The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes

When presidential candidate Kamala Harris proposed legislation to ban price gouging, we naturally thought to interview Isabella Weber, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Weber’s paper on the subject lit up economic discussion in the wake of gas and food market disruptions caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Weber calls for governments to examine capping prices on certain staples, and amassing supplies to even out pricing. But is this prudent oversight of the markets, or a step down the road to central planning and scarcity?

Soumaya Keynes writes a column each week for the Financial Times. You can find it here

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

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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Daron Acemoğlu is an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity. Today on the show, he and Soumaya discuss artificial intelligence and productivity growth, querying how and why AI will change the trajectory of the world economy, and how the workers and the middle class will be affected along the way. It’s a wide-ranging conversation about the past and the future of technology, and what it means for the world’s wellbeing.

Soumaya Keynes writes a column each week for the Financial Times. You can find it here

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

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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

Computer chips power toys and control nuclear reactors. They are in phones, cars and planes, getting us to work and keeping us safe. And they are at the centre of a growing tech war between the US and China, with many other players. Governments around the world are throwing money at industry and erecting barriers to trade, trying desperately to onshore a multitrillion-dollar global industry. This week Soumaya discusses the geopolitics of chips with Chris Miller, associate professor at Tufts University and author of Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology.

To take part in the audience survey and be in with the chance to win a pair of Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones, click here. Click here to find T&Cs for the prize draw.

Soumaya Keynes writes a column each week for the Financial Times. You can find it here

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

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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

How much would it take for you to retire? The question is fun to think about, but also central to a serious conversation happening in economics about the cost and wisdom of a universal basic income. Today on the show, Soumaya is joined by FT editor and columnist Pilita Clark to discuss basic income, and an interview Soumaya did with Mouhcine Guettabi, who studied how Alaska’s payments to its citizens changed how much they worked and when.

To take part in the audience survey and be in with the chance to win a pair of Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones, click here. Click here to find T&Cs for the prize draw.

Soumaya Keynes writes a column each week for the Financial Times. You can find it here

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

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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

Recent events, including a weak US jobs report, a pullback in Japan, and volatility in US markets have made life trickier for central bankers around the world. In the UK, moderating inflation led the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee to cut rates on August 1. The vote was 5-4, with member Catherine Mann voting to hold. Today on the show, Soumaya Keynes and Mann discuss the case for holding steady in a time of volatility and falling inflation. 

To take part in the audience survey and be in with the chance to win a pair of Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones, click here. Click here to find T&Cs for the prize draw.

Soumaya Keynes writes a column each week for the Financial Times. You can find it here

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

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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

A recently released research paper calls into question many of the assumptions about the rate at which income inequality has grown in the US over the past 75 years. Today on the show, Soumaya and the FT’s economics commentator, Chris Giles, discuss this bombshell report, and what it means for economists thinking about wealth and income in the US.

To take part in the audience survey and be in with the chance to win a pair of Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones, click here. Click here to find T&Cs for the prize draw.

Soumaya Keynes writes a column each week for the Financial Times. You can find it here

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

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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

The GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, closed during the financial crisis in 2008, ending decades of production – and 3,000 steady, highly paid jobs. Journalist Amy Goldstein wrote about the town as the plant’s workers hurried to make new lives. Her book, ‘Janesville: An American Story’, won the Financial Times and McKinsey Book of the Year in 2017. This summer, Goldstein returned to town for the FT, and now joins Soumaya Keynes to talk about what Janesville lost and what it has gained in the years following the closing of the plant.  

To take part in the audience survey and be in with the chance to win a pair of Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones, click here. Click here to find T&Cs for the prize draw.

Soumaya Keynes writes a column each week for the Financial Times. You can find it here

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

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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

NOTE: This podcast was recorded before Joe Biden announced he was stepping down from the US presidential race

Both the Republicans and Democrats are talking tough on economic competition with China. But is this wise? Today on the show, Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, discusses why a hard line on China might not be the best line. 

To take part in the audience survey and be in with the chance to win a pair of Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones, click here. Click here to find T&Cs for the prize draw.

Soumaya Keynes writes a column each week for the Financial Times. You can find it here

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

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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

Hyun Song Shin is the economic adviser and head of research at the Bank for International Settlements, the “bank for central banks,” based in Basel, Switzerland. Today on the show, they talk about the possibilities and final limits of monetary policy. It’s a wide-ranging discussion about the machinery of international finance, covering everything from how much credit central bankers should get for the recent fall in inflation, to what would happen if we returned to a low-rates world.

To take part in the audience survey and be in with the chance to win a pair of Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones, click here. Click here to find T&Cs for the prize draw.

Soumaya Keynes writes a column each week for the Financial Times. You can find it here

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

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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

Sir Angus Deaton won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2015. So when he says he is rethinking many of his assumptions about the field, it matters. Today on the show, Soumaya discusses what we are getting wrong about everything from inequality to immigration to the role of globalisation in the reduction of poverty. 

Soumaya Keynes writes a column each week for the Financial Times. You can find it here

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

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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