Stephanomics

By Bloomberg

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What's Stephanomics about?

How will countries around the world cope with persistent inflation and high borrowing costs? Are central bankers helping to abate the cost-of-living crisis or are they moving us all closer to recession? On Stephanomics, a podcast hosted by Bloomberg Economics head Stephanie Flanders—the former BBC economics editor and chief market strategist for Europe at JPMorgan Asset Management—we combine reports from Bloomberg journalists around the world and conversations with internationally respected experts on these and other issues to bring the global economy to life.

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To Rebuild, Ukraine Needs M...

07.27.2023

Seventeen months after Russia invaded Ukraine, millions of Ukrainians remain scattered around the world, with no end to the war in sight. Many of those who fled are women and children. Unless they return when the fighting is over, some ...

Stephanomics episodes:

07.27.2023 To Rebuild, Ukraine Needs Millions of Women to Return Home Seventeen months after Russia invaded Ukraine, millions of Ukrainians remain scattered around the world, with no end to the war in sight. Many of those who fled are women and children. Unless they return when the fighting is over, some ...
07.20.2023 ‘Cursed’ Nations Want to Turn Green Minerals Boom Into a Blessing The green minerals boom has triggered a new scramble for natural resources across the developing world. From Southeast Asia to Africa, countries rich with raw materials necessary for things like electric vehicle batteries are trying to capitalize on it without ...
07.13.2023 What the World Doesn’t Understand About China’s Ambitions People in China are blocked from seeing much of what’s happening in the outside world. For outsiders, it can be just as difficult to see in. This week, Stephanie interviews Keyu Jin, professor at the London School of Economics and ...
07.06.2023 Some Cities Have Emerged Stronger From the Pandemic. Others Haven’t Covid-19 was supposed to mean the end of the city as we know it. Buzzing urban centers would give way to boarded-up ghost towns as white-collar employees worked from home in perpetuity. Now, two months after the pandemic’s end, it’s ...
06.29.2023 Why a US Recession Might Happen in Time for 2024 Election The US economy has proven resilient after more than a year’s worth of interest-rate hikes, with a steady drumbeat of recession predictions having been proven wrong. New data released this week continued to point away from a downturn. Still, some ...
06.22.2023 Climate Change Drives Global Inflation Even Higher Climate change is fast transforming the planet. Global warming is fueling drought, massive wildfires, rising sea levels and stronger hurricanes. Now scientists and economists are worried about another knock-on effect: faster inflation. On this episode of Stephanomics, we hear from ...
06.15.2023 How 'Friend-Shoring' Has Made America More Like China Globalization was once the watchword of Washington. Bill Clinton made it a centerpiece of his economic policy, from the North American Free Trade Agreement to ushering China into the World Trade Organization. But two decades later, America has become increasingly ...
06.08.2023 Why the World Can’t Quit Its Addiction to Chinese Goods Joe Biden, like so many other presidents before him, put America’s re-industrialization at the center of his campaign for the White House. And like his predecessors, he’s found that the “Made in America” label remains hard to find. Indeed, more ...
06.01.2023 The Key to Making AI a Benefit, Not a Hazard The idea that artificial intelligence would someday replace humans in certain jobs is nothing new. Now, as some companies make plans for this new reality, it's still an open question as to whether AI should be feared--or embraced as a ...
05.25.2023 Unraveling America's Dance With a Debt-Ceiling Disaster The US debt ceiling is all anyone in Washington (and increasingly elsewhere) can talk about these days. For months, politicians have been in a stalemate triggered by Republican demands for spending cuts as the price for paying America's debts. With ...
05.18.2023 How Japan Is Reckoning With Its Increasingly Tense Neighborhood Some of the world's largest economies are struggling with a response to the rising influence of China and Russia. Specifically, how the ambitions of those two authoritarian nations tend not to conform with Western ideals. And nowhere is this more ...
05.11.2023 The High Cost of Eating Is Crushing Europe Inflation rates may be slowing broadly across Europe, but you wouldn’t know it after a trip to the grocery store or dining out. And there’s only so much governments can do to help their people cope. In this week’s Stephanomics ...
05.04.2023 Why the Next Victim of the Banking Crisis Is Small Business The banking crisis that began in March continues to rapidly evolve. What started with the collapse of Silvergate Capital and Silicon Valley Bank went on to claim Signature Bank and push a vulnerable Credit Suisse into the arms of UBS. ...
01.26.2023 America’s Coming Demographic Crisis Is Bad News for Employers We all might one day be replaced by robots or ChatGPT. But for now, businesses still need humans to make computer chips or staff daycare centers. Problem is, too few workers in the US are actually working and too few ...
01.19.2023 'Wake Up!' Global Elites Confront a World Full of Risks at Davos “My fear is that we are sleepwalking into this world. But hey, here is Davos! Wake up! Do the right thing!” That's the rallying cry of Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, imploring the global elite at ...
01.12.2023 The Global War on Inflation Is Far From Over Frustrated by prices at the grocery store? People in countries with advanced economies who have been grousing about single-digit inflation have nothing on Argentina and Turkey. There, inflation is above 90% and 60%, respectively. In the words of one tourist ...
01.05.2023 The Consequences of the US-China Blame Game Have Arrived If it feels like the US relationship with China is a tinderbox waiting to explode, chalk some of it up to political expedience. Leaders on either side of the Pacific have played the blame game for years, faulting each other ...
01.04.2023 Introducing: Crash Course Hosted by Bloomberg Opinion senior executive editor Tim O'Brien, Crash Course will bring listeners directly into the arenas where epic business and social upheavals occur. Every week, Crash Course will explore the lessons to be learned when creativity and ambition ...
12.29.2022 The Stephanomics Guide to the Global Economy in 2023 A push for peace in Ukraine, a recovering China and good news for US consumers may be in the cards. Will China keep moving beyond its "Covid-zero" policy in the face of a massive infection wave? When and how will ...
12.22.2022 The Era of Geoeconomics Has Arrived Thirty years after the Cold War ended, a new one of sorts is emerging between China and the West, a leading economic scholar asserts. As a muscular China seeks to refashion trade and geopolitical organizations in its own image, the ...
12.15.2022 The World Wants the Fed to Stop Raising Rates There's evidence the Federal Reserve may have finally gained the upper hand in its war against inflation, a potential relief not only for US investors but also real estate agents 8,000 miles away in Hong Kong. The central bank's year-long ...
12.08.2022 Japan Is Caught Between the US, China and the War on Inflation As the rest of the world raises interest rates to battle inflation, Japan curiously is clinging to low rates to raise wages and finally move past its long battle with deflation. But as Tokyo tries to hold the line, the ...
12.01.2022 Europe Just Might Dodge a Winter of Discontent Europe might just avoid what had been a widely predicted, Kremlin-induced energy crisis this winter, thanks to a surprisingly large stock of natural gas. But are the continent’s efforts to conserve giving a bah humbug to the holidays? Some of ...
11.24.2022 How ‘Swiftonomics’ May Finally Break Ticketmaster’s Spell Back in the days when bands like Led Zeppelin or The Who toured America, teens lined up overnight at ticket booths, hoping for great seats when the window opened. As time went on, the queue moved to the telephone and ...
11.17.2022 Long Is the Way Out of the Global Inflation Fight, and Hard Buckle up. Global financial leaders warn that the current era of expensive money is likely to stick around for at least another year, and maybe longer. Easing up on interest rates now would only embed high inflation in people's assumptions, ...
11.16.2022 Confusion Reigns for Foreign Companies Operating in China Investors were floored when China started cracking down on homegrown tech giants like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. in late 2020. They shouldn't have been, argues Kendra Schaefer, an expert on Chinese tech policy with Beijing-based Trivium ...
11.15.2022 Global Pillars of Prosperity are Getting Increasingly Shaky Over the past few decades, the world's economic and political leaders were spoiled by relatively low inflation and minimal borrowing costs, a supercharged economy in China driving demand and generally modest geopolitical tension. But as we know, all of that ...
11.10.2022 The World Is Having Too Few Babies, and Too Many Having children isn't only expensive, but it also puts a serious dent in your social calendar. Data show many single, childless women in the US are traveling freely and earning more money, including more than their single, childless male counterparts. ...
11.03.2022 Why Brazil's Lula May Tack Toward the Center Voters in Brazil just took a leftward turn in electing former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, ousting the far-right populist incumbent. Next week, polls show US voters may move in the opposite direction, dealing a blow to Democratic President ...
10.27.2022 Biden's Pro-Union Presidency Isn't Good Enough for Union Members Ahead of next month's crucial US midterm elections, Democrats would usually be counting on the support of labor unions, historically a key constituency for the party. And unions are having a moment in this late pandemic era, with successful organizing ...
10.20.2022 In China, Five More Years of Xi Means Security Above All Else As Xi Jinping embarks on his third term as China's president, the world's most populous nation has lost some of the zeal for growth, experimentation and global collaboration that defined it two decades ago. In its place, both Xi and ...
10.13.2022 Bad Policies are Greasing the Wheels for a Global Recession If the combination of inflation, Russia’s war on Ukraine and a surging dollar don’t send the world into recession, disastrous policy mistakes surely could. That’s the increasingly gloomy outlook among some who gathered in Washington this week for meetings of ...
10.06.2022 Liz Truss' Tax Fiasco Shows How UK Guardrails Have Fallen Away The UK's politics and policies have always been a bit quirky. But international investors have long trusted that the country would, in the words of prominent British economist Malcolm Barr, see itself from point A to point B. Lately, those ...
07.28.2022 The Housing Slowdown Could Become a Global Meltdown Young people unable to buy homes because of stratospheric price increases are cheering the downturn in some housing markets around the world. But they'd better be careful what they wish for: Frothy housing prices, empty office buildings and even a ...
07.21.2022 Covid's Supply Chain Chaos Is Just a Dress Rehearsal for What's Coming Despite all the highfalutin advances in automation and just-in-time inventory, Covid-19 has still managed to upend the world's supply chains. But all this pandemonium may be a dress rehearsal for future chaos, courtesy of challenges such as political unrest and ...
07.14.2022 Beijing Wants Young Chinese Workers to Love Capitalism Again Dispirited by pandemic lockdowns and a massive real estate crisis, today’s young Chinese workers are dreaming less about becoming super-rich entrepreneurs and more about the workaday lives of bureaucrats. Their new distaste for private-sector jobs has caught the attention of ...
07.07.2022 Why Italy’s Workforce Crisis Is Likely to Get Worse The global appeal of Italy’s fashion, food and sports cars long ago proved that the country’s businesses have few equals when it comes to marketing abroad. But selling Italians themselves on the merits of the nation’s economy has been a ...
06.30.2022 Abortion Ruling Is Part of a Global Reversal of Women’s Rights The US Supreme Court’s decision last week to overturn the federal right to an abortion will have profound effects on American women. And while prime ministers and presidents of the UK, France, Belgium and New Zealand criticized the ruling as ...
06.23.2022 How Sri Lanka’s Financial Crisis Could Become the World’s As the US, UK and other wealthy nations grouse about the prospect of stagflation and risk of recession, people in some emerging nations are facing more perilous questions about how to find medicine to stay alive. A financial crisis gripping ...
06.16.2022 Why Inflation's Fallout Is Becoming Increasingly Global US inflation is at a 40-year high and the UK is effectively in recession as demand slows for Chinese-made goods. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, though addressing the British economy, could have been speaking for the whole world when he said ...
06.09.2022 Silencing the ‘Noise’ Behind Bad Corporate Decisionmaking Much of the appeal of McDonald’s comes from the chain’s consistency. A cheeseburger in the US or a McSpicy Chicken in India should taste the same every time. But what if a business had wildly different outcomes depending on which ...
06.02.2022 Why This Coming American Summit May Blow Up for Biden It seems like things could hardly get worse for President Joe Biden, who faces 8.3% inflation, a baby formula shortage and, according to the latest Gallup poll, a 41% job approval rating. Not to mention managing a global face-off with ...
05.26.2022 How the Home of America's Worst Inflation Got That Way While the world's multimillionaires and billionaires (and multibillionaires) ponder inflation and supply shortages in the Swiss Alps, they might get a better view from the dusty landscape of Midland, Texas. Residents of the oil town have lived through inflation around ...
05.19.2022 Rishi Sunak's Path Back From High Inflation and a Tax Scandal Touted as a potential prime minister not long ago, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak's star has been falling fast of late. Some of the blame can be placed on inflation hovering at a 40-year high and embarrassing headlines about ...
05.12.2022 Will Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Revive the Sins of His Father? The old axiom about the sins of the father being visited upon their children got a shocking rebuttal this week, when Ferdinand Marcos Jr. won a landslide victory in the Philippines's presidential election. Whether Marcos will embrace progressive economic and ...
05.06.2022 Higher Inflation, Rates Will Stick Around as Economies Go Green Persistently higher inflation and interest rates are probably in the offing as the world transitions to a greener economy. That’s hardly a selling point for politicians pushing climate-friendly policies, but it’s one they’ll have to cozy up to, says Isabel ...
04.28.2022 The Looming Debt Crisis About to Make Everything Worse It’s hard to imagine a more chaotic world than the one we’re in right now—what with Russia’s war on Ukraine, a Covid-19 pandemic that won’t quit and the lockdowns spreading across China as a result. Now, add to the mix ...
04.21.2022 Central Banks Wrestle With the Crypto Conundrum When visiting El Salvador, be sure to bring sunscreen, a long-lens camera to memorialize its bountiful biodiversity and … Bitcoin. But have some U.S. dollars on hand just in case local merchants don’t accept it. On this week’s episode, we ...
04.14.2022 Summers Predicts U.S. Recession More Likely Than a Soft Landing Last year, Larry Summers famously shot down one of the Federal Reserve's favorite buzzwords, "transitory." This year, he's taking aim at "soft landing." The Harvard University professor, former Treasury secretary and paid Bloomberg contributor says a combination of high inflation ...
04.07.2022 What's the Biggest Economic Peril? It Depends on Where You Live We may live in a global economy, but beyond the war in Ukraine, what's front-of-mind for policymakers in the U.S., Europe and China is very different. For China it’s Covid-19; for Europe, it’s the price of energy; and for the ...

Older episodes

Stephanomics

What's Stephanomics about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Stephanomics episodes:

To Rebuild, Ukraine Needs Millions of Women to Return Home

‘Cursed’ Nations Want to Turn Green Minerals Boom Into a Blessing

What the World Doesn’t Understand About China’s Ambitions

Some Cities Have Emerged Stronger From the Pandemic. Others Haven’t

Why a US Recession Might Happen in Time for 2024 Election

Climate Change Drives Global Inflation Even Higher

How 'Friend-Shoring' Has Made America More Like China

Why the World Can’t Quit Its Addiction to Chinese Goods

The Key to Making AI a Benefit, Not a Hazard

Unraveling America's Dance With a Debt-Ceiling Disaster

How Japan Is Reckoning With Its Increasingly Tense Neighborhood

The High Cost of Eating Is Crushing Europe

Why the Next Victim of the Banking Crisis Is Small Business

America’s Coming Demographic Crisis Is Bad News for Employers

'Wake Up!' Global Elites Confront a World Full of Risks at Davos

The Global War on Inflation Is Far From Over

The Consequences of the US-China Blame Game Have Arrived

Introducing: Crash Course

The Stephanomics Guide to the Global Economy in 2023

The Era of Geoeconomics Has Arrived

The World Wants the Fed to Stop Raising Rates

Japan Is Caught Between the US, China and the War on Inflation

Europe Just Might Dodge a Winter of Discontent

How ‘Swiftonomics’ May Finally Break Ticketmaster’s Spell

Long Is the Way Out of the Global Inflation Fight, and Hard

Confusion Reigns for Foreign Companies Operating in China

Global Pillars of Prosperity are Getting Increasingly Shaky

The World Is Having Too Few Babies, and Too Many

Why Brazil's Lula May Tack Toward the Center

Biden's Pro-Union Presidency Isn't Good Enough for Union Members

In China, Five More Years of Xi Means Security Above All Else

Bad Policies are Greasing the Wheels for a Global Recession

Liz Truss' Tax Fiasco Shows How UK Guardrails Have Fallen Away

The Housing Slowdown Could Become a Global Meltdown

Covid's Supply Chain Chaos Is Just a Dress Rehearsal for What's Coming

Beijing Wants Young Chinese Workers to Love Capitalism Again

Why Italy’s Workforce Crisis Is Likely to Get Worse

Abortion Ruling Is Part of a Global Reversal of Women’s Rights

How Sri Lanka’s Financial Crisis Could Become the World’s

Why Inflation's Fallout Is Becoming Increasingly Global

Silencing the ‘Noise’ Behind Bad Corporate Decisionmaking

Why This Coming American Summit May Blow Up for Biden

How the Home of America's Worst Inflation Got That Way

Rishi Sunak's Path Back From High Inflation and a Tax Scandal

Will Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Revive the Sins of His Father?

Higher Inflation, Rates Will Stick Around as Economies Go Green

The Looming Debt Crisis About to Make Everything Worse

Central Banks Wrestle With the Crypto Conundrum

Summers Predicts U.S. Recession More Likely Than a Soft Landing

What's the Biggest Economic Peril? It Depends on Where You Live