Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity

In the mid-20th century, U.S. states experienced recessions very differently from one another, which resulted in many workers migrating between states in search of work. But a newly developed dataset shows that economic recoveries have begun to look very similar across states in recent decades. On this episode, Senior Fellow Louise Sheiner talks with Andrew Fieldhouse and David Munro, authors of a new BPEA study that produced this dataset, “The emergence of a uniform business cycle in the United States.” Their conversation with Sheiner explores the reasons behind the convergence in recession recovery and the policy implications. Show notes and transcript The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Many countries have faced harrowing debt burdens, and reducing the national debt is usually a lasting challenge. But in just five years, the Jamaica reduced its debt-to-GDP ratio by 40 percentage points, something only a handful of other countries have done in that time frame. On this episode of the BPEA podcast, Peter Blair Henry of Stanford and UC Berkeley's Barry Eichengreen join Brookings Senior Fellow Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti to discuss their new BPEA paper on the unique factors that enabled Jamaica’s success. Show notes and transcript The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

The COVID-19 pandemic shone a spotlight on supply chains, with shortages in everything from baby formula to microchips. This spurred an on-going policy debate on the need for the U.S. to shore up its supply chains, in some cases literally moving production back to the U.S. or allied nations. However, new analysis published in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity showed that effort may be more difficult than standard supply chain data suggests, especially when it comes to limiting exposure to China. In this episode, David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, interviews Rebecca Freeman of the Bank of England and Angelos Theodorakopoulos of Aston University on the “hidden exposure” that is revealed in U.S. supply chains with their new data. Show notes and transcript The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Economists have long debated the potential for rising wages and prices to push each other increasingly higher, driving inflation out of control—the so-called “wage-price spiral.” Concern about such a spiral has been high in the post-pandemic era, with inflation still running notably higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Martin Neil Baily of Brookings talks with the authors of a new BPEA paper on wage-price spirals, Guido Lorenzoni and Iván Werning. Their study, which developed a new model for this economic scenario, contends that because various factors drove price growth to outpace wages just after the pandemic, wages can increase faster than inflation, at least for a time, without necessarily spinning the economy out of control. Show notes and transcript The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Predictably, the rate of new business formations and business expansions at the beginning of the pandemic plummeted. But, in two waves, applications for new businesses and expansions quickly recovered, countering several decades of decline in business dynamism. Surprising many economists, applications have remained much stronger than before the pandemic. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Hamilton Project Director Wendy Edelberg talks with John Haltiwanger of the University of Maryland about his new paper documenting this trend, whether it is a fleeting anomaly or the new normal, and how policymakers can balance cooling the overheated economy with supporting young businesses. Show notes and transcript The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In an effort to quell post-pandemic inflation, the Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates eleven times since March 2022, with the federal funds rate now at its highest in over 20 years. Historically, such interest rate hikes—or even the suggestion of hikes—has triggered financial crises in emerging markets and developing economies. But, so far, that hasn’t happened. In this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan and Filiz Unsal discuss their new study, which examined how improved monetary policy credibility in these countries may have improved their resilience to American financial trends. Show notes and transcript The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there was a heated debate in Germany about whether to embargo the import of Russian natural gas as a sanction against Russia’s aggression. Before Germany could act, Russian began cutting the flow of gas to Germany, eventually halting it entirely. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Benjamin Moll and Georg Zachmann talk with Economic Studies Director Ben Harris about how Germany navigated this tense situation, as well as their prior work that helped spur the "Great German Gas Debate." Show notes and transcript The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In their latest research in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Anne Case and Angus Deaton show that life expectancy for adults without a BA has been on the decline for almost a decade. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Case discusses the new findings with Carol Graham of Brookings. Show notes and transcript The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

For over 50 years, the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity has published research on urgent public policy issues by some of the world’s leading economists. What has made it so successful, and how has it evolved over the years? On this special episode, the last of season 2, out-going BPEA coeditor and host of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity James Stock is joined by his coeditor of 8 years, Jan Eberly, and incoming coeditor Jón Steinsson for a discussion on the importance of BPEA in economic policy over the years, the evolution of economic methodologies and analysis, and the direction of BPEA in years to come. Show notes and transcript The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Labor force participation plummeted by more than 3 percentage points during the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, representing a decline of more than 8.2 million people. While about half of the drop was quickly regained, participation has stagnated at about 1 percentage point below its pre-pandemic level. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Louise Sheiner, policy director at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, interviews Lea Rendell of the University of Maryland, one of the coauthors of a new BPEA study that asks, simply, “Where are the missing workers?” Sheiner and Rendell discuss several possible explanations, including fear of COVID-19 and shifting work-life balance preferences. Show notes and transcript The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

It is widely understood that the global economy has become increasingly interconnected over the last century, with especially rapid globalization trends for 20 years starting in the 1990s. That trend continued even through the COVID-19 pandemic, when countries were forced to close their doors and many supply chains were disrupted. However, new Brookings Papers on Economic Activity research by Pinelopi Goldberg and Tristan Reed uses trade, capital flow, and immigration to show that there has been a slowing in globalization beginning around 2015. In this conversation, recorded in March 2022, the authors joined Brookings Senior Fellow Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti for a discussion on their findings and the outlook for globalization going forward. Show notes and transcript: https://bit.ly/3MkYdnP The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

The Inflation Reduction Act is the largest piece of climate legislation ever passed in the U.S. The bill's incentives will affect the entire energy sector, from producers of raw materials to end-use consumers. BPEA paper co-author Neil Mehrotra, assistant vice president and policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, speaks with Sanjay Patnaik about the bill's policy implications. Show notes and transcript: https://bit.ly/40Be1GB The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In addition to large fiscal packages, governments around the world utilized credit market interventions to support their economies during the pandemic. However, the impact and importance of these policies has not been fully analyzed. Gee Hee Hong of the IMF and Deborah Lucas of MIT approach this problem in their new BPEA paper, and they discuss their findings on this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity with Wendy Edelberg of The Hamilton Project. Show notes and transcript: https://bit.ly/41oIDfA The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

The COVID-19 Economic Impact Payments were not the first time the federal government has provided fiscal support to Americans during a crisis, but they did have a different purpose. The goal wasn’t to stimulate the economy but rather to offer “pandemic insurance”—money to pay bills and buy food for people who may have lost income due to the pandemic. In the latest episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Hamilton Project Director Wendy Edelberg and MIT finance professor Jonathan A. Parker discuss Parker’s recent BPEA study on how those payments were spent (or not spent) and the on-going impact on the economy. Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3zv6rmi The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

A strong U.S. dollar reflects economic and political strength for the United States. But a new study published in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity illustrates how a strong dollar might not be good for other countries, especially emerging and developing markets. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Brookings Senior Fellow Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti interviews the authors of that study, Maurice Obstfeld of UC Berkeley and Haonan Zhou of Princeton University. Obstfeld and Zhou explain what’s driving the stronger dollar, why it might hurt emerging markets, and policies those emerging markets can use to become more resilient to dollar appreciation shocks. Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3V8KjqT The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

While President Biden has officially declared the COVID-19 pandemic “over,” America now faces a new challenge in the form of an overheating economy and high inflation, and the prospect of a Federal Reserve-induced recession is looming. In the latest Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, spoke with Laurence Ball of Johns Hopkins University about his new paper, “Understanding U.S. inflation during the COVID era.” In the study, Ball and his co-authors find that the Fed may need to push unemployment higher than its 4.1% projection to return inflation to the 2% target. Show notes and transcript: https://brook.gs/3ChFl3S The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

In the first episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, Steve Davis of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and co-author of the new BPEA study “Working From Home Around the World,” discusses his findings on remote work in the post-pandemic recovery with Stephanie Aaronson, vice president and director of Economic Studies at Brookings. The study presents findings from a new survey conducted by Davis and his co-authors of more than 37,000 workers across 27 countries. Respondents reported their employers plan an average of 0.7 work-from-home days per week after the pandemic ends. Aaronson and Davis discuss what this shift means for workers, businesses, and local governments. Show notes and transcript: https://bit.ly/3qJhPWX The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is a new podcast that connects listeners to cutting edge economic policy research and the renowned economists who create it. On each episode, Jan Eberly and James Stock, editors of the premier economic policy journal The Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, will introduce a new piece of BPEA research, its significance to economic policy studies, and the authors behind it. Then the author of the study will join a Brookings scholar for discussion to highlight key takeaways and policy implications of their work. New episodes will be released every week starting on September 20.