Economics, Applied

Josh Lerner and Amit Seru sit down with Steven J. Davis to discuss their new study on the pace, character, and sources of China’s scientific and technological innovation. Drawing on millions of patents, Josh and Amit find that China’s innovation explosion is real, covers many critical technologies, and is based on homegrown talent. They also find that universities and small firms play greater roles in the innovation ecosystem in China than in the US. Josh, Amit, and Steve discuss the implications for US policy. ABOUT ECONOMICS, APPLIED Economics, Applied brings together top leaders and researchers to break down key economic developments, offering evidence-based insights and practical lessons for navigating today’s economy. Economic change is constant.

Steve Davis welcomes Mary Daly for a return appearance on Economics, Applied – this time directly from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. They discuss the Fed’s new communications regime, how the Fed should respond to demand overheating and inflationary supply shocks, and how Daly thinks about the implications of AI technologies for the conduct of monetary policy. Other topics include wage stickiness and whether the banking system is safe from cyber attacks.  ABOUT ECONOMICS, APPLIED Economics, Applied brings together top leaders and researchers to break down key economic developments, offering evidence-based insights and practical lessons for navigating today’s economy. Economic change is constant.

Steve Davis welcomes Harvard’s Wenxin Du to discuss her analysis of how to cost-effectively transfer funds across international borders. Perhaps surprisingly, the all-in costs of using stablecoins for small-amount transfers (less than $10,000) greatly exceed the cost of using fintech apps and sometimes exceed the cost of relying on commercial banks. Along the way, Wenxin’s analysis also highlights the consumer benefits of greater competition in the market for remittances and other cross-border payments.  ABOUT ECONOMICS, APPLIED Economics, Applied brings together top leaders and researchers to break down key economic developments, offering evidence-based insights and practical lessons for navigating today’s economy. Economic change is constant.

At the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, OECD chief economist Stefano Scarpetta joins Steven J. Davis to discuss how distributed ledger technology, stablecoins, and tokenization could make transactions more efficient and less expensive, while expanding access to financial markets. Scarpetta explains that for these technologies to perform successfully at scale, users need to have confidence in them and acquire financial and digital literacy to understand how they work. Scarpetta points to interoperability, open standards, data portability, consumer safeguards, and international cooperation as necessary conditions for capturing the benefits of these payment system innovations while minimizing their risks.  ABOUT ECONOMICS, APPLIED Economics, Applied brings together top leaders and researchers to break down key economic developments, offering evidence-based insights and practical lessons for navigating today’s economy. Economic change is constant.

ECB Executive Board Member Philip Lane joins Steven Davis at Jackson Hole to discuss AI’s impact on Euro-area economies, why Europe lags the United States in this area, the role of regulations and VC financing, and the challenges of integrating AI technologies into workflows and production pipelines.  ABOUT ECONOMICS, APPLIED Economics, Applied brings together top leaders and researchers to break down key economic developments, offering evidence-based insights and practical lessons for navigating today’s economy. Economic change is constant.

Ken Rogoff joins Steve Davis at Jackson Hole to discuss our limited understanding of real interest rates, the risks associated with high government debt levels, and what it all means for the conduct of fiscal policy. They also discuss how the external political environment and incentives within the economics profession can, and did, lead to imprudent advice about fiscal policy from leading professional economists. ABOUT ECONOMICS, APPLIED Economics, Applied brings together top leaders and researchers to break down key economic developments, offering evidence-based insights and practical lessons for navigating today’s economy. Economic change is constant.

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee joins Steve Davis to discuss his recent speech on how central banks should respond to supply shocks. Goolsbee argues that the Fed should not simply “look through” supply shocks but should instead treat them as persistent or recurring and, hence, as a call for tightening by the Fed. The discussion ranges widely from oil shocks and inflation in the 1970s to supply-chain disruptions and tariffs in the 2020s. They also discuss wage stickiness and its implications for monetary policy. ABOUT ECONOMICS, APPLIED Economics, Applied brings together top leaders and researchers to break down key economic developments, offering evidence-based insights and practical lessons for navigating today’s economy. Economic change is constant.

Steven Davis asks Anil Kashyap to unpack recent US interventions in the Treasury bond market and the Yen-Dollar FX market and whether they can meaningfully influence borrowing costs. They also examine fiscal pressures in the United States and Japan and what Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech signals for inflation, interest rates, and monetary policy. ABOUT ECONOMICS, APPLIED Economics, Applied brings together top leaders and researchers to break down key economic developments, offering evidence-based insights and practical lessons for navigating today’s economy. Economic change is constant.

How can we reap the benefits of financial innovation while ensuring a sound, trustworthy financial system? Steven Davis asks IMF head Kristalina Georgieva at Jackson Hole. Their conversation touches on tokenization, stablecoins, cross-border payments, and regulatory frameworks. Georgieva describes strong institutions as the fertile ground for dynamic and stable financial innovation as well as the foundations of sound monetary and fiscal policy, lessons from emerging economies, and the growing fiscal challenges facing advanced economies. Georgieva argues that policymakers should address debt and deficits during good economic times rather than waiting for a crisis to force action. ABOUT ECONOMICS, APPLIED Economics, Applied brings together top leaders and researchers to break down key economic developments, offering evidence-based insights and practical lessons for navigating today’s economy. Economic change is constant.

Raghuram Rajan, former Reserve Bank of India governor, joins Steve Davis at the Jackson Hole Symposium to offer his take on Fed chairman Kevin Warsh’s speech and Treasury secretary Scott Bessent’s recent intervention in bond markets. Rajan explains why attempts to push down long-term yields can distort important market signals, and why rising debt-servicing costs could ultimately force policymakers to pay greater attention to addressing persistent government deficits. Rajan and Davis address the long-term behavior of real interest rates, the risks of assuming unusually low real interest rates at a point in time will continue in the future, and the need for more fiscal prudence amid high levels of government debt. They also discuss the limits of central banks, which can address liquidity problems and market dysfunction but cannot rescue governments from an underlying fiscal crisis. ABOUT ECONOMICS, APPLIED Economics, Applied brings together top leaders and researchers to break down key economic developments, offering evidence-based insights and practical lessons for navigating today’s economy. Economic change is constant.