Podcast
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
Hosted by Mercatus Center at George Mason University · EN
Hosted by David Beckworth of the Mercatus Center, Macro Musings pulls back the curtain on the important macroeconomic issues of the past, present, and future.
33episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Bryan Cutsinger, Peter Ireland, and Will Luther on Lessons Learned from the Fed Framework Review
1w ago01:03:46Tap to summarizeBryan Cutsinger is an assistant professor of economics at the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University. Peter Ireland is a professor of Economics at Boston College. Will Luther is an associate professor of economics at the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University and is the director of the American Institute for Economic Research's Sound Money Project. Bryan, Peter, and Will return to the show to discuss the big takeaways from the 2025 Fed framework review, the flip flopping of FIT to FAIT back to FIT, the biggest lessons from the 2020 Fed framework review, the case for NGDP targeting at the Fed, hope for future reviews, and much more. Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on May 6th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus Follow David on X: @DavidBeckworth Follow Bryan X: @BryanPCutsinger Follow Peter X: @PIrelandecon Follow Will X: @WilliamJLuther Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings Check out our Macro Musings merch! Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:51 - Origins of Bryan, Will, and Peter's Paper 00:03:40 - Big Takeaways 00:06:14 - The Fed's 2020 Framework Review 00:12:43 - Lessons Learned from 2020 Review 00:14:38 - Nominal GDP Targeting and Productivity Shocks 00:26:59 - Reviewing the Fed's 2025 Framework Review 00:57:20 - Hopes for the Future 01:03:06 - Outro
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Brendan Greeley on the 500 Year History of the Dollar
2w ago01:02:40Tap to summarizeBrendan Greeley is a veteran journalist from the Financial Times and current PhD student at Princeton studying monetary history. In Brendan's first appearance on the show, he discusses why he went for a PhD after being a journalist for 20 years, why the dollar's history goes far beyond America's founding, when America actually achieved a currency union, the untold origins of the dollar, how Herbert and Lou Hoover's date nights played a role in the history of the dollar, the crucial importance of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz in understanding the dollar's history, the happy accident of Eurodollars, what the future of dollars looks like, and much more. Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on May 4th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus Follow David on X: @DavidBeckworth Follow Brendan X: @BHGreeley Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings Check out our Macro Musings merch! Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:12 - Brendan's Career 00:06:27 - How Old Is the Dollar? 00:25:24 - Where Did the Dollar Start? 00:38:11 - The Modern Dollar 00:57:08 - Future of the Dollar 01:01:59 - Outro
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David Zaring on Skinny Charters and the Future of Banking
3w ago00:55:50Tap to summarizeDavid Zaring is legal scholar and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In David's first appearance on the show, he discusses the role the Great Financial Crisis played in FinReg scholarship, how he came up with the term "skinny" in the new skinny Fed master accounts, the tumultuous road of Custodia vs. the Fed, a reimagined way to look at federal bank charters, whether commerce and banking are actually still separate, Fed independence and how it functions in a more corporatist model, and much more. Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on April 24th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth Follow David Zaring X: @ZaringDavid Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings Check out our Macro Musings merch! Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:04 - The Great Financial Crisis and FinReg Scholarship 00:04:58 - David's Experience with Fintech Charter Litigation 00:17:18 - Skinny Charters 00:37:16 - How to Govern the Fed 00:55:10 - Outro
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Bill Beach on the Future of United States' Economic Statistics and Fiscal Position
4w ago00:52:53Tap to summarizeBill Beach is the former commissioner of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the current executive director of the Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill. In Bill's first appearance on the show he discusses a career in and around public service, the important niche his new organization fills, the frightening fiscal outlook of the United States, exactly how long we have before Social Security runs out, why he believes it will take lots of small changes instead of a big one to fix our fiscal outlook, the important role of the BLS, why our statistical methods needs reform, the most underrated economic statistical indicators, and much more. Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on April 15th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth Follow Bill Beach X: @BeachWW453 Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings Check out our Macro Musings merch! Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:25 - Bill's Career 00:10:11 - Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill 00:17:23 - Fiscal Challenges of the United States 00:30:05 - Surveys from Bureau of Labor Statistics 00:43:12 - Challenges to Survey Work 00:52:13 - Outro
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Tyler Goodspeed on Challenging the Way Economists Look at Recessions
May 1101:01:06Tap to summarizeTyler Goodspeed is the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors and is currently a chief economist in the private sector. In Tyler's first appearance on the podcast he discusses his new book highlighting a different way of looking at recessions, the challenge of breaking away from the human inclination of ascribing patterns to random phenomena, whether recessions are more Dorian Gray or Peter Pan, what history and stories like Jay Cooke tell us about recessions, how to evaluate supply side shocks and the 2008 Financial Crisis, why Milton Friedman's Plucking model might be the best we have at modeling recessions, and much more. Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on April 15th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings Check out our Macro Musings merch! Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:43 - Recessions 00:07:07 - Epiphanies or Apophanies 00:26:40 - Peter Pan vs. Dorian Gray 00:33:40 - Jay Cooke and the Railroad 00:39:00 - Models of Recessions 00:47:55 - Supply Shocks 00:50:12 - Recessions in Different Places 01:00:25 - Outro
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Peter Conti-Brown and David Beckworth on All Things Financial Regulation
May 400:54:56Tap to summarizeRecorded live in front of the Wharton Financial Regulation Conference, former guest Peter Conti-Brown joins David Beckworth as a Macro Musings co-host on this week's episode. Peter and David discuss the inflection point of 2008 in FinReg scholarship, how Macro Musings has become just as much a show about financial regulation as about macro, what to make of the Trump administrations changes to bank supervision, whether we should be enthusiastic about the GENIUS Act and digital assets, the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the crisis that could become Claude Mythos, why networks and Substacks are becoming more important, and much more. Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on April 10th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings Check out our Macro Musings merch! Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:29 - History of Financial Regulation 00:04:23 - Monetary Policy vs. Financial Regulation 00:07:48 - Bank Supervision 00:11:59 - Digital Assets 00:22:48 - Claude Mythos and Banking 00:30:35 - The Market Argument for the Discount Window 00:35:44 - Academia vs. Real-World Impact 00:40:28 - Audience Q&A 00:54:16 - Outro
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Basil Halperin on Macroeconomic Policy in an Age of Transformative AI
Apr 2700:56:21Tap to summarizeBasil Halperin is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia. In Basil's first appearance on the show he discusses the famous but flawed Citrini essay, why Silicon Valley's growth expectations aren't showing up yet in interest rates, the impact of Less Than Zero by George Selgin, what the true frictions in the economy are, the differences between Calvo and menu-cost pricing, the impact of transformational AI on emerging economies and the housing market, and much more. Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on March 27th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth Follow Basil Halperin on X: @BasilHalperin Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings Check out our Macro Musings merch! Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:20 - Global Intelligence Crisis 00:07:04 - Transformative AI and Interest Rates 00:21:05 - Optimal Monetary Policy Under Menu Costs 00:48:13 - Transformative AI and its Macro Implications 00:55:41 - Outro
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Rich Clarida on Navigating Monetary Policy in Choppy Waters
Apr 2000:52:16Tap to summarizeRich Clarida was the vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and is currently a professor of economics at Columbia University and a managing director at PIMCO. Rich returns to the program to discuss whether we give the Fed too little credit for its soft landing, the problem of persistent inflation, how the Fed should respond to rapidly succeeding negative supply shocks, the case for nominal GDP, the state of the Fed's balance sheet, why a synthetic FOMC could help the real FOMC, and much more. Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on March 31st, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings Check out our Macro Musings merch! Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:03:59 - Persistent Inflation 00:11:14 - Inflation Expectations 00:18:34 - Responding to Negative Supply Shocks 00:29:38 - Nominal GDP 00:34:59 - Fed's Balance Sheet 00:45:20 - Synthetic FOMCs 00:51:36 - Outro
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Kris Mitchener on What Actually Anchors the Price Level
Apr 1300:56:02Tap to summarizeKris Mitchener is a professor of economics at Santa Clara University and is an economic and monetary historian. In Kris's first appearance on the show, he discusses how he fell in love with building data sets out of old dusty archives, the origins and fall of bimetallism, the pros and cons of the gold standard, the problem of operating losses on the Fed's balance sheet, what truly anchors the price level, and much more. Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on March 4th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings Check out our Macro Musings merch! Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:33 - Kris' Career Path 00:06:32 - What Is Bimetallism? 00:14:41 - The Gold Standard 00:28:55 - Disinflation Policies and Central Bank Finances 00:49:25 - What Anchors the Price Level 00:55:22 - Outro
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Steve Kamin and Mark Sobel on the Outlook of Dollar Dominance
Apr 601:01:20Tap to summarizeSteve Kamin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and was previously the director of the Division of International Finance at the Federal Reserve Board. Mark Sobel is the US chairman of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum and is a veteran of the US Department of Treasury. Steve and Mark return to the show to discuss the status of dollar dominance, the future threats to dollar dominance, the role or lack thereof that stablecoins will play in dollar dominance, the new findings in the Treasury Foreign Exchange Report, the current state of tariffs, whether we are in a second China shock, and much more. Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on March 5th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth Follow Steve Kamin on X: @Steven_Kamin Follow Mark Sobel on X: @Sobel_Mark Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings Check out our Macro Musings merch! Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:26 - Termites Eating Away at Dollar Dominance 00:16:52 - Future Threats to Dollar Dominance 00:19:47 - Stablecoins and Dollar Dominance 00:33:40 - Treasury Foreign Exchange Report 00:44:28 - Tariff Policy 00:53:25 - Second China Shock? 01:00:38 - Outro
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