Risk Talking

Bail bondsman Nicholas Lindblad joins Allison Schrager to discuss the risk calculations involved in the bail business.

Yale Law School professor David Schleicher joins Allison Schrager to discuss the fiscal situation of American states and localities. His new book, In a Bad State, is out now.

Richard J. Shinder, founder and managing partner of Theatine Partners, a financial consultancy, joins Allison Schrager to discuss the banking crisis, ESG investing, and the intersection of politics and financial markets.

American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Andrew Biggs joins Allison Schrager to discuss Social Security's flaws, the tradeoffs required to rework the program, and the role of private accounts in American retirement saving.

Why do cities and states find themselves in fiscal holes? Economist Robert Inman joins Allison Schrager to discuss the roots of municipal debt crises, the post-Covid balance sheets across the U.S., and the need for disciplined local governance.

Economic historian Price Fishback joins Allison Schrager to discuss the economic history of the New Deal, the various programs that constituted it, and whether today’s economic struggles compare to those of the 1930s.

MI senior fellow Chris Pope joins Allison Schrager to discuss health care in the United States, the future of entitlement spending, and ways to increase competition and coverage.

Urban Institute fellow Robert Lerman joins Allison Schrager to discuss apprenticeship programs in the U.S., the need both to equip young people with occupational skills and to retrain workers, and lessons from other countries’ own apprenticeship policies.

Jonathan Meer joins Allison Schrager to discuss the American labor market, the need to prioritize skilled labor, and changes that educators can make to prepare young people to enter the workplace.

Brian Riedl joins Allison Schrager to discuss the end of free-lunch economics, the hard choices facing fiscal and monetary policymakers, and the long-term demographic challenges facing developed-world economies.

Yale School of Management professor William N. Goetzmann joins Allison Schrager to discuss the history of financial innovation, the role of markets in Athens, Sumeria, and Rome, and the democratization of risk-taking. His latest book is Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible.

American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Beth Akers joins Allison Schrager to discuss student loans, the rising cost of college, and policy alternatives to blanket debt forgiveness.

Economist Fatih Guvenen joins Allison Schrager to discuss his research into some of the most pressing issues facing the American economy—from wage stagnation to income risk—and how the use of big data can demystify the nation’s economic challenges.

NYU-Stern professor and Manhattan Institute adjunct fellow Arpit Gupta joins Allison Schrager to discuss the state of the U.S. housing market, the long-term consequences of remote work, and the demand- and supply-side impediments to building more housing.

What is money? It’s a time-honored question in economics, and the stock answers usually involve such phrases as “a medium of exchange” or “a reliable store of value.” But the definition seems increasingly up for grabs in the twenty-first century, as central banks undertake experiments to keep economies stable and cryptocurrency innovators launch new products like stablecoins that promise to upend the fiat money system. Perry Mehrling, a professor of international political economy at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies and the author of several books and journal articles, uses what he calls the “money view” to make sense of the contemporary monetary landscape. On this episode of Risk Talking, Mehrling joins Allison Schrager to discuss how understanding the basic features and hierarchy of money can help us understand the cryptocurrency crash of 2022.

For years, a cohort of economists, public officials, and journalists confidently proclaimed that inflation was a thing of the past. Demographic trends heralded long-term deflationary pressures, the thinking went, and new ideas in fiscal and monetary policy meant that interest rates could remain low indefinitely. Conditions today put paid to that thesis, but how did so many get things so wrong? In this episode of Risk Talking, economist and Shadow Open Market Committee member Mickey Levy joins Allison Schrager to discuss the state of the macroeconomy, the Federal Reserve's evolving posture, and the complacency of the doves.

Everyone seems to think the world economy has taken a wrong turn, but nobody seems to agree on the reasons why. What if the culprit is the world's hidden transition from tangible to intangible assets? In this episode of Risk Talking, Royal Statistical Society chief executive Stian Westlake joins Allison Schrager to define the intangible economy and explain how it affects the world around us. His new book, co-authored with Jon Haskel and called Restarting the Future: How to Fix an Intangible Economy, is out now.

On the inaugural episode of Risk Talking, Joel Mokyr, the pathbreaking economic historian, joins Allison Schrager to discuss the past, present, and future of innovation and the modern economy. What sparked the industrial revolution? What are the intellectual underpinnings of economic growth? What is the future of work in an increasingly technologized world? And does today’s stifling political environment threaten our prosperity? Mokyr and Schrager take up these questions—and much more.

Learn about "Risk Talking" with Allison Schrager, a podcast from the Manhattan Institute.