Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity

As COVID-19 swept across the globe, many nations struggled to define a cohesive public health strategy to prevent the spread of the disease. However, in spite of the lack of a clear plan, improvised strategies of behavioral changes—e.g., masking, social distancing—slowed transmission until a vaccine could be developed. The new BPEA paper, “The impact of vaccines and behaviors on U.S. cumulative deaths from COVID-19,” estimates that the ad hoc strategy prevented close to 800,000 deaths. On this episode, epidemiologist and paper co-author Stephen Kissler talks with Brookings Senior Fellow Carol Graham about the model they used to study COVID-19's impacts and what can be done to improve the government response to future pandemics.  

This is the final episode of season four of the podcast.

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to [email protected].

The failure of three mid-sized banks in March 2023—three of the four largest bank failures in history—shook financial markets and could’ve spread to other banks if regulators hadn’t stepped in. Two on-going trends in finance contributed to these failures: an increase in uninsured deposits and the migration of business lending to non-banks. In a new paper, “The evolution of banking in the 21st century,” a group of Harvard researchers looked at regulations that could mitigate risks going forward as well as the potential implications for mergers and acquisitions among mid-sized banks. David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, hears from two of the authors, Samuel Hanson and Daniel Tarullo, on their findings in this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity.

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to [email protected].

Most advanced economies enjoyed a long period of low, stable inflation prior to 2021, with inflation in the U.S. actually running below the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target for much of the 2010s. This stability was driven in part by factors external to monetary policy, including downward price and wage pressures from globalization and de-unionization. However, the authors of a new BPEA paper, “Changing central bank pressures and inflation,” argue that emerging trends may present headwinds to central banks trying to keep inflation steady. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, paper co-author Pierre Yared of Columbia Business School speaks with Brookings Senior Fellow Don Kohn about the new research and its implications for policymakers.

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to [email protected].

Many indicators suggest that the U.S. economy is thriving, yet Americans continue to have a negative overall economic outlook. Stubbornly high inflation has played a significant role in this negative sentiment among consumers, even as wage growth has caught up with the rate of inflation. In a new study, “Why do we dislike inflation?” Stefanie Stantcheva fielded a survey to explore how Americans experience inflation and why they have such strong feelings about it. In this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Stantcheva discusses her findings with Economic Studies Vice President and Director Ben Harris.

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to [email protected].

In the mid-20th century, U.S. states experienced recessions very differently from one another, which resulted in many workers migrating between states in search of work. But a newly developed dataset shows that economic recoveries have begun to look very similar across states in recent decades. On this episode, Senior Fellow Louise Sheiner talks with Andrew Fieldhouse and David Munro, authors of a new BPEA study that produced this dataset, “The emergence of a uniform business cycle in the United States.” Their conversation with Sheiner explores the reasons behind the convergence in recession recovery and the policy implications. 

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to [email protected].

Many countries have faced harrowing debt burdens, and reducing the national debt is usually a lasting challenge. But in just five years, the Jamaica reduced its debt-to-GDP ratio by 40 percentage points, something only a handful of other countries have done in that time frame. On this episode of the BPEA podcast, Peter Blair Henry of Stanford and UC Berkeley's Barry Eichengreen join Brookings Senior Fellow Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti to discuss their new BPEA paper on the unique factors that enabled Jamaica’s success.

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to [email protected].

The COVID-19 pandemic shone a spotlight on supply chains, with shortages in everything from baby formula to microchips. This spurred an on-going policy debate on the need for the U.S. to shore up its supply chains, in some cases literally moving production back to the U.S. or allied nations. However, new analysis published in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity showed that effort may be more difficult than standard supply chain data suggests, especially when it comes to limiting exposure to China. In this episode, David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, interviews Rebecca Freeman of the Bank of England and Angelos Theodorakopoulos of Aston University on the “hidden exposure” that is revealed in U.S. supply chains with their new data.

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to [email protected].

Economists have long debated the potential for rising wages and prices to push each other increasingly higher, driving inflation out of control—the so-called “wage-price spiral.” Concern about such a spiral has been high in the post-pandemic era, with inflation still running notably higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Martin Neil Baily of Brookings talks with the authors of a new BPEA paper on wage-price spirals, Guido Lorenzoni and Iván Werning. Their study, which developed a new model for this economic scenario, contends that because various factors drove price growth to outpace wages just after the pandemic, wages can increase faster than inflation, at least for a time, without necessarily spinning the economy out of control.

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to [email protected].

Predictably, the rate of new business formations and business expansions at the beginning of the pandemic plummeted. But, in two waves, applications for new businesses and expansions quickly recovered, countering several decades of decline in business dynamism. Surprising many economists, applications have remained much stronger than before the pandemic. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Hamilton Project Director Wendy Edelberg talks with John Haltiwanger of the University of Maryland about his new paper documenting this trend, whether it is a fleeting anomaly or the new normal, and how policymakers can balance cooling the overheated economy with supporting young businesses.

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to [email protected].

In an effort to quell post-pandemic inflation, the Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates eleven times since March 2022, with the federal funds rate now at its highest in over 20 years. Historically, such interest rate hikes—or even the suggestion of hikes—has triggered financial crises in emerging markets and developing economies. But, so far, that hasn’t happened. In this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan and Filiz Unsal discuss their new study, which examined how improved monetary policy credibility in these countries may have improved their resilience to American financial trends.

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to [email protected].