Bill Beach on the Future of United States' Economic Statistics and Fiscal Position

Bill Beach on the Future of United States' Economic Statistics and Fiscal Position

Bill Beach is the former commissioner of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the current executive director of the Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill. In Bill's first appearance on the show he discusses a career in and around public service, the important niche his new organization fills, the frightening fiscal outlook of the United States, exactly how long we have before Social Security runs out, why he believes it will take lots of small changes instead of a big one to fix our fiscal outlook, the important role of the BLS, why our statistical methods needs reform, the most underrated economic statistical indicators, and much more. Watch the full length video [https://youtu.be/BahCHCG9fOU] on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript [https://www.mercatus.org/macro-musings/bill-beach-future-united-states-economic-statistics-and-fiscal-position] for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on April 15th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus [https://macroeconomicpolicynexus.substack.com/] Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth [https://twitter.com/DavidBeckworth] Follow Bill Beach X: @BeachWW453 [https://x.com/BeachWW453] Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings [https://twitter.com/Macro_Musings] Check out our Macro Musings merch! [https://www.bonfire.com/store/mercatus-podcast-swag/] Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:25 - Bill's Career 00:10:11 - Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill 00:17:23 - Fiscal Challenges of the United States 00:30:05 - Surveys from Bureau of Labor Statistics 00:43:12 - Challenges to Survey Work 00:52:13 - Outro

Tyler Goodspeed on Challenging the Way Economists Look at Recessions

Tyler Goodspeed is the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors and is currently a chief economist in the private sector. In Tyler's first appearance on the podcast he discusses his new book highlighting a different way of looking at recessions, the challenge of breaking away from the human inclination of ascribing patterns to random phenomena, whether recessions are more Dorian Gray or Peter Pan, what history and stories like Jay Cooke tell us about recessions, how to evaluate supply side shocks and the 2008 Financial Crisis, why Milton Friedman's Plucking model might be the best we have at modeling recessions, and much more. Watch the full length video [https://youtu.be/gPPfSWL7yF4] on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript [https://www.mercatus.org/macro-musings/tyler-goodspeed-challenging-way-economists-look-recessions] for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on April 15th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus [https://macroeconomicpolicynexus.substack.com/] Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth [https://twitter.com/DavidBeckworth] Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings [https://twitter.com/Macro_Musings] Check out our Macro Musings merch! [https://www.bonfire.com/store/mercatus-podcast-swag/] Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:43 - Recessions 00:07:07 - Epiphanies or Apophanies 00:26:40 - Peter Pan vs. Dorian Gray 00:33:40 - Jay Cooke and the Railroad 00:39:00 - Models of Recessions 00:47:55 - Supply Shocks 00:50:12 - Recessions in Different Places 01:00:25 - Outro

Peter Conti-Brown and David Beckworth on All Things Financial Regulation

Recorded live in front of the Wharton Financial Regulation Conference, former guest Peter Conti-Brown joins David Beckworth as a Macro Musings co-host on this week's episode. Peter and David discuss the inflection point of 2008 in FinReg scholarship, how Macro Musings has become just as much a show about financial regulation as about macro, what to make of the Trump administrations changes to bank supervision, whether we should be enthusiastic about the GENIUS Act and digital assets, the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the crisis that could become Claude Mythos, why networks and Substacks are becoming more important, and much more. Watch the full length video [https://youtu.be/Goq7M0aQ9dI] on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript [https://www.mercatus.org/macro-musings/peter-conti-brown-and-david-beckworth-all-things-financial-regulation] for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on April 10th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus [https://macroeconomicpolicynexus.substack.com/] Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth [https://twitter.com/DavidBeckworth] Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings [https://twitter.com/Macro_Musings] Check out our Macro Musings merch! [https://www.bonfire.com/store/mercatus-podcast-swag/] Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:29 - History of Financial Regulation 00:04:23 - Monetary Policy vs. Financial Regulation 00:07:48 - Bank Supervision 00:11:59 - Digital Assets 00:22:48 - Claude Mythos and Banking 00:30:35 - The Market Argument for the Discount Window 00:35:44 - Academia vs. Real-World Impact 00:40:28 - Audience Q&A 00:54:16 - Outro

Basil Halperin on Macroeconomic Policy in an Age of Transformative AI

Basil Halperin is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia. In Basil's first appearance on the show he discusses the famous but flawed Citrini essay, why Silicon Valley's growth expectations aren't showing up yet in interest rates, the impact of Less Than Zero by George Selgin, what the true frictions in the economy are, the differences between Calvo and menu-cost pricing, the impact of transformational AI on emerging economies and the housing market, and much more. Watch the full length video [https://youtu.be/amo1k8M25es] on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript [https://www.mercatus.org/macro-musings/basil-halperin-macroeconomic-policy-age-transformative-ai] for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on March 27th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus [https://macroeconomicpolicynexus.substack.com/] Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth [https://twitter.com/DavidBeckworth] Follow Basil Halperin on X: @BasilHalperin [https://x.com/BasilHalperin] Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings [https://twitter.com/Macro_Musings] Check out our Macro Musings merch! [https://www.bonfire.com/store/mercatus-podcast-swag/] Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:20 - Global Intelligence Crisis 00:07:04 - Transformative AI and Interest Rates 00:21:05 - Optimal Monetary Policy Under Menu Costs 00:48:13 - Transformative AI and its Macro Implications 00:55:41 - Outro

Rich Clarida on Navigating Monetary Policy in Choppy Waters

Rich Clarida was the vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and is currently a professor of economics at Columbia University and a managing director at PIMCO. Rich returns to the program to discuss whether we give the Fed too little credit for its soft landing, the problem of persistent inflation, how the Fed should respond to rapidly succeeding negative supply shocks, the case for nominal GDP, the state of the Fed's balance sheet, why a synthetic FOMC could help the real FOMC, and much more. Watch the full length video [https://youtu.be/Qr63ZLku5iw] on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript [https://www.mercatus.org/macro-musings/rich-clarida-navigating-monetary-policy-choppy-waters] for this week's episode, now with links. Recorded on March 31st, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus [https://macroeconomicpolicynexus.substack.com/] Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth [https://twitter.com/DavidBeckworth] Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings [https://twitter.com/Macro_Musings] Check out our Macro Musings merch! [https://www.bonfire.com/store/mercatus-podcast-swag/] Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:03:59 - Persistent Inflation 00:11:14 - Inflation Expectations 00:18:34 - Responding to Negative Supply Shocks 00:29:38 - Nominal GDP 00:34:59 - Fed's Balance Sheet 00:45:20 - Synthetic FOMCs 00:51:36 - Outro