George Selgin is an American economist. Until his retirement in July 2025, he served as a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, where he was the founding Director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives and editor-in-chief of its online publication, Alt-M.

He is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia, Honorary Professor at Francisco Marroquin University, and an associate editor of Econ Journal Watch.

George Selgin is considered a Bitcoin OG, having participated in the original cypherpunk mailing list alongside Wei Dai and Nick Szabo—a forum that contributed to the ideas behind Bitcoin’s creation. Hal Finney and Nick Szabo have both said that his work helped inspire the development of Bitcoin.

He was among the first economists to study the economics of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Selgin is also an expert on the history and economics of traditional metallic coinage. His book, Good Money, recounts the story of private coin minting during Great Britain’s Industrial Revolution. He is widely regarded as a leading authority on Gresham’s Law, the longstanding economic principle concerning the circulation of money.

Carmen M. Reinhart is the Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System at Harvard Kennedy School.

She was Senior Policy Advisor and Deputy Director at the International Monetary Fund and held positions as Chief Economist and Vice President at the investment bank Bear Stearns in the 1980s. She serves in the Advisory Panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and was a member of the Congressional Budget Office Panel of Economic Advisors. She has written on a variety of topics in macroeconomics and international finance. Her work has helped to inform the understanding of financial crises in both advanced economies and emerging markets. Her best-selling book (with Kenneth S. Rogoff) entitled This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly documents the striking similarities of the recurring booms and busts that have characterized financial history. It has been translated to over 20 languages and won the Paul A. Samuelson Award.

Based on publications and scholarly citations, Reinhart is ranked among the top economists worldwide, according to Research Papers in Economics (RePEc). She has testified before Congress and has been listed among Bloomberg Markets Most Influential 50 in Finance, Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers, and Thompson Reuters' The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds. In 2018 she was awarded the King Juan Carlos Prize in Economics and NABE's Adam Smith Award, among others.

Morgan Housel is a prominent financial writer, award-winning author, and investor known for his insightful perspectives on money, investing, and behavioral economics.

He is a partner at ⁠The Collaborative Fund, ⁠a venture capital firm at the intersection of finance, innovation, and social progress. With a keen interest in storytelling, Housel has built a reputation for his ability to convey complex financial concepts in a clear and engaging manner. He is a highly sought-after speaker and shares insights on investing, financial planning, and the ever-evolving landscape of the global economy. His ability to blend storytelling with data-driven analysis has earned him acclaim as a thought leader in the financial industry.

As a financial writer, Housel’s writings reflect a deep understanding of the psychological aspects that influence decision-making in the world of money. In 2020, he published “⁠The Psychology of Money⁠“. Through a series of short stories, the book explores the relationship between money and human behaviour. It offers readers practical wisdom on building wealth and is said to be “one of the best and most original finance books in years.” It has sold over four million copies, and has been translated into 53 languages. Morgan Housel’s latest book “⁠Same As Ever⁠” is a New York Times bestseller and offers timeless wisdom aimed at helping people navigate the uncertainty of the future.

Housel shapes conversations about money and its profound impact on individuals and society at large. He is a two-time winner of the Best in Business Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and winner of the New York Times Sidney Award. In 2022, MarketWatch named him one of the 50 most influential people in markets. He serves on the board of directors at ⁠Markel ⁠and was formerly a columnist for The Motley Fool and The Wall Street Journal.

Housel lives in Seattle with his wife and two kids.

One of the world's top monetary historians Michael D. Bordo, Professor at Rutgers University, sees alarming parallels between today and the catastrophic 1930s.KEY POINTSThe "Wily Coyote Moment"· Markets running on air over a fiscal cliff - haven't looked down yet· Sudden crisis could hit when confidence breaksFed Under Attack· Trump pressuring Fed just like Nixon did in the 1970s (led to runaway inflation)· Attempt to fire Lisa Cook threatens central bank independencePerfect Storm Brewing· Unsustainable debt + protectionism + potential tech bubble· Globalization reversing like it did 100 years ago· "All the bad policies from the 1930s are coming back"What Must Be Done· Keep central banks independent and credible· Focus only on price stability· Remember: nationalism and protectionism led to disaster before"I find the current era extremely worrisome. In some ways it reminds me of the 1930s."Michael D. Bordo is a Board of Governors Professor of Economics and director of the Center for Monetary and Financial History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.Interview conducted by Jiri Zatloukal, Prague Finance Institute

John H. Cochrane is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and an adjunct scholar of the CATO Institute.

Before joining Hoover, Cochrane was a Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, and earlier at its Economics Department. Cochrane earned a bachelor’s degree in physics at MIT and his PhD in economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He was a junior staff economist on the Council of Economic Advisers (1982–83).

Cochrane’s recent publications include the book Asset Pricing and articles on dynamics in stock and bond markets, the volatility of exchange rates, the term structure of interest rates, the returns to venture capital, liquidity premiums in stock prices, the relation between stock prices and business cycles, and option pricing when investors can’t perfectly hedge. His monetary economics publications include articles on the relationship between deficits and inflation, the effects of monetary policy, and the fiscal theory of the price level. He has also written articles on macroeconomics, health insurance, time-series econometrics, financial regulation, and other topics. He was a coauthor of The Squam Lake Report. His Asset Pricing PhD class is available online via Coursera.

Cochrane frequently contributes editorial opinion essays to the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg.com, and other publications. He maintains the Grumpy Economist blog.

Leoš Rousek, the Head Of Corporate Communications at PPF Group (https://www.ppf.eu/en) and contributor of PFI Talks, talked with John Cochrane.

Historian and investment strategist Edward Chancellor draws parallels between the current surge in tech giants — the Magnificent 7 — and past speculative bubbles such as the 19th-century British railway mania and the 1990s internet boom. He warns of overvaluation fuelled by massive investments in artificial intelligence.

Explore how rising interest rates, a soaring national debt – what Chancellor calls the "debt supercycle" – and the Federal Reserve’s repeated crisis interventions may be setting the stage for a more severe financial crash.

In this episode of PFI Talks, conducted by Jiří Zatloukal, Chancellor also discusses the contrasting impacts on U.S. residential versus commercial real estate, the rise in gold prices as a market “Armageddon” bet, and the economic consequences of deglobalization accelerated by tariffs and shifting capital flows under the Trump administration.

Štěpán Drábek je mladý český ekonom a popularizátor vědy. Působí jako makroekonomický analytik v Prague Finance Institute. Je autorem monografie o inflaci, která byla oceněna Učenou společností ČR. Nyní pracuje na překladu největšího díla nobelisty F. A. Hayeka The Constitution of Liberty.

William N. Goetzmann is the Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies and Faculty Director of the International Center for Finance at the Yale School of Management. He is an expert on a diverse range of investments. His past work includes studies of stock market predictability, hedge funds and survival biases in performance measurement. His current research focuses on alternative investing, factor investing, behavioral finance and the art market.

Professor Goetzmann has written and co-authored a number of books, including Modern Portfolio Theory and Investment Analysis (Wiley, 2014), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets (Oxford, 2005), The Great Mirror of Folly: Finance, Culture and the Crash of 1720 (Yale, 2013) and most recently, Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible (Princeton, 2016).

Leoš Rousek, the Head Of Corporate Communications at PPF Group (https://www.ppf.eu/en) and contributor of PFI Talks, talked with William Goetzmann.

Renowned economist Branko Milanović joins Prague Finance Institute to discuss the end of neoliberal globalization, the rise of China as both a geopolitical and economic rival, and the global reshuffling of income. He explores how China’s growing middle class is overtaking parts of the Western population and what that means for domestic stability in rich democracies. From shifting forms of capitalism to the "citizenship premium," Milanović offers deep insights into the transformation of the global economic order.

The interview was conducted by Jiří Zatloukal, Financial Journalist.

In this in-depth interview from the PFI Talks series by the Prague Finance Institute, renowned economist Maurice Obstfeld — Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, former Chief Economist of the IMF, and former adviser to President Obama — issues a stark warning: America’s rising debt, eroding fiscal discipline, and political gridlock are creating systemic risks far beyond its borders.As the world continues to rely on the dollar and U.S. Treasury markets for stability, Obstfeld explains why this "exorbitant privilege" may no longer be sustainable. From the weakening foundations of the dollar’s dominance to the global consequences of U.S. policy paralysis, Obstfeld paints a sobering picture: “We are in the eye of the storm.”What you’ll learn in this interview:• Why U.S. fiscal policy threatens global financial stability• How the dollar’s safe-haven status could be undermined• The dangers of political dysfunction and growing inequality• Whether the world is quietly preparing to move away from the dollar system• What policy changes are urgently needed to avoid a future crisis

Jiri Zatloukal, a financial journalist and contributor to PFI Talks, talked with Maurice Obsfeld.