IMF Podcasts
Business & Finance
About
Listen to the World's top economists discuss their research and deconstruct global economic trends.
Episodes
- Eswar Prasad on Escaping the Doom Loop
Economist Eswar Prasad discusses his book "The Doom Loop," which examines how positive economic forces can create negative feedback loops, leading to the erosion of global institutions.
- Taxing Bad Habits: Christoph Rosenberg
Economist Christoph Rosenberg discusses the economic and public health potential of sin taxes on products such as alcohol, tobacco, and sugar. The episode explores how these policies can generate government revenue while encouraging health…
- Amadou Sy on Why Africa is Keeping its Debt Closer to Home
Amadou Sy explains how African countries are shifting from overseas markets to domestic borrowing, driven by rising global interest rates. He highlights the advantages of issuing debt in local markets and local currency.
- The Debt Reckoning: Rodrigo Valdés and Era Dabla-Norris
Rodrigo Valdés and Era Dabla-Norris discuss the challenges governments face due to unprecedented debt levels and aging populations. They highlight the need for tough fiscal choices and the impact of eroding public trust on reconciling comp…
- Johan Norberg on What Makes and Breaks Golden Eras
Historian Johan Norberg explores the rise and fall of golden age civilizations in his book Peak Human, suggesting that openness to ideas and trade fostered prosperity, whereas building walls often led to demise.
- Enrico Letta: Harnessing Europe's Single Market
There is strength in numbers, and the idea of European integration through a single market was to capitalize on the EU as a whole. However, the single market is a product of the early 90s, and EU member states now appear reticent to pool s…
- Claudia Sahm on how Private Data can Augment Official Statistics
While official statistics compiled by government agencies are still considered the most reliable, policymakers are increasingly using private data to get around their limitations. Claudia Sahm is a former principal economist at the Federal…
- Governor Chang Yong Rhee on Bank of Korea's Innovative Approach
Price stability is the main goal for central banks, and monetary policy is how they achieve it. However, societies are always in flux, and central bankers who pay close attention to emerging trends are more likely to make better policy dec…
- Pablo Peña on why AI is No Match for Human Capital
While artificial intelligence continues to outperform our human abilities in many areas, Pablo Peña believes critical thinking and curiosity are what will keep us in the driver's seat. AI can only draw on human-produced knowledge, Peña say…
- Dante Disparte on Stablecoins and the Future of Finance
Technology is often what drives big changes, but innovations like cryptocurrencies and blockchain are transforming the world of money at breakneck speed. While the volatility of digital currencies like Bitcoin has kept it out of traditiona…
- Marc Palen on Peace Economics and Trade
Maintaining good relations promotes trade, but can trade repair bad relations? Marc Palen examines how Britain's repeal of the Corn Laws in the mid-1800s sparked its interest in free trade and the idea of economic interdependence for a pea…
- Holding Steady: Athene Laws on sub-Saharan Africa's Outlook
Sub-Saharan Africa is holding its own despite a deteriorating global trade and aid landscape. The latest outlook projects growth to remain steady at 4.1 percent this year with a modest pickup in 2026. While the region has once again proven…
- Gordon Hanson on Shifting Trade Alliances
It's not unusual for countries to reevaluate trade relationships as the global economy evolves. However, the persistent uncertainty brought on by tariffs has prompted entire regions to reconsider long-established alliances and rethink new…
- Kenneth Rogoff on Dollar Dominance
While the US dollar has been at the top of its game for decades, new players are testing its reign. Chess grandmaster-turned-economist Kenneth Rogoff has long cautioned of the dangers that high debt and fiscal burdens could have on the wor…
- Where Startups Do Roam: Swati Bhatt
The US is a breeding ground for startups, and California has been the center of that universe since the dot-com boom in the late 1990s. But rising costs, tighter quarters, and increasing bureaucracy have many tech innovators seeking greene…
- Chady El Khoury on the Virtual Reality of Financial Crime
While countries came together in the late 80s to fight money laundering and the financing of terrorism, technology and the advent of virtual currencies have further complicated the tracking of illicit financial flows across borders. Over $…
- Danny Quah on Rethinking Multilateralism
Bringing nations together to maintain peace and security and raise living standards for all seemed a utopian idea in the early 20th century. Still, geopolitics, economics and vision by world leaders eventually came together to make it a re…
- Grit and Luck: Gita Gopinath Reflects on her Career and Roles at the Fund
A lot has happened in the global economy since 2019, and few people know that better than Gita Gopinath. As the IMF Chief Economist and subsequently the institution's First Deputy Managing Director, she navigated unprecedented global crise…
- Carl Benedikt Frey on AI and Growth
As tech innovation, particularly in the field of AI, is increasingly focused on a few key players, the industries benefiting from these tools have also become more concentrated, which Carl Benedikt Frey says could weigh on growth. Frey is…
- Karen Dynan on Regaining Lost Ground in Policy Influence
There was a time when economic expertise ruled policy debates at virtually all levels of government. And while trade, taxation, and other important policies are still guided by economic analysis, economists increasingly feel sidelined by p…
- Women in Economics: Stefanie Stantcheva on Thoughts that Matter
Public resistance to new policies often leaves policymakers scratching their heads. What seems a perfectly reasonable policy to a government is often perceived by its citizenry as regressive. Stefanie Stantcheva's multidisciplinary approac…
- Diaa Noureldin on Growth Prospects in an Aging World
Most advanced economies are witnessing their populations age and labor forces shrink, and the same trend is expected to hold for the largest emerging economies within the decade. So the largely touted demographic dividend of previous decad…
- Recovery Interrupted: Sub-Saharan Africa's Outlook
After four long years of numerous crises, sub-Saharan Africa's hard-won recovery has been disrupted by yet another shock. The sudden shift in the global outlook has clouded the region's short-term prospects and significantly complicated po…
- Ulrike Malmendier on Making Germany Grow Again
While the German economy has been one of Europe's strongest for decades, its performance in recent years has fallen short of expectations. Why is this once economic powerhouse now lagging? Ulrike Malmendier is a professor of economics and…
- Malaysia Bank Governor Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour on Navigating Uncertainty
Malaysia is one of Southeast Asia's strongest economies and has recently been lauded for its ability to keep inflation in check. But Malaysia is not immune to the rising global trade tensions and uncertainty of late. In this podcast, IMF A…
- Argentina Bank Governor Santiago Bausili on Addressing Imbalances
After years of economic turmoil, Argentina's central bank chief has doubled down on efforts to restore confidence in the Argentine peso and normalize its economy. In this podcast, Governor Santiago Bausili and IMF Western Hemisphere Depart…
- Xavier Jaravel on Democratizing Innovation to Spur Growth
Never underestimate the value of a good idea. Ideas are the starting point for innovation; few things fuel economic growth more than innovation. However, most of today's innovators emerge from a narrow demographic group with specific backg…
- Amory Gethin Measures the Economic Value of Education
Economists have long surmised that people's knowledge and skills contribute significantly to economic development, but to what degree can access to an education change lives? Amory Gethin has compiled data from surveys from more than 150 c…
- Karthik Sastry on Animal Spirits and the Economy
While we like to think our financial decisions are based on logic, the truth is, they are largely driven by emotion. So when John Maynard Keynes looked for methods to measure economic fluctuations, animal spirits were a key ingredient. Kar…
- Oren Cass on the Invisible Hand
Modern economics was built on ideas spelled out by Adam Smith in his 18th-century The Wealth of Nations. But while he used the term only once in that economic treatise, Smith is most remembered for "the invisible hand," a metaphor Oren Cas…
- Driving Change: Rumana Huque on the Real Costs of Bangladesh's Tobacco Dependency
Driving Change: Women-Led Development Economics from the Ground Up The International Economic Association's Women in Leadership in Economics Initiative (IEA-WE) connects women economists worldwide and helps showcase their important empiric…
- Sanjeev Gupta on Health Financing
The pandemic was a brutal reminder of how crucial public health systems are, yet health budgets in many countries are still underfunded. Developing economies generally do not allocate sufficient domestic resources to health and external fi…
- Simon Johnson on Technology, Institutions and Prosperity
Countries with better institutions are more prosperous. A truism perhaps, but then why are they so hard to build and sustain? That is the question that Simon Johnson has sought to explain since the fall of communism and the basis for the r…
- Elizabeth Johnson on Fixing Sao Paolo's Housing Deficit
As urbanization continues to grow worldwide, affordable housing is a rare commodity in many cities. Sao Paolo, South America's biggest city, has gained over 2 million new residents in the past decade alone. Elizabeth Johnson heads Brazil…
- Deniz Igan on The Housing Affordability Crunch
While housing markets play a significant role in economies, new research shows houses across 40 countries are less affordable than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis. IMF economist Deniz Igan helped develop the Housing Affordabili…
- Driving Change: Ipek Ilkkaracan on Why Investing in Care Pays Off
Driving Change: Women-Led Development Economics from the Ground Up The International Economic Association's Women in Leadership in Economics Initiative (IEA-WE) connects women economists worldwide and helps showcase their important empiric…
- Driving Change: Rose Ngugi on how Indices are giving Kenya an Edge
Driving Change: Women-Led Development Economics from the Ground Up The International Economic Association's Women in Leadership in Economics Initiative (IEA-WE) connects women economists worldwide and helps showcase their important empiric…
- Driving Change: Marcela Eslava on Latin America's Social Security Woes
Driving Change: Women-Led Development Economics from the Ground Up The International Economic Association's Women in Leadership in Economics Initiative (IEA-WE) connects women economists worldwide and helps showcase their important empiric…
- Reforms amid Great Expectations: Sub-Saharan Africa's Outlook
With sub-Saharan Africa soon to have one of the largest working-age populations in the world, removing barriers to business growth and encouraging higher productivity industries will help provide the employment opportunities it needs. But…
- Global Financial Stability: Financial Markets Navigate Uncertainty
As inflation and interest rates continue to decline and the likelihood of a recession slowly fades, financial markets have seen big equity gains. But the latest Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR) warns of several factors that could u…
- The Case for a Global Corporate Minimum Tax: Cory Hillier, Shafik Hebous
While 21st-century globalization and international trade dramatically changed how multinational corporations operate, the way they are taxed is largely based on early 20th-century thinking. Recent efforts by the OECD and the UN to moderniz…
- Yuval Noah Harari on Human Evolution and the AI Revolution
Stories can unify or divide but our ability to imagine them is uniquely human. Cooperation and trust, built through shared stories and narratives, are the foundation of human societies and economies. So what happens when humans no longer h…
- Egypt: Stability Lays Groundwork for Transformation
With all the instability within the Middle East and North Africa region of late, Egypt has nonetheless managed to reign in soaring inflation and win its largest-ever foreign investment. Egypt's efforts to restore macroeconomic stability in…
- Nicholas Bloom on why Remote Work is Good for Growth
Working from home was not an option for most people before March 11, 2020, when work and home life suddenly collided. The pandemic upended many aspects of doing business, but the daily commute is one routine that seems unlikely to return t…
- Women in Economics: Kate Raworth on Economics for the Living Planet
The world has changed since postwar economic thought placed GDP growth as its guiding principle. 20th-century progress has pushed planetary resources to the limit and brings the sustainability of traditional macroeconomic models into quest…
- Raghuram Rajan on Blazing a New Path to India's Development
For many emerging market economies, moving from an export-oriented strategy with labor-intensive manufacturing to a more sophisticated production process was key to their development. But the world is quickly changing, and Raghuram Rajan s…
- Mark Aguiar: When Sovereign Debt Breaks its Promise
For decades, governments have been tapping into global sovereign debt markets to smooth ups and downs in revenue with the hope that it would help spur investment. But what happens when government borrowing fails to deliver, and the citizen…
- Michele Ruta on Trade Shifts
The world is changing so quickly it's hard to think of one aspect of our economic lives that hasn't shifted from what it was only a few years ago. Trade is no exception. New technologies, the re-emergence of industrial policy, and rising g…
- Lisa Kolovich: Gender Equality to address Shifting Demographics
Aging populations in many advanced and emerging market economies mean shrinking workforces, weighing on growth. However, the opposite is true in low-income countries where populations are growing, and the expanding workforce may lack the s…
- Nigeria Bank Governor Olayemi Cardoso: Regaining Stability and Trust
Nigeria's new administration has set out on an ambitious reform path to stabilize its currency, regain market confidence, and tame inflation. In this podcast, Governor Olayemi Cardoso and IMF Africa Department head, Abebe Aemro Selassie di…