Peterson Perspectives: Interviews on Current Issues

Kimberly Clausing (Reed College) joins Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown to explain international taxation and its impact on multinational corporations. They discuss the economic and policy concerns over profit-shifting, tax havens, and different approaches that governments have taken, including worldwide and territorial systems, to tax the profits of such companies. They explain the US system, how it changed with the controversial Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, as well as continuing challenges to international cooperation. Read Kim’s new book Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital (Harvard University Press, 2019).

One year on from the 2018 national security actions on steel and aluminum, Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown discuss who is paying for President Trump’s tariffs. They speak with David Weinstein (Columbia University) and Amit Khandelwal (Columbia Business School) about two new research studies answering that question, as well as how the tariffs impact the US economy overall, who is winning and losing across America, and whether the tariffs differentially targeted Republican or Democratic voters.

Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown discuss the economics of soybeans, a major American export targeted by Chinese tariffs as part of the ongoing US-China trade war. Keynes visits farms in Iowa, and the two explain the impact of competition from Argentina and Brazil, as well as the yo-yo’ing of soybean prices during the ongoing conflict.

Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown sit down with Richard Baldwin (Graduate Institute) to talk about centuries of economic and social change resulting from the combined forces of globalization and new innovations. They also discuss his new book "The Globotics Upheaval: Globalization, Robotics, and the Future of Work" and about how ICT, digital trade, artificial intelligence, machine learning and tele-migrants may soon create social havoc for a very different type of worker than has been forced to adjust in the past.

Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown sit down with Kalina Manova (University College London) to talk about how corporate finance affects international trade. They discuss her research on how access to finance can be a source of comparative advantage, how the financial crisis of 2008–09 contributed to a collapse in global trade, as well as the role that multinational companies sometimes play to help emerging economies overcome poor local financial markets in order to engage in the global economy.

Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown sit down with Nicholas Lardy (PIIE) to talk about his new book “The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China?” They discuss the evolution of Chinese economic development since 1978, the role of the private sector, the resurgence of state-owned enterprises under President Xi, and why reform today is so hard.

Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown discuss forces working to slow the pace of globalization. Patrick Foulis (The Economist) joins from Davos, Robert Johnson from the University of Notre Dame and finally Susan Lund of the McKinsey Global Institute from Washington, DC. They describe recent trends, their causes and reasons to be worried. Then Chad talks about his research on tariffs.

Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown discuss the rocky departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. Sam Lowe (Centre for European Reform) joins for an update on the latest political developments as Britain approaches the March 29, 2019 deadline. They then speak with Meredith Crowley (University of Cambridge) and Kyle Handley (University of Michigan) about new research on the economic impact that Brexit-related uncertainty has already had.

Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown speak with Alice Fulwood (The Economist) about what is behind the $150 billion of annual trade in blood plasma products. They cut through the mystery of the exploding trade flows by explaining technological advancements, value-added, regulatory differences across countries that affect supply and demand, and intriguing developments and patterns of the industry’s cross-border supply chains.

Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown sit down with Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman (CUNY and New York Times) in a wide-ranging interview about international trade. They discuss NAFTA, labor standards, and the USMCA (2:25); the current toxicity of trade politics (8:00); the wonky economics of comparative advantage versus increasing returns to scale trade (16:55); when and why the trade world changed (21:30); trade’s impact on US wage inequality (25:10); more wonky economics of strategic trade policy (29:30); China’s trade and industrial policy (34:45); what the Trump administration gets right about trade (39:40); and more.