Jon Hartley and Federal Reserve Governor Adriana Kugler discuss the stance of monetary policy, the Federal Reserve balance sheet, the natural rate of interest (r-star), inflation, labor markets, productivity, entrepreneurship, the US economy, and the recent growth in Miami.

Recorded on February 7, 2025.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Dr. Adriana D. Kugler took office as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on September 13, 2023, to fill an unexpired term ending January 31, 2026.

Prior to her appointment on the Board, Dr. Kugler served as the U.S. Executive Director at the World Bank Group. She is on leave from Georgetown University where she is a professor of Public Policy and Economics and was vice provost for faculty.

Previously, she served as chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor from 2011 to 2013. Dr. Kugler was also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and of the Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University.

Dr. Kugler's other professional appointments include being the elected chair of the Business and Economics Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association. She was also a member of the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy of the National Academies of Sciences and served on the Technical Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Dr. Kugler received a BA in economics and political science from McGill University and a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jon Hartley is the host of the Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century Podcast at the Hoover Institution and an economics PhD Candidate at Stanford University, where he specializes in finance, labor economics, and macroeconomics. He is also currently an Affiliated Scholar at the Mercatus Center, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), and a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Jon is also a member of the Canadian Group of Economists, and serves as chair of the Economic Club of Miami.

Jon has previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as well as in various policy roles at the World Bank, IMF, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, US Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Bank of Canada. 

Jon has also been a regular economics contributor for National Review Online, Forbes, and The Huffington Post and has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star among other outlets. Jon has also appeared on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, and NBC, and was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policy list, the 2017 Wharton 40 Under 40 list, and was previously a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.

ABOUT THE SERIES:

Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics.

For more information, visit: capitalismandfreedom.substack.com/