a critical role in providing the intellectual justification for the Fed's quantitative easing (QE) programs. Now a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Joe joins the show to discuss the events leading up to the decision to implement QE and its consequences. He and David also discuss how the Fed's QE compares and co...

What is money and where does it come from? Will Luther, assistant professor of economics at Kenyon College, joins the show and explains the two competing theories on the origins of money. The first theory posits governments are needed to provide credibility for money as a medium of exchange. The second theory, the spontaneous order theory, argues market actors will arrive at an acceptable medium o...

Robert Hetzel is a senior economist and research advisor at the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank where he has worked since 1975. He joins the show to discuss the rise of monetarism and how Milton Friedman, his dissertation advisor, shaped his thinking on macroeconomics. Monetarism challenged the conventional Keynesian consensus in the 1970s and caused Keynesians to reformulate their views into a new...

Lars Christensen, an internationally renowned Danish economist and Senior Fellow at London's Adam Smith Institute, discusses the poor monetary policy that has plagued the Eurozone. Christensen, the coiner of the term "market monetarism," argues that Europe from the beginning was not an optimal region for its members to share a single currency and that the European Central Bank's decisions have gre...

Josh Hendrickson, assistant professor of economics at the University of Mississippi, joins the show to discuss whether money matters anymore. It may come as a surprise to the layman, but most monetary economists don't pay close attention to the money supply. Instead, they prefer to look at economic slack, inflation, and interest rates when considering monetary policy. Hendrickson pushes back again...

Can trying to be safe actually be dangerous? Greg Ip, chief economics commentator of the Wall Street Journal, says yes in his new book, Foolproof: How Safety Can be Dangerous and How Danger Makes Us Safe. When we try to be too safe, we become complacent. Ip argues that the stability of the '80s and '90s made us take risks that culminated in the 2008 disaster. Being too safe can also explain non-ec...