In the fourth of this six-part series of The Economics Show, Martin Wolf, the FT’s chief economics commentator, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman ask if advances in artificial intelligence will reshape the working world as we know it. Or are we hearing an old familiar story that has been told many times before? 

Paul Krugman’s Cultural Coda:

Loretta Lynn - "Coal Miner's Daughter":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9eHp7JJgq8&list=RDf9eHp7JJgq8&start_radio=1

Martin Wolf’s Cultural Coda:

Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, published in 1924.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Mountain

Read Martin Wolf's selection of the best economics summer reads for 2025 here

Read Martin’s FT column here

Subscribe to Paul’s substack here

If you’d like to get in touch and ask Martin and Paul a question, please email [email protected] 

Subscribe and listen to this series on The Economics Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Episodes are also available on the FT’s YouTube channel.

The Wolf-Krugman Exchange is produced by Sandra Kanthal and Mischa Frankl-Duval, and the broadcast engineer is Andrew Georgiades. The sound engineer is Jean-Marc Eck. Manuela Saragosa is the FT’s acting co-head of audio.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the third of this six-part series of The Economics Show, Martin Wolf, the FT’s chief economics commentator, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman discuss the dangers facing the world economy and wonder what outcomes are possible at summits such as the G7 in times of political and economic risk.

Paul Krugman’s Cultural Coda:

Peter Gabriel: “Games Without Frontiers”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xZmlUV8muY&list=RD3xZmlUV8muY&start_radio=1

Martin Wolf’s Cultural Coda: 

"The Second Coming" - by William Butler Yeats, 1919

https://youtu.be/QI40j17EFbI

Subscribe and listen to this series on The Economics Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Episodes are also available on the FT’s YouTube channel.

If you’d like to get in touch and ask Martin and Paul a question, please email [email protected] 

Read Martin’s FT column here

Subscribe to Paul’s substack here

The Wolf-Krugman Exchange was produced by Sandra Kanthal and Mischa Frankl-Duval, and the broadcast engineer was Andrew Georgiades. The sound engineer was Breen Turner. Our executive producer is Flo Phillips. Manuela Saragosa is the FT’s acting co-head of audio.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the second of this six-part series of The Economics Show, Martin Wolf, the FT’s chief economics commentator, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman discuss the way economic trends have fractured societies on both sides of the Atlantic and the jeopardy that poses to liberal democracies in Europe and America. 

Paul Krugman’s Cultural Coda: Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes

https://poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again

Martin Wolf’s Cultural Coda: The Tariff Song by Dan Shore

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eWtn6kWXAsQ&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Subscribe and listen to this series on The Economics Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Episodes are also available on the FT’s YouTube channel.

If you’d like to get in touch and ask Martin and Paul a question, please email [email protected] 

Read Martin’s FT column here

Subscribe to Paul’s substack here

The Wolf-Krugman Exchange was produced by Sandra Kanthal and Mischa Frankl-Duval, and the broadcast engineer was Andrew Georgiades. The sound engineer was Breen Turner. Manuela Saragosa is the FT’s acting co-head of audio.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In part one of this six-part series of The Economics Show, Martin Wolf, the FT’s chief economics commentator, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman discuss how trust in the postwar world economic system is being lost and weigh the costs and consequences of that. 

Paul Krugman’s Cultural Coda: Quarterflash, ”Harden My Heart”- 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNFSED77-GM

Martin Wolf’s Cultural Coda:The Beatles, “For No One”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELlLIwhvknk

Subscribe and listen to this series on The Economics Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Episodes are also available on the FT’s YouTube channel.

If you’d like to get in touch and ask Martin and Paul a question, please email [email protected] 

Read Martin’s FT column here

Subscribe to Paul’s substack here

The Wolf-Krugman Exchange was produced by Sandra Kanthal and Mischa Frankl-Duval, and the broadcast engineer was Richard Topping. The sound engineer was Breen Turner. Manuela Saragosa is the FT’s acting co-head of audio.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a special six-part series of The Economics Show, Martin Wolf, the FT’s chief economics commentator, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman discuss the economic events reshaping the world in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s election. 

Subscribe and listen to this series on The Economics Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Episodes will also be available on the FT’s YouTube channel.

If you’d like to get in touch and ask Martin and Paul a question, please email [email protected] 

Read Martin’s FT column here

Subscribe to Paul’s substack here

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Churchill never said “we will fight them in the spreadsheets…”. But maybe he should have done. The second world war, like every other war in human history, was decided by how each side allocated its resources. In this episode, Duncan Weldon, author of the new book ‘Blood and Treasure, The Economics of Conflict from the Vikings to Ukraine’, explains how countries have historically thought about the economics of war – and how the Ukraine war is changing that. He and host Soumaya Keynes also discuss how conflict shaped economic institutions and the modern world.

Subscribe to Soumaya's show on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen.

Further reading: 

Vladimir Putin’s war economy is cooling, but Russians still feel richer: https://www.ft.com/content/485aba41-1148-4f2c-b0ab-97aac5e50727 

Russia’s war economy fuels rustbelt revival: https://www.ft.com/content/559ca59f-7fdc-4c47-8e87-edb562acdc7b 

Defence spending is up – but on all the wrong things: https://www.ft.com/content/11a6b844-fe57-4e39-86ba-bb04e839bf2f 

Presented by Soumaya Keynes. Produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval. Flo Phillips is the executive producer. Original music and sound design by Breen Turner. The FT’s acting co-head of audio is Manuela Saragosa.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The tit-for-tat tariff escalations between the US and China are on pause, at least temporarily. But if the world’s two biggest economies don’t make progress by July, they could return with a vengeance. How can the two parties make progress? And what does China actually want from the US? Soumaya Keynes speaks to Jay Shambaugh to find out. Shambaugh was the US Treasury’s undersecretary for international affairs under Joe Biden. In other words, he was in charge of the US’s economic relationship with China. He and Soumaya discuss how the Trump administration could negotiate with China, and how interwoven trade policy and national security have become.

Clips: CNBC Television, PBS News

Further reading:

Will Trump’s tariff climbdown save the US from recession?

The markets are declaring tariff victory too soon

US-China trade war is pushing Asian nations to pick sides, ministers warn

Subscribe to The Economics Show on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen. 

Presented by Soumaya Keynes. Produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval. Flo Phillips is the executive producer. Original music and sound design by Breen Turner. The FT’s acting co-head of audio is Manuela Saragosa.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

US tariffs have sent financial markets into a frenzy in recent weeks, but how much should central bankers be taking trade into account when setting monetary policy? To find out, Soumaya Keynes sits down with Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member Swati Dhingra – one of the committee’s more dovish members. They discuss why the UK’s open economy makes it more vulnerable to trade shocks, what Dhingra saw in the data that her MPC colleagues didn’t, and why she didn’t vote for an (even) sharper rate cut earlier this month.

Further reading:

Two BoE policymakers warn against rushing to further cut interest rates

Bank of England vote split hits hopes for faster interest rate cuts

Brexit lessons for Trump’s trade war

Subscribe to The Economics Show on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen. 

Presented by Soumaya Keynes. Produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval. Flo Phillips is the executive producer. Original music and sound design by Breen Turner. The FT’s acting co-head of audio is Manuela Saragosa.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Donald Trump’s trade policies have put global markets through the mill in recent weeks. But his policies didn’t come from nowhere. Aspects of US protectionism preceded Trump’s second term – and countries across the world have been pushing for greater self-sufficiency for some time. Is this drive for greater self-sufficiency misguided? Is true self-sufficiency even possible? Or might the secret to economic security come from more co-operation, not less? The FT’s senior business writer Andrew Hill sits down with Ben Chu to discuss the findings from his new book: "Exile Economics: What Happens if Globalisation Fails." Chu is the policy and analysis correspondent at BBC Verify and was previously the economics editor of BBC Newsnight.

For further reading:

The old global economic order is dead

Britain’s trade deal with Trump may not be good news for the world

Tariffs are a bet on the free market rather than free trade

The business lessons to draw from Trump’s dealmaking

Subscribe to The Economics Show on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen. 

Presented by Andrew Hill. Produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval. Flo Phillips is the executive producer. Original music and sound design by Breen Turner. The FT’s acting co-head of audio is Manuela Saragosa.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past 25 years, the Gates foundation has given away more than $100bn. Much of that money has gone to healthcare and education projects outside the US – and the organisation plans to give $200bn more to various programmes in the next twenty years. But as Elon Musk and Doge feed USAID, a key partner of the foundation, “into the wood chipper,” how can Bill Gates press ahead? The FT’s Africa editor, David Pilling, speaks to Gates about running an apolitical, philanthropic entity in a politically challenging time.

Read more:

Bill Gates is giving away $200bn. Can his plans survive in the Trump era?

Bill Gates accuses Elon Musk of ‘killing’ children with USAID cuts

Elon Musk’s painful departure

Subscribe to The Economics Show on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen. 

Presented by David Pilling. Produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval. Flo Phillips is the executive producer. Original music and sound design by Breen Turner. The FT’s acting co-head of audio is Manuela Saragosa.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.