Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity
The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity brings listeners cutting-edge economic policy research from the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. Each episode features editors introducing new BPEA research and a conversation between an author and a Brookings scholar. The show aims to connect economic theory with practical policy solutions. It is produced by the Brookings Institution.
Episodes
The $10 trillion question: Financing the AI buildout
AI is often described as a software story, but the boom is also a massive physical investment in data centers, power systems, and specialized chips. A new BPEA paper projects that this buildout will total $10.3 trillion from 2025 to 2032, an average of 3.63% of U.S. GDP per year and larger relative to the economy than past booms in railroads, highways, and telecommunications. On this episode of th
How can we improve noisy labor market data?
Data on labor markets is incredibly important to policymakers, from state and federal legislators to the central bank and Treasury Department. But this data is often noisy or incomplete. A new BPEA paper draws on a large body of data sets going back to 1960 to develop a novel approach to studying labor markets that can help fill these gaps. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Acti
Why is the U.S. outpacing European countries in AI adoption?
The promise and peril of an AI-dominated future have dominated debates among economists, technologists, and policymakers in recent years. But even as the technology continues to evolve, considerable uncertainty remains about who is using AI and its impact on economies around the globe. In a new BPEA study, researchers conducted surveys in the U.S. and Europe to answer some of these questions and i
Why haven't tariffs significantly damaged the economy?
The tariff increases during the second Trump administration have been historic in their magnitude and scope, dwarfing even those from Trump's first term. Many feared that these tariffs would have dramatic impacts on the economy, but for the most part, the tariff impacts have been muted in the U.S. In a new BPEA study, Pablo Fajgelbaum and Amit Khandelwal document the effects of Trump's tariffs, wh
Why is spending on health care slowing?
In 2010, the U.S. government projected that Americans would spend about $6 trillion dollars on health care, a little over 21% of GDP, in 2024. The actual amount spent was almost $1 trillion less. In fact, health care spending has been below projections almost every year since the early 2010s. In a new BPEA paper, "Has the U.S. bent the health care cost curve?" David Cutler and Lev Klarnet of Harva
How long will China's real estate crisis last?
China's real estate sector and infrastructure account for nearly one-third of economic demand in China. Plus, Chinese households allocate far more of their wealth to housing (nearly 70%) than households in other countries. So with the country's real estate sector entering its sixth year of adjustment, the implications for China and the rest of the world are growing. In a new BPEA paper, Kenneth Ro
How can the Fed reduce its balance sheet?
Since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, the Federal Reserve has amassed roughly $6.6 trillion in assets, primarily in the form of Treasury securities and government-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities. Some, including President Trump's nominee to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve Board, have suggested that the Fed should reduce the size of its balance sheet. On this episode of the Brook
Has the CHIPS Act created jobs?
The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 included funds for billions of dollars in federal investments in U.S.-based manufacturing, a major landmark in the history of America's industrial policy. While the full impacts of such a large bill will take years to reveal themselves, new research shows that firms have already responded to the CHIPS Act, with increases of roughly 15,000 new jobs in semiconductor
Is the neutral rate of interest going to start climbing after years of decline?
Monetary and fiscal policymakers use a variety of metrics to inform their decisions, but among the most important is the neutral rate of interest, also known by economists as "r*," a number that isn't directly observable. It represents the prevailing rate of interest in a smooth-running economy, and can be thought of as a target for policymakers. A new study presents a model of r* showing its decl
What jobs will be most affected by AI?
Throughout history, human work has been augmented by technology. But the emergence of artificial intelligence tools have led many to ask whether an unprecedented shift in how we work with technology is imminent. In a new study, researchers used modern AI tools to look back at the recent history of technology's impact on work—which jobs were replaced, which were enhanced, and who was likely to bene
Are fertility rates falling because of social comparisons?
Fertility rates are falling in many countries around the world, with births failing to keep pace with deaths in nearly half of countries. Researchers believe it's possible that the world's population will start shrinking in the near future, and the effects could be catastrophic for institutions like Social Security. A new paper explores a novel explanation for this decline in fertility: The role o
How much is climate change costing US households?
Studies of the economic impacts of climate change often look at long-term, national costs. A new BPEA study takes a different approach, focusing on the current household level costs attributable to changing weather. The report authors examine a range of impacts, from mortality costs due of wildfire smoke to rising insurance costs along coastlines, to provide estimates of annual costs by region and
How do tariffs hurt the dollar?
Roughly two thirds of countries on Earth stabilize their currency against the U.S. dollar. The relationship has benefits in both directions: Smaller countries enjoy better stability for their national currencies, and U.S. companies and government get low borrowing rates, among other benefits. But a new BPEA paper, "Trade War and the dollar anchor," highlights how U.S. tariffs and retaliatory tarif
Do American workers still move to find work?
Interstate migration has declined in the U.S. in recent decades, suggesting that workers are less likely to move in order to find employment. Such a trend would have significant policy implications for state and local governments, as well as at the federal level. But new research by Andrea Foschi, Christopher L. House, Christian Proebsting, and Linda L. Tesar suggests that it isn't workers who hav
Was the economic recovery from COVID-19 unique?
In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic struck national economies like a hammer. As the disease spread, workers went home, businesses were empty, and economic indicators crashed. Now, five years later, the U.S. economy looks in many ways like it did pre-pandemic, with GDP back on to the pre-pandemic trend and unemployment down to around 4% after spiking to over 10% in 2020. On this episode of the Bro
What is driving up housing costs across the US?
Housing prices nationally are at an all-time high, including in many metro areas that were previously considered affordable alternatives to coastal markets. While prices have been rising over recent decades, the average growth rates of housing stock have been in decline. In a new BPEA paper, Edward Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko explore the evolving dynamics of the U.S. housing market, focusing on six
How does the Federal Reserve affect the Treasury market?
At around $900 billion in transactions daily, the market for U.S. Treasuries is massive, not only in terms of quantity but also in terms of importance to the U.S. and global economies. The Treasury market is tied to interest rates, the value of the dollar, and financial markets around the world. So when shocks hit the Treasury market, as they did during the COVID-19 crisis, the ripple effects can
Why does the US have a trade deficit?
The U.S. trade deficit has long been a source of political consternation, but it has come to the forefront in recent weeks. Just a few months into Donald Trump's second term, he has made the trade deficit a key target of his aggressive tariff policies. On the day that President Trump announced a new, sweeping round of tariffs on all U.S. trade partners, Brookings Senior Fellow Gian Maria Milesi-Fe
How will the Federal Reserve revise its monetary policy framework in 2025?
The Federal Reserve's "Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy"—commonly referred to as its monetary policy framework—is composed of guiding principles the central bank uses in setting and communicating policy. Since the Fed last updated this framework in 2020, the global economy has faced unique challenges: COVID-19 shutdowns, widespread supply chain issues, and multiple global
How will the clean energy transition affect wages?
The clean energy transition has quietly pushed ahead in recent decades, with solar and wind energy accounting for almost 15% of total U.S. energy production in February 2024. The benefits of this transition on climate change have been celebrated, but less acknowledged have been the potential economic benefits. In a new paper, "The economic impacts of clean power," Costas Arkolakis and Conor Walsh
How does Congress react to budget deficit projections?
Fiscal deficit projections are used by policymakers to understand the trajectory of U.S. debt. Between 1984 and 2003, Congress was responsive to these projections, raising taxes and cutting spending when projections showed that the deficit would grow. However, since 2004, fiscal policy has ceased being responsive to debt projections regardless of the party in power. In a new paper, "Robust Fiscal
What is the value of dynamic scoring for legislators?
When Congress considers legislation, nonpartisan agencies provide estimates of the law's potential economic effects to policymakers, a process known as "scoring." In recent decades, analysts at the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation have developed models that incorporate complex feedback effects, going beyond conventional scoring techniques. These "dynamic scoring" methods
What role should sanctions play in foreign policy? The case of Russia.
Since 2022, Western nations have put a number of sanctions on Russia in response to its war in Ukraine. Policymakers and pundits have debated the efficacy of these measures, but this debate is belied by a deeper question: what does it mean for sanctions to "work"? In new BPEA research, Oleg Itskhoki of Harvard and Elina Ribakova of the Peterson Institute for International Economics explore fundame
What is the efficient rate of unemployment?
The full-employment rate of unemployment may seem like a contradiction, but in fact, economists have long understood that some unemployment is necessary. In their new paper, Pascal Michaillat of UC Santa Cruz and Saez of the University of California, Berkeley present a new formula for identifying the efficient rate of unemployment in the U.S. and find that the labor market has been inefficiently s
Did behavioral changes reduce COVID-19 deaths?
As COVID-19 swept across the globe, many nations struggled to define a cohesive public health strategy to prevent the spread of the disease. However, in spite of the lack of a clear plan, improvised strategies of behavioral changes—e.g., masking, social distancing—slowed transmission until a vaccine could be developed. The new BPEA paper, "The impact of vaccines and behaviors on U.S. cumulative de
What should regulators do about the risks to mid-sized banks?
The failure of three mid-sized banks in March 2023—three of the four largest bank failures in history—shook financial markets and could've spread to other banks if regulators hadn't stepped in. Two on-going trends in finance contributed to these failures: an increase in uninsured deposits and the migration of business lending to non-banks. In a new paper, "The evolution of banking in the 21st cent
What global factors could make inflation less stable?
Most advanced economies enjoyed a long period of low, stable inflation prior to 2021, with inflation in the U.S. actually running below the Federal Reserve's 2% inflation target for much of the 2010s. This stability was driven in part by factors external to monetary policy, including downward price and wage pressures from globalization and de-unionization. However, the authors of a new BPEA paper,
What do Americans think about inflation?
Many indicators suggest that the U.S. economy is thriving, yet Americans continue to have a negative overall economic outlook. Stubbornly high inflation has played a significant role in this negative sentiment among consumers, even as wage growth has caught up with the rate of inflation. In a new study, "Why do we dislike inflation?" Stefanie Stantcheva fielded a survey to explore how Americans ex
Do US states have different recoveries from economic shocks?
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
How did Jamaica halve its debt in 10 years?
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 Seni
What do we miss in standard supply chain measures?
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
How worried should we be about wage-price spirals?
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 N
Is the post-pandemic surge in business dynamism here to stay?
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
How have Fed interest rate hikes affected other national economies?
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 th
How did Germany fare without Russian gas?
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
Why is life expectancy falling faster for adults without a BA?
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
What's BPEA's role in shaping economic policy?
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 ye
Why haven't workers returned to the labor force after COVID-19?
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 Sheine
What is the evidence for deglobalization?
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 Pine
How much will the climate provisions in the IRA cost, and what will they achieve?
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. S
How did credit market interventions affect macroeconomies during COVID-19?
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 Podca
How did pandemic payments affect the US economy?
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
Will a strong dollar hurt emerging markets?
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
How bad will the economy get before inflation gets better?
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
What does more remote work mean for workers and the economy?
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 n
Introducing the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity
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
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