Macro Musings with David Beckworth

Latest Episodes:

Nicholas Bloom on Economic Impacts of COVID-19 in the Short-run and Long-run Apr 20, 2020

Show notes

Nicholas Bloom is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a leading scholar on management, productivity, innovation and economic uncertainty. Nick is a previous guest of Macro Musings and returns to share his thoughts on COVID-19 and what it means for the US economy, both in the short-run and in the long-run. David and Nick also discuss the impact of the virus on the future of urban living, on the economics profession as a whole, and who will bear the biggest brunt of these impacts.

Transcript for the episode can be found here.

Nick's NBER archive: https://www.nber.org/people/nick_bloom

Nick's Stanford profile: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/faculty/nicholas-bloom

Related Links:

Bonus segment with Nick: https://youtu.be/q2M0TLwV_Xw

*COVID-Induced Economic Uncertainty* by Scott R. Baker, Nicholas Bloom, Steven J. Davis, and Stephen J. Terry.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w26983

*U.S. Economic Activity During the Early Weeks of the SARS-Cov-2 Outbreak* by Daniel J. Lewis, Karel Mertens, and Jim Stock.

https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr920

*Depression Babies: Do Macroeconomic Experiences Affect Risk-Taking?* by Ulrike Malmendier and Stefan Nagel.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1369049

*Managing with Style* by Marianne Bertrand and Antoinette Schoar.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=376880

*Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?* by Nicholas Bloom, Charles I. Jones, John Van Reenen, and Michael Webb.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3039019

*Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment* by Nicholas A. Bloom, James Liang, John Roberts, Zhichun Jenny Ying

https://nbloom.people.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj4746/f/wfh.pdf

*How Many Jobs Can be Done at Home?* by Jonathan I. Dingel and Brent Neiman.

https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_White-Paper_Dingel_Neiman_3.2020.pdf

David's blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Brad Setser on Addressing the Global Dollar Shortage and COVID-19's Implications for Worldwide Trade Imbalances Apr 15, 2020

Show notes

Brad Setser is a senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he works on macroeconomics, global capital flows, and financial crisis issues. Brad has previously served as the deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury, working on Europe's financial crisis, currency policy, financial sanctions, commodity shocks, and Puerto Rico's debt crisis, and was the director for international economics on the staff of the National Economic Council and the National Security Council. As a returning guest to the show, Brad joins Macro Musings once again to discuss dollars swap lines and other solutions to the global dollar shortage, the recent implications of COVID-19 on global trade imbalances, and how China should respond to the effects of this crisis.

Transcript for the episode can be found here.

Brad's Twitter: @Brad_Setser

Brad's CFR profile: https://www.cfr.org/expert/brad-w-setser

Related Links:

Bonus segment with Brad Setser:

https://youtu.be/YsdynQgWHFg

*Addressing the Global Dollar Shortage: More Swap Lines? A New Repo Facility for Central Banks? More IMF Lending?* by Brad Setser

https://www.cfr.org/blog/addressing-global-dollar-shortage-more-swap-lines-new-fed-repo-facility-central-banks-more-imf

*Why the Dollar Crunch is (mostly) a Rich World Problem* by Claire Jones

https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/03/24/1585041854000/Why-the-dollar-crunch-is--mostly--a-rich-world-problem/

David's blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Alex Tabarrok on COVID-19 Response Efforts, Proposals for Continued Recovery, and Lessons for the Future Apr 13, 2020

Show notes

Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics at George Mason University and a research fellow at the Mercatus Center. Alex joins David Beckworth on the podcast to discuss how best to deal with COVID-19 and what lessons we can learn from it moving forward.

Transcript for the episode can be found here.

Alex's Twitter: @ATabarrok

Alex's GMU profile: https://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/

Related Links:

Bonus segment with Tabarrok: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQUnnumgXvw&feature=youtu.be

*Pandemic Policy in Developing Countries: Recommendations for India* by Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok

https://www.mercatus.org/publications/covid-19-policy-brief-series/pandemic-policy-developing-countries-recommendations-india

Chad Brown's PIIE archive, which include a series of articles related to COVID-19 and its impact on trade: https://www.piie.com/experts/senior-research-staff/chad-p-bown

David's blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Ashoka Mody on COVID-19's Impacts on Global Trade, Credit Markets and the Broader Eurozone Apr 08, 2020

Show notes

Ashoka Mody is a professor of international economic policy at Princeton University, has formerly worked at the IMF and the World Bank, and is a returning guest to Macro Musings. In this episode, he joins David to discuss the global economic implications of COVID-19 and what it specifically means for Europe and the Eurozone.

Transcript for the episode.

Ashoka's Twitter: @AshokaMody

Ashoka's Princeton profile: https://scholar.princeton.edu/amody/home

Related Links:

Cover of Ashoka's new paperback book: https://i.imgur.com/1IYWBAk.jpg

Bonus segment with Ashoka Mody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZsAetHdzjA&feature=youtu.be

*Charting the Crisis* by Ashoka Mody

http://econbrowser.com/archives/2020/03/guest-contribution-charting-this-crisis

*Euro Tragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts* by Ashoka Mody

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/eurotragedy-9780199351381?cc=us&lang=en&

*Credit Booms Gone Bust: Monetary Policy, Leverage Cycles, and Financial Crises, 1870-2008* by Alan Taylor and Moritz Schularick

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.102.2.1029

*European Monetary Unification* by Barry Eichengreen

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2728243?seq=1

*Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: Evidence from the 1918 Flu* by Sergio Correia, Stephan Luck, and Emil Verner

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560

David's blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Peter Conti-Brown on the CARES Act and the Expanding Fed-Treasury Relationship in Response to COVID-19 Apr 06, 2020

Show notes

Peter Conti-Brown – a legal scholar and financial historian at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a Nonresident Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution – returns to Macro Musings to discuss the new Fed-Treasury relationship that is emerging in the wake of the war against COVID-19. Peter and David breakdown the CARES Act, the aggressive and extensive policies recently taken by the Fed, and the implications for monetary policy moving forward.

Transcript for the episode can be found here.

Peter's Twitter: @PeterContiBrown

Peter's Brookings profile: https://www.brookings.edu/author/peter-conti-brown/

Peter's Wharton profile: https://lgst.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/petercb/

Related Links:

*Explaining the New Fed-Treasury Emergency Fund* by Peter Conti-Brown

https://www.brookings.edu/research/explaining-the-new-fed-treasury-emergency-fund/

*What's the Fed Doing in Response to the COVID-19 Crisis? What More Could it Do?* by Jeffrey Cheng, Dave Skidmore, and David Wessel

https://www.brookings.edu/research/fed-response-to-covid19/

*The Foreign Affairs of the Federal Reserve* by Peter Conti-Brown and David Zaring

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3169870

*Longer-Run Economic Consequences of Pandemics* by Oscar Jorda, Sanjay Singh, and Alan Taylor

https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/files/wp2020-09.pdf

Bonus segment featuring Peter Conti-Brown: https://youtu.be/GJF2RlQ8po4

David's blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Skanda Amarnath, Yakov Feygin, and Elizabeth Pancotti on Municipal Bond Market Intervention and the CARES Act as Responses to COVID-19 Apr 01, 2020

Show notes

Skanda Amarnath is the Director of Research and Analysis at Employ America, Yakov Feygin is the Associate Director of the Future of Capitalism program at the Berggruen Institute, and Elizabeth Pancotti is a research assistant at the National Bureau of Economic Research and at Tufts University. Together, they have put together proposals on how to better address the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis at the state and local level. They join Macro Musings today to discuss these proposals, a municipal bond market and expanded unemployment insurance, as well as what it all means for making the US economy more of an optimal currency area.

Transcript for the episode can be found here.

Skanda's Twitter: @IrvingSwisher

Skanda's Medium profile: https://medium.com/@skanda_97974

Yakov's Twitter: @BuddyYakov

Yakov's Berggruen Institute profile: https://www.berggruen.org/people/yakov-feygin/

Elizabeth's Twitter: @ENPancotti

Elizabeth's website: https://sites.google.com/view/elizabethpancotti/home

Related Links:

*The Fed Can and Should Support State Government Efforts to Respond to COVID-19 Right Now* by Skanda Amarnath and Yakov Feygin

https://medium.com/@skanda_97974/the-fed-can-and-should-support-state-government-efforts-to-respond-to-covid-19-right-now-5e5ecf7b7ed8

*Unemployment Benefit Expansions: A Guide for Policy Responses in the Wake of COVID-19* by Elizabether Pancotti

https://medium.com/@employamerica/unemployment-benefit-expansions-a-guide-for-policy-responses-in-the-wake-of-covid-19-ec3da6e8701

David's blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Jim Bianco on Policy Responses to the Coronavirus: Details, Implications, and Concerns Moving Forward Mar 30, 2020

Show notes

Jim Bianco, of Bianco Research, joins Macro Musings to discuss the latest on the economic impact from the coronavirus. David and Jim discuss the details and implications of the $2 Trillion Relief bill, the possibility of higher inflation, renewed threats to Fed independence, and implications for the Eurozone.

Transcript for the episode can be found here.

Jim's Twitter: @biancoresearch

Jim's Bloomberg archive: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ABvwE0aTOvg/jim-bianco

Related Links:

*The Fed's Cure Risks Being Worse Than the Disease* by Jim Bianco

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-27/federal-reserve-s-financial-cure-risks-being-worse-than-disease

David's blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Robin Brooks on COVID-19's Impact on Emerging Markets and the Domestic Policy Response to the Crisis Mar 25, 2020

Show notes

Robin Brooks is a chief economist at the Institute of International Finance and has previously worked for Goldman Sachs and the IMF. Robin joins Macro Musings to talk about the global economic implications of the novel coronavirus. David and Robin also discuss what is happening to output gap measures, where the global dollar cycle stands today, and the importance of dollar swap lines for emerging markets.

Transcript for the episode can be found here.

Robin's Twitter: @RobinBrooksIIF

Robin's IIF profile: https://www.iif.com/About-Us/Our-Leadership

Related Links:

*Federal Reserve Announces Extensive New Measures to Support the Economy*

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20200323b.htm

David's blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Stan Veuger on Helping Businesses Survive in the Post-Coronavirus Economy Mar 23, 2020

Show notes

Stan Veuger is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute where he specializes in political economy and public finance. Stan joins us today to discuss his co-authored proposal to save American businesses and American jobs as well as his thoughts on how Europe is handling the crisis. Specifically, David and Stan discuss the Federal Reserve's ability to support targeted business loans, how the crisis has been panning out in Europe, and the timeline to global recovery.

Transcript for the episode can be found here.

Stan's Twitter: @stanveuger

Stan's AEI profile: https://www.aei.org/profile/stan-veuger/

Related Links:

*How to Help American Businesses Endure and Jobs Survive* by Stan Veuger and Steven Hamilton

https://www.aei.org/economics/how-to-help-american-businesses-endure-and-jobs-survive/

*Throwing a COVID-19 Liquidity Life-Line* by Markus Brunnermeier, Jean-Pierre Landau, Marco Pagano, and Ricardo Reis

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/markus/files/covid_liquiditylifeline.pdf

David's blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Claudia Sahm on Direct Payments to Individuals and Other Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Crisis Mar 18, 2020

Show notes

Claudia Sahm is the Director of Macroeconomic Policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and formerly was a section chief at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Claudia specializes in macroeconomics and household finance, and joins the show today to talk about what the Fed has recently done and what fiscal policy can do in response to the economic meltdown caused by COVID-19. Specifically, David and Claudia discuss sending out direct payments to individuals, what the Fed's remaining toolkit may look like, and how the freshly minted Sahm Rule may be of paramount importance as this crisis continues to develop.

Transcript for the episode can be found here: https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/tags/macro-musings

Claudia's Twitter: @Claudia_Sahm

Claudia's Equitable Growth profile: https://equitablegrowth.org/people/claudia-sahm/

Related Links:

*The Case for a Big Coronavirus Stimulus* by Jason Furman

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-case-for-a-big-coronavirus-stimulus-11583448500?mod=rsswn

*Go Big Or Go Home* by Tim Duy

https://blogs.uoregon.edu/timduyfedwatch/2020/03/16/go-big-or-go-home/

*COVID-19 Pandemic, Direct Cash Transfers, and the Federal Reserve* by David Beckworth

https://www.mercatus.org/publications/monetary-policy/covid-19-pandemic-direct-cash-transfers-and-federal-reserve

David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

David's Blog: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/