Ft Alphachat

The United States may not have an infrastructure crisis. It may in fact have too much infrastructure. And what does that word "infrastructure" even mean, anyway? We talk about the history internal improvements, public works, and the power of a group that called itself The League of American Wheelmen.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Armon Rezai of the Vienna University of Economics and Business and Lint Barrage of Brown University talk to Colby and Mark about how climate change will affect home values and retirement portfolios — you know, middle-class wealth.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Adam Tooze, economic historian and author of Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World, joins the FT’s Brendan Greeley and Brown University’s Mark Blyth to discuss how our politics got us to where we are today, why our ideas about how the economy works may not be fit for purpose, and the key role that China played during the Great Recession and continues to play today. They also discuss the central importance of global capital flows for understanding our world and why global liquidity may be much more fragile than we like to think.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The 2017 tax cut in the US included a provision that would forgive capital gains taxes, if invested for ten years in an "opportunity zone" — a low-income area designated by a state governor. But the idea of encouraging investments in poor and mostly black areas has a long history. We talk to Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor at the University of Georgia and Andrew Schrank, a sociologist at Brown University.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Author of the standard textbook on macroeconomics, former head of research for the International Monetary Fund, currently at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Olivier Blanchard works in the place where economists and politicians attempt to talk to each other. He talked to us about how the financial crisis changed his thinking on models, why state debt isn’t always and everywhere a bad thing and why the best forecasts in the future might come from artificial intelligence.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The economist and president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics joins FT Alphaville’s Colby Smith and Brown University’s Mark Blyth to discuss the politicking of central banking, the hurdles to finding a US-China trade war resolution and how China can manage the financial risks building in its economy. They also touch on the enduring power of the dollar and US markets. Colby Smith is a writer for FT Alphaville and Mark Blyth is the director of the William Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance at the Watson Institute at Brown University.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A bonus episode from the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Atlanta this past weekend. Brendan Greeley caught up with Yale economist and Nobel laureate Robert Shiller, who argues that if you want to understand markets you have to understand stories — how they start and how they spread. They talked about the stories driving share prices down in December, about Jim Cramer and about the narrative power of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Economists like to talk about the "slack" in the labour market. But how can we measure it, and what does it mean? The FT's Brendan Greeley hosts with guests Megan Greene, chief economist at Manulife Asset Management, Ioana Marinescu, economist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Mark Blyth, director of the William Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance at the Watson Institute at Brown University.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The economist and University College London professor joins Alphaville's Jemima Kelly to discuss the question of value: who creates it and who makes use of it. She also lays out her argument for a rethinking of the relationship between markets and governments. It's the subject of her recent book, The value of everything: making and taking in the global economy.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Economist Gary Loveman was teaching at Harvard Business School when he went to consult for the Harrah's casino chain in Las Vegas in the late 1990s. Despite knowing nothing about gambling, his insights on customer loyalty earned him a promotion to the chief executive job at the casino group. He took a company that traded at $14 a share and a decade later sold it to private equity for $90 a share. Gary Loveman talks to the FT's Sujeet Indap about how data science is helping executives draw in customers across industries. Music by Podington Bear.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Academic and practicing capitalist Bill Janeway talks to the FT's Jamie Powell about the way government used to drive innovation, and his idea of the "three-player game" between government, capital and industry. Music by Podington Bear.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Alphachat is back, and with a new host, Brendan Greeley. Brendan is the new US editor of Alphaville, and in this episode, he talks to MIT economics professor David Autor about what economics got wrong about trade, how the profession is fixing itself and why policy is still catching up. Music by Podington Bear.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Alphachat is going on a brief hiatus. When we come back in a few weeks we're going to have some great new interviews. But before we take this short break, we wanted to share a new FT podcast called Behind The Money. Each week host (and Alphachat producer) Aimee Keane will take you inside the big business and financial stories of the moment, with the help of other FT reporters. You can subscribe to Behind The Money on all of the usual podcast platforms.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The economist and former deputy governor of the Bank of England joins the FT's John Authers to debate the power of government agencies and the unelected officials leading them, including those at the helm of institutions like the Federal Reserve. It's the subject of his recent book, Unelected Power: The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State. Music by Podington Bear.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this encore episode, Dan Drezner, writer and professor of international politics, discusses his book, "The Ideas Industry: how pessimists, partisans and plutocrats are transforming the marketplace of ideas" with former host Cardiff Garcia. They also talk about the global populist wave, identity-based politics, and how to resist the temptation to say yes to everything. This episode was originally published on September 29, 2017.Music by Podington Bear.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The former chief restructuring officer of the US joins Lex's Sujeet Indap to talk about the financialisation of American businesses, the causes of the 2008 crisis and the outcomes of the government response and reforms. Music by Podington Bear.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Physicist Geoffrey West joins FT Alphaville's Izabella Kaminska to discuss his work on a universal theory of growth - or scaling - that extends beyond human lifespans to encompass the sustainability of corporations, cities and more, as detailed in his latest book "Scale". Music by Podington Bear.This episode was originally published on June 9, 2017.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Economist Alice Rivlin discusses her storied Washington career, from roles in three different presidential administrations, to director of the Congressional Budget Office, Vice-Chair of the Federal Reserve and to her current post at the Brookings Institution. This episode was originally published on May 26, 2017. Music by Podington Bear.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Economist and award-winning author Benn Steil talks to Matt Klein about the history of the post-World War II European recovery plan, implemented by then secretary of state George C Marshall as a means of defending against communist authoritarianism. It's the subject of Steil's new book, The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War. Music by Podington Bear.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Economist Andrew Lo talks to the FT's John Authers about his adaptive markets hypothesis, the idea that markets develop and adapt over time and should be modelled using concepts from biology instead of physics. It's the subject of his recent book, Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought. This interview was originally published on March 24, 2017. Music by Podington Bear.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.