Scientists agree: global warming is the result of CO2 produced by human activity, and urgent action is needed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. What isn't clear is how this should be done in a global market economy. Fortunately, economic analysis can be used to figure out what policies have the best chance of success given economic and political realities. Tune in to hear Per Krusell, Professor at the Institute for Economic Studies at Stockholm University, discuss the economic approach to reducing carbon emissions. Originally recorded on September 22, 2022.

In hindsight, Larry Summers' 2022 prediction that "we need five years of unemployment above 5 percent to contain inflation" seems wrong. But why? Tom Sargent argued that inflation and wage growth is determined by the expectations of future inflation. What's the role of monetary and fiscal policy for shaping these expectations? Can we add this period of decreasing inflation as one of Sargent’s Ends of Big Inflations? 

Panelists Include:

Gary H. Stern was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from March 1985 through August 2009 (the longest-serving president in the bank’s history). Stern joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in January 1982 as senior vice president and director of research, and his prior experience included seven years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Along with Minneapolis Fed Senior Vice President Ron Feldman, Stern co-authored Too Big to Fail: The Hazards of Bank Bailouts, published by The Brookings Institution (2004).

V.V. Chari has been a professor of economics at the University of Minnesota since the fall of 1994. He is currently the Paul W. Frenzel Land Grant Professor of Liberal Arts and is the founding director of the Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute. He served as an associate editor of the Journal of Financial of Intermediation, and serves on the board of editors of the Journal of Economic Theory, Macrodynamics  and the Review of Economic Dynamics. In 1998, he was elected fellow of the Econometric Society.

Chris Farrell is senior economics contributor at Marketplace, American Public Media's nationally syndicated public radio business and economic programs. He’s also senior economics contributor at Minnesota Public Radio and host of the HHEI Office Hours Podcast.

The economic transformation of China from a poor and centrally planned country in the 1970s to a middle-income market economy today is an amazing story. Kjetil Storesletten lays out the remarkable scale of change. Among the topics he addresses: What was the secret sauce that the Chinese leadership used to deliver rapid growth? Why was the growth broad based and not concentrated in the richer coastal areas? What is the way forward for China now?

The last few years have seen a renewed interest in wealth taxation. What is a wealth tax, and how does a wealth tax differ from taxes on capital income? Fatih Guvenen discusses research that highlights when a wealth tax, designed to encourage entrepreneurship and risk taking, is preferable to the better-known capital income tax.

In this episode, Mariacristina De Nardi discusses how longer lives and unpredictable health make our elder years an economic puzzle. Among the puzzles economists are trying to work out: why do many couples keep putting money away long into retirement? Do we enjoy our money less as we age? She also looks at what public policies might be particularly effective at lowering the degree of financial uncertainty in retirement.

Throughout his career, Art Rolnick has been a researcher and an advocate for government to make large investments in early childhood education for children living in families with low and unstable incomes. The research shows that by investing in quality early childhood education for at-risk children, individuals and society can reap extraordinarily high economic returns, benefits that are low-risk and long-lived.

In this episode, Joseph Mullins talks about his research from the paper, “Firms’ Choices of Wage-Setting Protocols.” The research project examines what drives differences in firms' willingness to bargain and renegotiate wages. Among the results: bargaining does contribute to the overall gender gap in wages. But a policy that prohibits bargaining to close wage gaps would lower wages for all workers, leading to overall welfare losses.

The global population is aging. Rising longevity is a powerful demographic force shaping the global economy in many different ways. In this conversation, economist Hannes Malmberg takes a deep dive into how global aging could impact the long-term direction of interest rates. 

Raise the debt ceiling or pay the bills? Economists Chris Phelan, Marco Bassetto and Cristina Arellano discuss the looming debt limit deadline, and what the risk of default may mean for the US economy. Recording sourced from our webinar held on May 24, 2023.

Gary Stern, former chief executive of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank and co-author of Too Big To Fail, joins the podcast to talk the Silicon Valley Bank crisis, and why restoring market discipline on banks is the first step to making banks and regulators accountable to bank failures. With discussion of the global credit crunch and great recession contextualized in the present day, this episode stresses that there has to be a better way to regulate the banking industry, and avoid these periodic stressful episodes of bank failures, government rescues and economic turmoil.