
EconoFact Chats
Podcast by EconoFact Chats
Latest episodes

Feb 18, 2024 • 24min
Supporting Children and Their Families
The Supplemental Poverty Measure put the 2022 U.S. child poverty rate at 12%, more than double the 5% rate in 2021. Child poverty is especially high for families with children under 5, children in single-mother households, children of color, and children in immigrant families. Even families who are not poor face financial burdens and difficulties, especially with respect to securing good, safe, and reliable childcare. The Annie E. Casey Foundation has been at the forefront of documenting the challenges facing children and their families, and suggesting policies to alleviate these problems. Lisa Hamilton, the President and CEO of the Foundation joins EconoFact Chats to discuss their research on these issues and the policies they advocate to support families with children.
Lisa became the President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation in 2019 after serving in a variety of other roles there, including Chief Program Officer and Vice President of External Affairs.

Feb 11, 2024 • 32min
Larry Summers on Today’s Economic Challenges
The world is facing a 'poly-crisis' of interconnected economic, environmental, geo-political, and governance challenges. Lawrence Summers is particularly well placed to discuss these issues, given his wide experience in government, and the impact his research has had on economics. In a wide-ranging discussion, Larry discusses the unprecedented fall in world poverty over the past half-century, the role of America in fostering a well-functioning rules-based global system, the current experience with inflation, policies to address inequality, and the role of economists in policy making.
Larry is a University Professor at Harvard University. He has served as the Director of the National Economic Council, the Secretary of the Treasury, Chief Economist at the World Bank, President of Harvard University, and Managing Partner at D.E. Shaw.

Feb 4, 2024 • 25min
Are Past Anti-Trust Approaches Appropriate Today?
Are policies from over a century ago that addressed concerns about large trusts like Standard Oil and the American Tobacco Company appropriate today? Or does the source of the market power of high-tech companies like Meta and Alphabet require a new paradigm? Naomi Lamoreaux joins EconoFact Chats to discuss the historical shifts in anti-trust policy from the late 19th and early 20th century to today, and the ongoing tension between rewarding innovation and curtailing anticompetitive activities.
Naomi is a senior research scholar at the University of Michigan Law School, and the Stanley B. Resor Professor Emeritus of Economics, and Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University.

Jan 28, 2024 • 33min
Performance, Perceptions, and Prospects for the U.S. Economy
The United States economy surprised many in 2023 with its low inflation, high employment, and strong economic growth. In spite of this, American consumer sentiment had been relatively negative until recently, but now has begun to improve in line with this good performance.
Binyamin Appelbaum of The New York Times, Scott Horsley of NPR, Greg Ip of The Wall Street Journal, and Heather Long of The Washington Post join EconoFact Chats to discuss the sources of the good economic performance, the disconnect with consumer sentiment, some reasons for continued economic optimism, as well as key risks going into 2024.

Jan 14, 2024 • 0sec
Historical Roots of Economic Disparities for African-Americans (Re-broadcast)
Distrust is based on experience – and there are many historical experiences that give rise to distrust among African-Americans of economic institutions in the United States, including the laws of the Jim Crow era and discrimination in hiring, lending, and access to education and health care. Trevon Logan discusses historical experiences, and the long shadow cast by them, in this EconoFact Chats episode. Part of this discussion centers on the Green Book, published annually between 1936 and 1966, that offered guidance to Black travelers about public accommodations like restaurants and motels that they could patronize. Trevon’s research analyzes how the locations of establishments listed in the Green Book correlate with the presence of anti-discriminatory laws, the educational and racial profiles of towns and cities, and the history of overt racist acts like lynchings in those places.
Trevon is a Hazel C. Youngberg Trustees Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Ohio State University. He is also the inaugural director of the National Bureau of Economic Research Working Group on Race and Stratification in the Economy.
Note: This podcast was first published on 18th September, 2022.

Jan 7, 2024 • 26min
Weathering: How Ongoing Stress Harms Black and Poor Americans (Re-broadcast)
For many Americans, episodes of stress are often temporary. But for marginalized communities -- especially black people, and those living in poverty, stress is, too often, an ongoing part of life. And this has dire consequences on health and well-being. Our guest on EconoFact Chats this week, Arline Geronimus has done pioneering work in understanding the consequences of chronic stress, especially as it relates to maternal and infant health; contributing, counterintuitively, to poorer birth outcomes for babies born to older black mothers, as compared to those born to younger ones.
Arline is a Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan. She is also a member of the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academies of Science. Her newest book is “Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society.”
Note: This podcast was first published on 28th May, 2023.

Dec 24, 2023 • 24min
Careers, Families, and Women’s Journey towards Economic Equity (Re-broadcast)
About one-fifth of women who graduated from college between 1900 and 1920 were in the labor force in their mid to late twenties. In contrast, more than four-fifths of women graduating from college between 1980 and 2000 worked outside the home in their mid to late twenties. A flip side of this is the proportion of women married by age 30; 50% for those who graduated college between 1900 and 1920 and about 25% for those graduating between 1980 and 2000.
These statistics reflect choices that women have made and continue to make about balancing a career with raising children, and the choices that men have made and continue to make as well. On this episode of EconoFact Chats, Michael Klein speaks with Claudia Goldin of Harvard University about her recent book, Career and Family: Women's Century-Long Journey toward Equity, highlighting a wealth of statistics and examining cultural shifts shaping these choices.
Claudia is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University. She is a former President of the American Economic Association, and co-directs the National Bureau of Economic Research's Gender in the Economy Study Group.
Note: This podcast was first published on 29th January, 2023.

Dec 17, 2023 • 28min
Recent Trends in U.S. Debt
The federal government’s debt is just under 100 percent of GDP – and it is projected to grow to 115 percent of GDP in a decade, and 180 percent of GDP in thirty years. Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics, discusses the reasons debt increased significantly before the pandemic, its dramatic rise since then, and its expected further increase. He also explains how high debt adversely affects people’s living standards as well as the ability of the government to respond to both ongoing needs and future economic crises. He offers some proposals for dealing with the debt, including a carbon tax, raising the payroll tax on high-income individuals, and establishing a bipartisan commission to address the country’s fiscal challenges.
Along with his role as Chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics, Mark also serves on the Board of Directors of MGIC, the nations largest private mortgage insurance company and is the lead director of the Reinvestment Fund, one of the nation’s largest community development financial institutions that makes investments in underserved communities.

Dec 10, 2023 • 23min
What Makes for a Zero-sum Mindset?
Zero-sum thinking - the belief that gains for some necessarily come at the expense of others - can shape support for economic redistribution, race- and gender-based affirmative action, and immigration policies. Drawing on new survey data, Stefanie Stantcheva joins EconoFact Chats to discuss her research on what determines whether people view the world as zero sum.
Her analysis demonstrates that viewing the world in zero-sum terms is not a left vs. right issue. Rather factors such as people’s ancestry, where they live, with whom they interact, and their generation influence their views on this point – and, through this, their views on a range of economic and social policies.
Stefanie is the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard, and the founder of the Social Economics Lab.

Dec 3, 2023 • 23min
Working From Home Post-COVID
Working from home was relatively rare before COVID. It became a necessity as the pandemic raged. Today, it remains more common and, to some extent, a choice. But is it a choice that both workers and employers agree upon? More than three years after the start of the pandemic, what do we know about the preferences for working from home for employees, and for employers? What do we know about its effects on productivity, and job satisfaction? Drawing on data from the latest Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, Nicholas Bloom joins EconoFact Chats to explore these questions.
A co-founder at the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, Nick is a Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and Co-Director of the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at the National Bureau of Economic Research.