Macro Musings with David Beckworth

Kathryn Judge is the Harvey J. Goldschmid Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, the editor of the Journal of Financial Regulation, and an expert on financial markets, financial regulation, and regulatory architecture. Kathryn joins Macro Musings to discuss the CARES Act, the Fed's role and its limitations regarding COVID-19 relief efforts, and the political implications of relief effort performance.   Transcript for the episode can be found here.   Kathryn's Twitter: @ProfKateJudge Kathryn's Columbia profile: https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/kathryn-judge   Related Links:   Bonus segment with Kathryn: https://youtu.be/iFub37lpq2c   *The Design Flaw at the Heart of the CARES Act* by Kathryn Judge   https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathrynjudge/2020/04/20/the-design-flaw-at-the-heart-of-the-cares-act/#21495f0e6bed   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde is a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research affiliate with the Center for Economic Policy Research, and a returning guest to the podcast. Jesus specializes in macroeconomic modeling and economic history among other topics, and he joins Macro Musings to talk about COVID-19, central bank digital currency, and developments in the Eurozone. David and Jesus also discuss the history of central banks and the interacting public, how threatening inflation could become a useful tool for a central bank, and the value economic modeling could add to the epidemiological field.   Transcript for the episode can be found here.   Jesus’s UPenn profile: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/ Jesus’s NBER archive: https://www.nber.org/people/jesus_fernandez-villaverde   Related Links:   Bonus segment with Jesus: https://youtu.be/CA6y9LqjDwQ   *Estimating and Simulating a SIRD Model of COVID-19 for Many Countries, States, and Cities* by Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Charles Jones https://web.stanford.edu/~chadj/sird-paper.pdf   *Central Bank Digital Currency: Central Banking For All?* by Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, Daniel Sanches, Linda Schilling, & Harald Uhlig https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/central-bank-digital-currency-central-banking-for-all/   *Central Bank Digital Currency in a Nominal World* by Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, Daniel Sanches, Linda Schilling, & Harald Uhlig https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/CBDC_Nominal.pdf   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

George Selgin is the Director of the Cato Institute Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives and a returning guest to Macro Musings. He joins David to break down recent policy actions by the Federal Reserve and some of the resulting challenges, as they break down the Treasury’s recent $454 billion backstop on Federal Reserve lending, the complex array of new Fed lending facilities in response to COVID-19, and the Fed’s evolving role in the global economy.   The transcript for the episode can be found here.   George’s Twitter: @GeorgeSelgin George’s Cato profile: https://www.cato.org/people/george-selgin   Related Links:   Bonus segment with George: https://youtu.be/Q73pWOeldf4   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Mehrsa Baradaran is a professor of law at the University of California Irvine and researches banking law, financial inclusion, inequality, and the racial wealth gap. Her scholarship includes the books, *How the Other Half Banks* and *The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap.* Mehrsa joins Macro Musings to talk about the impact of COVID-19 and how existing wealth conditions and financial access challenges are exacerbating the crisis. David and Mehrsa also discuss the historical context for the racial wealth gap, why banking deserts are so consequential, and how a postal savings system may be a solution to the financial inclusion problem.   Transcripts for the episode can be found here.   Mehrsa’s Twitter: @MehrsaBaradaran Mehrsa’s UCI profile: https://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/baradaran/   Related Links:   Link to bonus segment with Mehrsa: https://youtu.be/AcH3c89ZtKY   *How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy* by Mehrsa Baradaran https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674983960   *The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap* by Mehrsa Baradaran https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674237476   *The U.S. Should Just Send Checks – But Won’t* by Mehrsa Baradaran https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/the-us-should-just-write-checksbut-wont/609637/   *Rethinking Financial Inclusion: Designing an Equitable Financial System with Public Policy* by Mehrsa Baradaran https://rooseveltinstitute.org/rethinking-financial-inclusion-equitable-financial-system-public-policy/   *The Coronavirus Will Be a Catastrophe for the Poor* by Derek Thompson https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-will-supercharge-american-inequality/608419/   Link to Aaron Klein Macro Musings episode: https://macromusings.libsyn.com/aaron-klein-on-real-time-payments-and-financial-regulation   Link to *Mapping Inequality* from the Digital Scholar Lab at the University of Richmond: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=5/40.464/-94.592   JPMorgan Research: *Racial Gaps in Financial Outcomes* https://institute.jpmorganchase.com/institute/research/household-income-spending/report-racial-gaps-in-financial-outcomes#finding-1   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Nicholas Bloom is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a leading scholar on management, productivity, innovation and economic uncertainty. Nick is a previous guest of Macro Musings and returns to share his thoughts on COVID-19 and what it means for the US economy, both in the short-run and in the long-run. David and Nick also discuss the impact of the virus on the future of urban living, on the economics profession as a whole, and who will bear the biggest brunt of these impacts.   Transcript for the episode can be found here.   Nick’s NBER archive: https://www.nber.org/people/nick_bloom Nick’s Stanford profile: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/faculty/nicholas-bloom   Related Links:   Bonus segment with Nick: https://youtu.be/q2M0TLwV_Xw   *COVID-Induced Economic Uncertainty* by Scott R. Baker, Nicholas Bloom, Steven J. Davis, and Stephen J. Terry. https://www.nber.org/papers/w26983   *U.S. Economic Activity During the Early Weeks of the SARS-Cov-2 Outbreak* by Daniel J. Lewis, Karel Mertens, and Jim Stock. https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr920   *Depression Babies: Do Macroeconomic Experiences Affect Risk-Taking?* by Ulrike Malmendier and Stefan Nagel. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1369049   *Managing with Style* by Marianne Bertrand and Antoinette Schoar. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=376880   *Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?* by Nicholas Bloom, Charles I. Jones, John Van Reenen, and Michael Webb. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3039019   *Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment* by Nicholas A. Bloom, James Liang, John Roberts, Zhichun Jenny Ying https://nbloom.people.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj4746/f/wfh.pdf   *How Many Jobs Can be Done at Home?* by Jonathan I. Dingel and Brent Neiman. https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_White-Paper_Dingel_Neiman_3.2020.pdf   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Brad Setser is a senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he works on macroeconomics, global capital flows, and financial crisis issues. Brad has previously served as the deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury, working on Europe’s financial crisis, currency policy, financial sanctions, commodity shocks, and Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, and was the director for international economics on the staff of the National Economic Council and the National Security Council. As a returning guest to the show, Brad joins Macro Musings once again to discuss dollars swap lines and other solutions to the global dollar shortage, the recent implications of COVID-19 on global trade imbalances, and how China should respond to the effects of this crisis.   Transcript for the episode can be found here.   Brad’s Twitter: @Brad_Setser Brad’s CFR profile: https://www.cfr.org/expert/brad-w-setser   Related Links:   Bonus segment with Brad Setser: https://youtu.be/YsdynQgWHFg   *Addressing the Global Dollar Shortage: More Swap Lines? A New Repo Facility for Central Banks? More IMF Lending?* by Brad Setser https://www.cfr.org/blog/addressing-global-dollar-shortage-more-swap-lines-new-fed-repo-facility-central-banks-more-imf   *Why the Dollar Crunch is (mostly) a Rich World Problem* by Claire Jones https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/03/24/1585041854000/Why-the-dollar-crunch-is--mostly--a-rich-world-problem/   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics at George Mason University and a research fellow at the Mercatus Center. Alex joins David Beckworth on the podcast to discuss how best to deal with COVID-19 and what lessons we can learn from it moving forward.     Transcript for the episode can be found here.   Alex’s Twitter: @ATabarrok Alex’s GMU profile: https://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/   Related Links:   Bonus segment with Tabarrok: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQUnnumgXvw&feature=youtu.be   *Pandemic Policy in Developing Countries: Recommendations for India* by Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok https://www.mercatus.org/publications/covid-19-policy-brief-series/pandemic-policy-developing-countries-recommendations-india   Chad Brown’s PIIE archive, which include a series of articles related to COVID-19 and its impact on trade: https://www.piie.com/experts/senior-research-staff/chad-p-bown   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Ashoka Mody is a professor of international economic policy at Princeton University, has formerly worked at the IMF and the World Bank, and is a returning guest to Macro Musings. In this episode, he joins David to discuss the global economic implications of COVID-19 and what it specifically means for Europe and the Eurozone.   Transcript for the episode.   Ashoka’s Twitter: @AshokaMody Ashoka’s Princeton profile: https://scholar.princeton.edu/amody/home   Related Links:   Cover of Ashoka's new paperback book: https://i.imgur.com/1IYWBAk.jpg   Bonus segment with Ashoka Mody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZsAetHdzjA&feature=youtu.be   *Charting the Crisis* by Ashoka Mody http://econbrowser.com/archives/2020/03/guest-contribution-charting-this-crisis   *Euro Tragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts* by Ashoka Mody https://global.oup.com/academic/product/eurotragedy-9780199351381?cc=us&lang=en&   *Credit Booms Gone Bust: Monetary Policy, Leverage Cycles, and Financial Crises, 1870-2008* by Alan Taylor and Moritz Schularick https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.102.2.1029   *European Monetary Unification* by Barry Eichengreen https://www.jstor.org/stable/2728243?seq=1   *Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: Evidence from the 1918 Flu* by Sergio Correia, Stephan Luck, and Emil Verner https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Peter Conti-Brown – a legal scholar and financial historian at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a Nonresident Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution – returns to Macro Musings to discuss the new Fed-Treasury relationship that is emerging in the wake of the war against COVID-19. Peter and David breakdown the CARES Act, the aggressive and extensive policies recently taken by the Fed, and the implications for monetary policy moving forward.   Transcript for the episode can be found here.   Peter’s Twitter: @PeterContiBrown Peter’s Brookings profile: https://www.brookings.edu/author/peter-conti-brown/ Peter’s Wharton profile: https://lgst.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/petercb/   Related Links:   *Explaining the New Fed-Treasury Emergency Fund* by Peter Conti-Brown https://www.brookings.edu/research/explaining-the-new-fed-treasury-emergency-fund/   *What’s the Fed Doing in Response to the COVID-19 Crisis? What More Could it Do?* by Jeffrey Cheng, Dave Skidmore, and David Wessel https://www.brookings.edu/research/fed-response-to-covid19/   *The Foreign Affairs of the Federal Reserve* by Peter Conti-Brown and David Zaring https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3169870   *Longer-Run Economic Consequences of Pandemics* by Oscar Jorda, Sanjay Singh, and Alan Taylor https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/files/wp2020-09.pdf   Bonus segment featuring Peter Conti-Brown: https://youtu.be/GJF2RlQ8po4   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Skanda Amarnath is the Director of Research and Analysis at Employ America, Yakov Feygin is the Associate Director of the Future of Capitalism program at the Berggruen Institute, and Elizabeth Pancotti is a research assistant at the National Bureau of Economic Research and at Tufts University. Together, they have put together proposals on how to better address the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis at the state and local level. They join Macro Musings today to discuss these proposals, a municipal bond market and expanded unemployment insurance, as well as what it all means for making the US economy more of an optimal currency area.   Transcript for the episode can be found here.   Skanda’s Twitter: @IrvingSwisher Skanda’s Medium profile: https://medium.com/@skanda_97974   Yakov’s Twitter: @BuddyYakov Yakov’s Berggruen Institute profile: https://www.berggruen.org/people/yakov-feygin/   Elizabeth’s Twitter: @ENPancotti Elizabeth’s website: https://sites.google.com/view/elizabethpancotti/home   Related Links:   *The Fed Can and Should Support State Government Efforts to Respond to COVID-19 Right Now* by Skanda Amarnath and Yakov Feygin https://medium.com/@skanda_97974/the-fed-can-and-should-support-state-government-efforts-to-respond-to-covid-19-right-now-5e5ecf7b7ed8   *Unemployment Benefit Expansions: A Guide for Policy Responses in the Wake of COVID-19* by Elizabether Pancotti https://medium.com/@employamerica/unemployment-benefit-expansions-a-guide-for-policy-responses-in-the-wake-of-covid-19-ec3da6e8701   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth