Money & Macro Talks

How do the wealthiest people get so rich? Did they inherit it? Earn it? Save more than everyone else? Or simply invest better?Our guest, Joachim Hubmer, co-authored “Why Are the Wealthiest So Wealthy?”, a paper that uses Norway’s detailed tax records to weigh these pathways against each other. We talk about how much of top wealth comes from inheritance, earnings, saving and returns, and what really separates old money from new money.

Interview with FT Alphaville editor Robin Wigglesworth about his new book: A Fabulous Debt: How Bonds Built the Modern World.

In Sweden, Norway and Finland, women have more freedom and opportunity than almost anywhere else on Earth. Yet these are also the places where fewer women choose to study engineering or computer science. Economists and psychologists call this the gender-equality paradox, and it is one of the most hotly debated findings in social science.In this episode, I talk to Manuel Bagues, Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick, about his new research with Natalia Zinovyeva. Their answer starts somewhere unexpected: the playground and the extra-school activities, which are usually highly gender-segregated.

Interview with Ilyaz Nasrullah (computer scientist & columnist) about his new book. The book in Dutch can be found here: https://www.nieuwezijds.nl/boek/dit-is-ai/Research mentioned in the conversation: https://fion.ac/jellyfish.pdf & https://youtu.be/kopoLzvh5jY?si=AHDAGAFmSk5K004B

In just a couple of years, South Korea turned from one of the world's largest defense importers to exports. In this interview, Korean expert HG Hong (Platoon Magazine) explains why.

Big Tech has never been bigger. Google, Amazon and Metaserve more customers and earn bigger profits every year, and AI companies are claiming a growing share of the stock market. For many, that's a warning sign: the bigger these firms get, the harder they are to challenge, and the easier itbecomes to charge more and deliver less without losing customers. It's the opposite of how competitive markets are supposed to work, and the reason calls to revive antitrust enforcement keep growing louder.But is market power really on the rise? And are monopoliespart of why everything feels so expensive? In this episode, Alejandro talks with Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the International Center for Law & Economics, about what the data actually says on markups, competition and corporate power, and why economists disagree so sharply about it.

Why have fertility rates collapsed in the past decades? Is there anything governments can do to reverse this situation? In this episode, we review the leading explanations for long-run demographic change, the role of smartphones, and the evidence for and against different policies aimed at boosting birth rates at the national level.

Frank Braconi is one of the few economists willing to argue that rent control, properly designed, can work. But what does "properly designed" mean? When should it be used, where, and how? We discuss San Francisco's decontrol-recontrol model and whether it can blunt the harms of gentrification.

As China's star rises, people like Ray Dalio think we may see the emergence of a new tribute system. In this podcast, I discuss with tribute system expert Dr. Dave Kang what the tribute system actually was and whether or not we can anticipate seeing it return.

Prime downtown land sits empty while cities run out of housing. Tax buildings and you punish building; tax land and you punish sitting on it. In this episode, Lars Doucet, author of Land is a Big Deal, discusses the history and relevance of land value taxes to prevent land speculation and address the housing affordability crisis.