Stephanomics

Growth has been slowing around the developed world — not just in recent months but for decades. One potential reason is that women are having fewer babies. On this week's Stephanomics, reporter Jeannette Neumann visits a region in Spain with the lowest fertility rate in Europe to find out why this is happening and what it means for the global economy. Host Stephanie Flanders also talks with Darrell Bricker, co-author of the book “Empty Planet,” about his theory that the global population will begin to decline.

One way to prop up the birthrate could be to offer employees a better work-life balance. Recent U.S. data showed that people who work at home aren't just growing in number but also, on average, earn more than those who commute. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Justin Fox joins Stephanie to consider the implications of this striking fact.

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Stephanie Flanders returns with a new season of Stephanomics, bringing on-the-ground insights from Bloomberg's reporters and economists into the forces driving the global economy. On this week's episode, senior trade reporter Shawn Donnan heads to the front lines of the US-China trade war in Wisconsin, and Stephanie talks through its global impact with Penny Goldberg, chief economist at the World Bank.

One silver lining to all this, says Goldberg, is that more attention is finally being paid to trade policy. She also discusses whether this period will mark the high point for globalization - and confirms the suspicions of manufacturers that Shawn spoke to out in the field, who believe that they are paying the tariffs - not China, as claimed so often by Donald Trump. 

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Stephanie Flanders, head of Bloomberg Economics, returns to bring you another season of on-the-ground insight into the forces driving global growth and jobs today. From the cosmetics maker in California grappling with Donald Trump's tariff war, to the coffee vendor in Argentina burdened by the nation's never-ending crises, Bloomberg's 130-plus economic reporters and economists around the world head into the field to tell these stories. Stephanomics will also look hard at the solutions, in the lead-up to Bloomberg’s second New Economy Forum in Beijing, where a select group of business leaders, politicians and thinkers will gather to chart a better course on trade, global governance, climate and more. Stephanomics will help lead the way for those debates not just with Bloomberg journalists but also discussion and analysis from world-renowned experts into the forces that are moving markets and reshaping the world. The new season of Stephanomics launches Oct. 3.

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On this new season of Prognosis, we look at the spread of infections that are resistant to antimicrobial medicines. You're probably more likely to have heard of these as superbugs. Their rise has been described as a silent tsunami of catastrophic proportions. We travel to countries on the frontline of the crisis, and explore how hospitals and doctors around the world are fighting back. Prognosis’ new season launches Sept. 5. 

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Under pressure from President Donald Trump, Mexico is cracking down on migrants coming from its own southern neighbor, Guatemala. But the hit to the local economy could have unanticipated consequences for the U.S. Bloomberg's Eric Martin reports from the border, while Stephanie takes stock of these and other challenges for international economic cooperation at a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.  This month also marks 75 years since the Allied powers gathered at the Mount Washington hotel to lay the groundwork for the post-World War II economic order. At a conference commemorating the anniversary she talks with Meg Lundsager, the U.S.'s representative at the IMF from 2007 to 2014 and Nouriel Roubini - the economist famed for predicting the financial crisis who's recently become a big critic of the speculation in cryptocurrencies. 

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The yellow-vest protests that shook France last year may be over, but the forces of political and economic anger continue to ripple around the world. Stephanie visits the City of Lights to speak with two key figures about how the country is faring and how major nations' finance chiefs are tackling these issues -- as well as Facebook's proposed digital currency, Libra -- at this week's Group of Seven meeting in France. Listen to her interviews with French Finance Minister Bruno le Maire and Laurence Boone, chief economist at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

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Donald Trump’s trade policies have created winners and losers around the world. Among the big losers so far, count Spanish olive farmers. Their exports to the U.S. were hit with a huge tariff last year. U.S. officials claimed they had been undercutting California olive growers by selling Spanish olives on the cheap. Though barely a blip on the global trade war, it has been very bad news for the olive groves of southern Spain. But business is booming for Europe’s aluminum industry, especially its exports to the U.S., despite President Trump’s tariffs. What gives? 

Bloomberg's Jeannette Neumann wades into the worlds of olives and aluminum to figure out what's going on, then Stephanie talks through some of the many other unintended consequences of U.S. trade wars with Bloomberg trade tsar, Brendan Murray. She and Executive Editor Simon Kennedy also chat about the political pressure being piled on the US Federal Reserve and many other central banks. 

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This week we bring you a special conversation between host Stephanie Flanders and Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf. They try to make sense of the rise in populism in recent years, what it means for the global economy, and whether it spells the end of liberal democracy. The event was recorded in London on July 1.

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This week we focus on the two giants of the global economy: China and India. At first glance, China seems to be shrugging off the effects of U.S. tariffs, but Bloomberg economists looked closer and found that Chinese exports to the US in 1,000s of product categories had been hit hard and this trade had not also been replaced by U.S. production or exports from other countries. Host Stephanie Flanders gets the full story from Bloomberg economist Maeva Cousin. We also explore a great economic puzzle of recent times:  how can India grow by 6%-7% a year for 20 years without creating jobs for half of its potential workers?    

The world’s second most-populous economy has seen a step change in its economic performance in the past 20 years but job growth keeps coming up short. Less than half of the working-age population is in work or even looking for a job -- and nearly 80% of women are not in the workforce at all. Anirban Nag and Vrishti Beniwal go in search of an answer on the streets of New Delhi, and Stephanie asks Bloomberg Opinion columnist Mihir Sharma what it all means for India’s newly re-elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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European Central Bank President Mario Draghi earned the ire of Donald Trump this week with his farewell speech at a major annual conference. Editor Paul Gordon was there at the prestigious gathering in Sintra, Portugal, and breaks down Draghi's comments with host Stephanie Flanders. 

Then hear a special recording of Stephanie's engaging live panel discussion this week in London with two of the city's most prominent economic voices, HSBC Chief Economist Janet Henry and the Chief Economic Advisor to the UK Treasury, Clare Lombardelli. They discuss an increasingly hazy outlook for the world economy and offer their unique perspective on women and diversity in the economics profession -- or lack thereof.

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