The Economics Show

Doug Irwin is a professor at Dartmouth College and the author of several books on trade. Today on The Economics Show, he joins the FT’s Senior Trade Writer Alan Beattie to discuss the history of tariffs in the US, and what that history might tell us about the next round of tariffs.Alan writes the Trade Secrets newsletter. You can sign up here. He is on Bluesky at @alanbeattie.bsky.social. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen.Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Increasingly elderly populations seen in countries such as Japan and Italy are set to become the norm everywhere in the coming decades. But will a more senior demographic make the cost of state pensions and healthcare unaffordable? And will it kill economic growth? Not necessarily so, according to today’s guest, Andrew J Scott, director of economics at the Ellison Institute of Technology Oxford. He believes that the rapidly growing cohort of over-65s is something to celebrate. But he also warns that we need to radically rethink many of the policies that delivered this widespread longevity in the first place. Martin Wolf is chief economics commentator at the Financial Times. You can find his column hereSubscribe to The Economics Show on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen.Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1962, then US president John F Kennedy committed his nation to reaching the Moon before the decade was up. It was a huge undertaking, but one that ultimately succeeded, and also produced technologies such as camera phones and baby formula along the way. But have governments today lost the confidence and knowhow needed to undertake such ambitious challenges? That’s the contention of today’s guest, Mariana Mazzucato, professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London. She believes states need to rediscover mission-purpose and take the lead in solving problems such as climate change, pandemics or water scarcity.Martin Wolf is chief economics commentator at the Financial Times. You can find his column hereSubscribe to The Economics Show on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen.Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Eurozone’s economic recovery from Covid-19 has been anaemic compared with America’s, despite achieving a soft landing from double-digit inflation. Indeed, Europe’s relative underperformance stretches back even longer, perhaps 30 years, in terms of productivity and GDP growth. Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, gives her assessment of the past few turbulent years of monetary policy and explains what she thinks Europe needs to do next if it is to close the gap with the US. She also gives her view on how the EU can negotiate its way out from between the rock of the incoming Trump administration and the hard place of another Chinese export glut.Martin Wolf is chief economics commentator at the Financial Times. You can find his column hereSubscribe to The Economics Show on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen.Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.