The Capitalism and Freedom in the Twenty-First Century Podcast

Jon Hartley and Kenneth Rogoff discuss Ken’s career as an academic economist, his time in international economic policy, rising sovereign debt burdens, monetary policy, the legacy of quantitative easing, exchange rate theories, tariffs, and the US dollar's status as the world reserve currency. Recorded on May 12, 2025. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Kenneth Rogoff is Thomas D. Cabot Professor at Harvard Univ...

Jon Hartley and Phillip Swagel discuss Phill’s career as an academic economist, his time in economic policy, why the CBO is important in the budget policy process, current law versus current policy baselines, dynamic scoring versus static scoring, the accuracy of CBO scores, CBO modeling, as well as CBO model transparency. Recorded on March 18, 2025. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Phillip Swagel became the 1...

Jon Hartley and Robert Barro discuss Robert’s career in economics including his long list of famous students, and research on Ricardian equivalence, fiscal theory of the price level, government spending multipliers, business cycles and the legacy of New Keynesian modeling, economic growth, political economy, the interplay between religion and economics, and much more. Recorded on March 18, 2025. A...

Jon Hartley and Eugene Fama discuss Gene’s career at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business since the 1960s and helping to start Dimensional Fund Advisers (DFA) in the 1980s, fat tails, the rise of modern portfolio theory, efficient markets versus behavioral finance, factor-based investing, the role of intermediaries, and whether asset prices are elastic versus inelastic with respect t...

Jon Hartley and Raghuram Rajan discuss Raghu’s research, his policy career including his time as the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India adopting inflation targeting during his tenure, Rajan predicting the 2008 financial crisis, and economic growth in India, the legacy of his book Saving Capitali...

Jon Hartley and Neale Mahoney (Stanford Economics Professor) discuss Neale’s career, Neale’s research on consumer sentiment, junk fees, and medical debt, as well as Neale’s time in the Biden Administration National Economic Council and the future of economic policy. Recorded on January 8, 2025.  ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Neale Mahoney is the Trione Director of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Rese...

Jon Hartley and Federal Reserve Governor Adriana Kugler discuss the stance of monetary policy, the Federal Reserve balance sheet, the natural rate of interest (r-star), inflation, labor markets, productivity, entrepreneurship, the US economy, and the recent growth in Miami. Recorded on February 7, 2025. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Dr. Adriana D. Kugler took office as a member of the Board of Governors of...

Jon Hartley and Joe Lonsdale discuss Joe’s career, co-founding Palantir, Addepar, and OpenGov, venture capital investing, defense tech, DOGE, Elon Musk, regulation, and the prospects for generative artificial intelligence. Recorded on December 12, 2024. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Joe Lonsdale is the founder and managing Partner at 8VC, an early-stage venture capital firm managing over $6 billion in capit...

Jon Hartley and Douglas Irwin discuss Doug’s career, the history of US trade policy, tariffs, globalization, the consumer and labor market effects of trade, the World Trade Organization, and industrial policy. Recorded on January 9, 2025. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Douglas Irwin is John French Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade...

Jon Hartley and David Beckworth discuss David’s career, monetary policy, the history of Nominal GDP targeting as an idea along with its benefits and challenges, the history of inflation targeting along with its recent evolution, the Fed’s recent framework reviews, as well as corridor (scarce reserves) versus floor (ample reserves) systems. Recorded on January 7, 2025. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: David Bec...

Jon Hartley and Myron Scholes discuss Myron’s career, including being at the University of Chicago at the dawn of financial economics as a field, how Myron met Fischer Black, and the development of the Black-Scholes option pricing model, investing, innovation, and financial regulation. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Myron Scholes is the Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, at the Stanford Graduate S...

Jon Hartley and Brad Gerstner discuss Brad’s career, free markets, investing in technology, industrial policy, the CHIPS and Science Act, and baby equity investment accounts. Recorded on November 1, 2024. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Brad Gerstneris the founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, a tech investment firm based in Silicon Valley, that manages both public and VC investment portfolios. Started in 200...

Jon Hartley and James Bullard discuss Bullard’s career in monetary policy, the history of the St. Louis Fed, serving on the FOMC during the Bernanke, Yellen and Powell Feds, inflation targeting, forward guidance, macroeconomic modeling, as well as how the Fed responded to the Great Recession, COVID-19, and the early 2020s inflation. Recorded on November 4, 2024. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: James “Jim” Bul...

Jon Hartley and Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde discuss Jesus’s career, schools of economic thought and the role of institutions in economic history, economic growth (including recent declining GDP growth rates and declining fertility), business cycles, drivers of the early 2020s inflation, dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) and vector autoregressive (VAR) models, schools of economic thought...

Jon Hartley and David Malpass discuss David’s career, and his service in government, including his time as president of the World Bank Group. They also discuss the changing role of China in international finance as well as the IMF and World Bank responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, COVID-19 sovereign debt relief (Debt Service Suspension Initiative or DS...

Jon Hartley and Richard Clarida discuss the latter’’s career, academic contributions and government service, including his time as vice chair of the Federal Reserve. Their conversation covers key topics such as inflation in the early 2020s, monetary policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the upcoming Federal Reserve monetary policy framework review. They also discuss the legacy of the Fed’s flex...

Jon Hartley and Edward Glaeser discuss the latter’s seminal work on urban economics, zoning, land use regulation, and economic growth. They also discuss industrial policy, the important role of human capital and education in economic growth, as well as why crime has rebounded in recent years. Recorded on August 26, 2024. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Edward L. Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor...

Jon Hartley and Steven Davis discuss Steven’s research career and seminal work on job flows, including the legacy of his classic book Job Creation and Destruction, co-authored with John Haltiwanger and Scott Schuh. They also discuss how we should think about full employment, how significant economic policy uncertainty is, and how important the shift to work from home has been and may continue to b...

Bob and Jon discuss Bob’s role in the history of the development of quantitative finance at Goldman Sachs, including his seminal work with Fischer Black, along with the carry trade liquidity crisis of August 2024 and its similarities to the quant crisis of 2007. They also discuss the case for quantitative investing and its ability to ride out risky environments. They also discuss a risk management...

Greg and Jon discuss Greg’s career and main contributions to economics. This includes the development and limitations of New Keynesian models in the 1980s and 1990s as a tool for central banks to understand how the macroeconomy works. Jon and Greg also discuss economic growth, growth accounting and the Solow model. They conclude by talking about Greg’s time in government, including his time leadin...

Daron Acemoglu and Jon Hartley discuss Daron’s career and main contributions to economics, including the study of institutions as a fundamental contributor to economic growth. Jon raises the question of how regulation holds back growth, and by how much, and whether liberal vs. illiberal economic institutions might be a better taxonomy than inclusive versus extractive institutions. Other economic g...

Jon Hartley and John Cochrane introduce the Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century podcast to the Hoover audience. They speak on a number of topics including the usefulness of existing macroeconomic models, the use of economic models at central banks, the state of macroeconomics, the fiscal theory of the price level, and how technology, institutions, and policy play a role in fostering economi...

Peter Ireland  (Boston College Economics Professor) joins the podcast to discuss his career as a monetary economist, his views on the history of monetarism, New Keynesian models, and the  Shadow Open Market Committee  which Peter sits on and celebrates its 50th anniversary. Jon Hartley  is an economics researcher with interests in international macroeconomics, finance, and labor economics and is c...

Dani Rodrik  (Harvard Kennedy School Economics Professor) joins the podcast to discuss his career, the best case for industrial policy, the labor market effects of globalization, and his vision of an ideal economic policy paradigm. Rodrik is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is co-director of the  Reimagining the...

Steven D. Levitt ( Freakonomics  co-author and University of Chicago Economics Professor) joins the podcast to discuss his career, including being an early leader in applied microeconomics and how the Freakonomics media empire got started, along with his recent decision to retire from academic economics. Transcript available  here .   Jon Hartley  is an economics researcher with interests in inte...