Money & Macro Talks

Interview with FT Alphaville editor Robin Wigglesworth about his new book: A Fabulous Debt: How Bonds Built the Modern World.

In Sweden, Norway and Finland, women have more freedom and opportunity than almost anywhere else on Earth. Yet these are also the places where fewer women choose to study engineering or computer science. Economists and psychologists call this the gender-equality paradox, and it is one of the most hotly debated findings in social science. In this episode, I talk to Manuel Bagues, Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick, about his new research with Natalia Zinovyeva. Their answer starts somewhere unexpected: the playground and the extra-school activities, which are usually highly gender-segregated.

Interview with Ilyaz Nasrullah (computer scientist & columnist) about his new book. The book in Dutch can be found here: https://www.nieuwezijds.nl/boek/dit-is-ai/ Research mentioned in the conversation: https://fion.ac/jellyfish.pdf & https://youtu.be/kopoLzvh5jY?si=AHDAGAFmSk5K004B

In just a couple of years, South Korea turned from one of the world's largest defense importers to exports. In this interview, Korean expert HG Hong (Platoon Magazine) explains why.

Big Tech has never been bigger. Google, Amazon and Metaserve more customers and earn bigger profits every year, and AI companies are claiming a growing share of the stock market. For many, that's a warning sign: the bigger these firms get, the harder they are to challenge, and the easier itbecomes to charge more and deliver less without losing customers. It's the opposite of how competitive markets are supposed to work, and the reason calls to revive antitrust enforcement keep growing louder. But is market power really on the rise? And are monopoliespart of why everything feels so expensive? In this episode, Alejandro talks with Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the International Center for Law & Economics, about what the data actually says on markups, competition and corporate power, and why economists disagree so sharply about it.

Why have fertility rates collapsed in the past decades? Is there anything governments can do to reverse this situation? In this episode, we review the leading explanations for long-run demographic change, the role of smartphones, and the evidence for and against different policies aimed at boosting birth rates at the national level.

Frank Braconi is one of the few economists willing to argue that rent control, properly designed, can work. But what does "properly designed" mean? When should it be used, where, and how? We discuss San Francisco's decontrol-recontrol model and whether it can blunt the harms of gentrification.

As China's star rises, people like Ray Dalio think we may see the emergence of a new tribute system. In this podcast, I discuss with tribute system expert Dr. Dave Kang what the tribute system actually was and whether or not we can anticipate seeing it return.

Prime downtown land sits empty while cities run out of housing. Tax buildings and you punish building; tax land and you punish sitting on it. In this episode, Lars Doucet, author of Land is a Big Deal, discusses the history and relevance of land value taxes to prevent land speculation and address the housing affordability crisis.

What does sixty years of evidence actually say about rent control? Konstantin Kholodilin (DIW Berlin) read 112 empirical studies to find out. We go through the results.

Fertility rates are falling in the Europe and the US, but also in places China, Tunisia and Colombia. What can explain this global trend, and what are the political and economic consequences of low birth rates societies? In this episode, we bring FT chief data reporter John Burn-Murdoch to make sense about these trends.

https://unanchoredcentralbanker.com/

What do we mean when we label economics a a science? Can social sciences ever develop a paradigm? In this interview, psychologist Adam Mastroianni discusses the state of psychology as a science and how paradigms improve scientific progress.

This is an update to my conversation with Gulf economy expert Prof. Steffen Hertog. We are already five months into the Iran war now: How much longer will the strait of Hormuz remain closed? and what could that mean for the Gulf countries?

Takuji Aida, advisor to prime minister Sanae Takaichi, explains Sanaenomics.

Is inequality harmful, or should economist focus more on absolute poverty? In this interview, prof. Morten Nyborg presents inequality as an externality and discusses the different policy tools to reduce it.

In this episode, I sat down with Professor Keen to ask him about his views on inflation, public debt, and how governments should respond to global shocks.

Wealth taxes are the key policy proposal to prevent wealth from concentrating at the top, and they're now being discussed in both the US and the UK. In this episode, we dig into the recent Norwegian experience with wealth taxation. How big was the response from the wealthy? Did the tax raise enough revenue to compensate for the capital flight? And what are the lessons for other countries considering a wealth tax of their own?

ECB Director general economics on how Europe's economies are responding to the Hormuz energy shock. Publications mentioned by Oscar below: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2026/html/ecb.blog20260603~3015f38292.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2025/html/ecb.blog20250508~897078ce87.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2026/html/ecb.blog20260309~3a4841b028.en.html

This is the first part of our interview with prof. Keen, where we talk about the economic consequences of the Iran war and what to expect after the reopening of the strait of Hormuz.