The Sound of Economics

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Yuyun Zhan and Alicia García-Herrero are joined by Bertin Martens and Paul Triolo to take stock of the global artificial intelligence race, from energy and chips to models and applications. They discuss China's progress in catching up to the US, what the recent turmoil around Anthropic's most advanced models reveals about the politics of releasing frontie...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie talks about the future of European Union-United Kingdom relations with Bruegel’s Heather Grabbe and Richard Corbett, a former UK Labour Party MEP and also a former advisor to a president of the European Council. Did Brexit turn out the way its supporters hoped, and what have been the economic costs? Will the UK look to rejoin the sin...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Yuyun Zhan and Alicia García-Herrero invite Philippe Le Corre to examine the growing tensions at the heart of European Union-China relations. With China reporting a record $1.2 trillion trade surplus last year, European industries face intensifying competition across a far wider range of sectors than before, from chemicals and green tech to pharmaceutical...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie looks into the future with Bruegel’s emerging talents Maria Catarina Louro, Tillman Schenk and Théo Storella. Demographic change is coming for the world, as fewer new workers grow up to replace earlier generations of workers. China is at a crossroads of not only population decline but also industrial dominance, putting its economy in...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie speaks with Bruegel’s Simone Tagliapietra and Flora Marchioro about the European Union’s pathbreaking carbon trading scheme. Two decades in, what have we learned about capping emissions and using tradeable allowances to rein in pollution from energy-intensive sectors? What are the stakes of this year’s review of ETS, which includes e...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie discusses the European Commission’s spring economic forecast with Bruegel’s Andreas Billmeier and Mahmood Pradhan. Growth is slowing down while inflation surges in response to higher energy prices. Is the job market on the brink of a bigger slump? Will energy markets adjust again or will this cycle last longer? How might the European...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Yuyun Zhan and Alicia García-Herrero sit down with Jonathan Fulton to interrogate some persistent assumptions about China's role in the Middle East. From the China–Iran partnership to the Saudi–Iran rapprochement, they explore whether the conventional wisdom misreads a deeply complex region – overstating Chinese ambition, understating local agency and fla...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie sits down with renowned economists Barry Eichengreen and Lucrezia Reichlin to discuss the past, present and future of money. Will the dollar remain the world’s global currency? How should we think about the euro and the renminbi? What about stablecoins? Eichengreen discusses current risks in the context of his new book Money beyond b...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie speaks with European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, Bruegel Director Jeromin Zettelmeyer and research fellow Anne Bucher about how to make the European Union work better. Ukraine, Bruegel’s newest state member, will soon receive more financial support but needs Europe to keep up its sanctions on Russia. How will the enlargement pro...

 In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie talks about the defence industry with Bruegel’s Guntram Wolff and journalist Sharon Weinberger, author of the books Imaginary Weapons , The Imagineers of War and the forthcoming Valley of Death . What defence systems are Europe and the US buying? Are countries like Poland and the Baltic states re-inventing how the EU approaches join...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie talks about sustainable finance with Bruegel’s Silvia Merler and Dirk Schoenmaker. How will markets adjust to the European Union’s new disclosure framework, watered down by an 'omnibus' simplification package. Is it really simpler? Who is using the new disclosures and how could clearer rules attract more investment? How can the EU ma...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Yuyun Zhan and Alicia García-Herrero sit down with Isabelle Mejean and Vincent Vicard to present their study on Chinese trade deflection, a chapter in the 2026 edition of the Paris Report, a CEPR-Bruegel initiative. They discuss the scale and speed of this redirection, what the European Union can do about it and the bigger structural problem facing Europe...

In this special episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie speaks with Bruegel’s Zsolt Darvas and Heather Grabbe about the historic Hungarian election of April 2026. Péter Magyar and his TISZA party won in a landslide over the Fidesz party and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has been in power for the past 16 years and changed the course of the European Union. Can Hungary unlock its...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie speaks about global imbalances with Bruegel Director Jeromin Zettelmeyer and Beatrice Weder di Mauro, director of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). To launch the 2026 edition of the CEPR Paris report, they discuss why trade deficits and surpluses are soaring and what risks should worry us most. US external and public de...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie speaks about electric cars with Bruegel’s Ugnė Keliauskaitė, Antoine Mathieu Collin and Ben McWilliams. Europe is navigating its transition to green technology while facing energy shocks from the Iran war. How will the automotive sector adapt? Can the European Union make the most of its industrial and trade policy instruments to supp...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie speaks about fossil fuel challenges with Admir Šahmanović, Montenegro's Minister of Energy and Mining, Bruegel’s Western Balkans expert Nina Vujanović and Rouven Stubbe of the Helmholz-Zentrum Berlin. How does Montenegro’s energy mix fit with its efforts to become the next member of the European Union? Do electricity subsidies for co...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie speaks about the European Union’s innovation hopes with Bruegel’s Fiona Scott Morton and Reinhilde Veugelers as well as Tobias Tröger, SAFE Chair of Private Law, Trade and Business Law, Jurisprudence at Frankfurt’s Goethe University. The European Commission on March 18 released its “EU Inc.” proposal to make it easier for innovative...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie talks about the economy and politics of Italy with Bruegel’s Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol and Francesco Papadia. Why does Italy always feel on the brink of a crisis, even as it has been one of the European Union’s strongest and most important countries since the bloc’s founding? With public finances that are outperforming France but growth...

On 12 March 2026, China approved its 15th Five-Year Plan, setting the country's economic and strategic direction through 2030.  In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Yuyun Zhan and Alicia García-Herrero sit down with Bert Hofman for a first assessment of the plan. They discuss its key priorities — from industrial policy and export-led technology growth to social policy and redistribution — an...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie speaks with Klaas Knot, former governor of the Dutch central bank, and Bruegel Director Jeromin Zettelmeyer about the big issues facing the European Union economy. Will euro-area inflation rise in response to energy price shocks from the US and Israeli attacks on Iran? How quickly can monetary policy respond when trouble emerges? How...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie is joined by Bruegel’s Elina Ribakova, Simone Tagliapietra and Guntram Wolff to talk about the US and Israeli strikes on Iran. What happens to energy prices as military action intensifies and the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted? If this conflict is a net positive for Russia, what does it mean for the ongoing fighting in Ukraine? How ca...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie speaks to former EU Competition Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager -- now chair of the board at Danish Technical University -- and Ditte Brasso Sørensen, who leads Think Tank EUROPA’s Stocktaking EU project, about how Europe can reduce its dependencies without grasping for the impossible goal of full economic independence. H...

China’s banking sector has expanded from a fragile, state-dominated system in the 1990s into the largest in the world. But this increased scale has not brought with it a shift toward market-driven finance, with the core logic of state-directed control over credit remaining a central feature of Chinese banking. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Yuyun Zhan sits down with Alicia García-Herre...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie talks about nature and markets with Bruegel’s Heather Grabbe and Estelle Cantillon, FRNS research director at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. They explore policy efforts to make protecting natural resources more of a financial priority, such as nature credits and nature shares, as well as the difficulty of setting up these kinds o...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie sits down with Bruegel’s Pascal Saint-Amans and Roel Dom to talk taxes. What happened to the OECD global minimum tax and the digital services levy debate in the wake of Washington’s turn against international agreements? How is the European Union gathering resources for its next budget? What is the difference between a tax and a levy...