"The introverts have taken over the US economy." That's the provocative title of a recent Bloomberg column from economist Allison Schrager. As she looked into the data on how Americans have been spending their time since the pandemic, she noticed that they are spending less time socializing with their friends on weekends and more time in front of screens. Even when they do go out, it's increasingly for an early dinner. That's all in addition to the bigger share of Americans who now work...

When people talk about the crisis at the border between the US and Mexico, what specifically are they referring to? The Department of Homeland Security keeps track of a statistic called “border encounters” at the US border with Mexico. This includes primarily the large number of people who try to cross the border without documentation, or illegally, and aren't crossing at a formal port of entry. It also includes people who do try to cross the border at a port of entry but who are then found...

Who is the Magic Johnson of economics? Who was the Adam Smith of basketball? On this fun and oddball episode of The New Bazaar, Cardiff speaks with Tyler Cowen, economist and author of GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter? Inspired by the sportswriter Bill Simmons, Tyler wrote his book from the standpoint of a fan—having fun, taking sides, admitting biases, unapologetically trying to entertain the reader instead of presenting sober (boring) analysis....

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz has unusually written an unusual book. The data analysis included in "Who Makes the NBA?: Data-Driven Answers to Basketball's Biggest Questions" normally would have taken Seth, a trained economist, multiple years of writing and running code. But because of new artificial intelligence tools, he finished the book in just thirty days. And he used AI tools not just for the coding, but also for the artwork, copy editing, and even to write the appendix. He discusses with...

Martha Gimbel and Gopi Shah Goda were formerly economists within the White House Council of Economic Advisors, or CEA.  They look back on their time inside an important economic policymaking institution, telling Cardiff about: Their favorite projectsToughest assignmentsThe relationship between CEA and other economic policymakersThe difference between academia and policy work What they might change about itCommon misconceptions about the work of economists And Martha clears up a big...

Angus Deaton—Scottish immigrant, Nobelist, and one of Cardiff's favorite economists—has written a new, forthcoming book titled Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explore the Land of Inequality. It’s great, if also hard to categorize. Partly it’s a memoir, about his humble origins in Scotland, where he was born; his studies at Cambridge with better-heeled peers; and his subsequent decades as a Princeton University, Nobel Prize winning economist. The book is also partly a...

Last summer, Cardiff interviewed Malcolm Gladwell for another podcast that he hosts called The Next Chapter, by American Express Business Class.  On that show, Cardiff interviews bestselling book authors (like Gladwell) to find out what they’ve been up to since their earlier book was published, and to learn what they would add to it now that some time has passed—hence the “Next Chapter” of the title. And in the case of Gladwell, what he’s been up to in the last few years is podcasting....

We're sharing another episode of a podcast we think you might like. It's called The Closer and it's hosted by executive producer of The New Bazaar, Aimee Keane. In each episode, Aimee speaks to dealmakers and insiders about landmark financial deals that have changed our lives in some way. In this episode, Aimee speaks to writer Abraham Josephine Riesman about Vince McMahon's influential dealmaking career. McMahon took over his father’s regional wrestling business in the 1980s, and made it...

These are confusing times for the economy and for financial markets—and for the relationship between the economy and financial markets.  At the moment the economy is doing well. The labor market is still creating hundreds of thousands of jobs each month. Unemployment is low. Inflation has come down over the past year. And economic growth has been stronger than a great many economists and others had forecast heading into the year.  But that’s just how the economy is doing right now. What about...

Within economics, there's a semi-famous quote from the economist Paul Krugman: “Productivity isn't everything, but in the long run, it's almost everything.” Krugman’s point is that ultimately, how much productivity climbs each year—roughly speaking, how much more efficient an economy’s workers become at producing goods and services—is also what determines how much our living standards also rise from year to year. And so in the long run, there really is almost nothing that matters...

We're sharing a special episode of a podcast we think you might like. It's called The Closer and it's hosted by executive producer of The New Bazaar, Aimee Keane. In each episode, Aimee speaks to dealmakers and insiders about landmark financial deals that have changed our lives in some way. In this episode, Aimee speaks to an executive at the center of Whatsapp’s $19 billion sale to Facebook, Neeraj Arora. He explains how the deal finally came together, the dispiriting conflict that roiled...

The combination of a markets-based capitalist economy and a liberal democracy with almost-universal suffrage is very young, having existed for barely more than a century. But what we’ve learned in that short time is that there has never been a more successful political and societal arrangement. None of the tyrannies and the plutocracies that have been the default for nearly all of human history has ever been nearly as good at raising people’s living standards, and at giving people the...

This is a special episode from the podcast Macro Musings, hosted by economist David Beckworth. David interviews Cardiff along with Heather Long of the Washington Post and Ryan Avent of The Economist about their reflections on the last three years. What they got wrong, what they got right, what shocked them, and what the lessons of these extraordinary, tumultuous times herald for the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joining Cardiff for this episode is Avi Goldfarb, Rotman Chair In Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare At The Rotman School Of Management, University Of Toronto, and the co-author (with his fellow economists Ajay Agrawal and Joshua Gans) of an excellent new book, "Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence". In their chat, Avi and Cardiff discuss: Why AI is best understood as a "prediction technology"Examples of AI already in useWhich parts of the economy...

This is a special, between-the-seasons episode of the New Bazaar. Right now, the white-to-black wealth ratio in the United States is roughly 6 to 1. Which means that when you add up all the wealth that someone can own—their cash, the value of their house, their investments in the stock market, and so on—the average White American has six times the wealth of the average Black American.  That figure alone should be disturbing enough. But making it even worse is that this wealth ratio of 6 to 1...

This is the 50th (!) episode of The New Bazaar, and the Season 1 Finale. Cardiff and Aimee are planning to launch Season 2 later in the fall, and even before then will be airing a few surprise bonus episodes in September and October. Cardiff shares a bit more about future plans at the end of today's episode. The final Season 1 guest is Stefanie Stantcheva. Stefanie is an economist at Harvard, where she also leads the Social Economics Lab, which uses large and carefully designed online...

Benjamin Friedman is an economist and the author of The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth (2005) and Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (2021).  He joins Cardiff to revisit the ideas in Moral Consequences, one of Cardiff’s favorite economics books, which argues that sustained economic growth not only leads to higher living standards but also can make a society more virtuous. They also talk about all that’s happened in the time since the book was published, the events that confirm or...

Dakin Campbell is the chief finance correspondent at Insider and, full disclosure, Cardiff's close friend. He joins Cardiff on the show to discuss his new book, “Going Public: How Silicon Valley Rebels Loosened Wall Street’s Grip on the IPO and Sparked a Revolution”. When a company is relatively young… let’s say it’s a startup, and it is privately owned… the owners are usually some combination of the company’s founders, and venture capitalists who bet on the company, and maybe early employees...

Here are three things to know about inflation.  First, according to a survey of public opinion by Pew Research taken in May, the public views inflation is the single biggest problem facing the country.  And—this is a direct quote from Pew Research—”no other concern comes close”.  Second, inflation right now is really high. The prices of the goods and services that people buy are more than 9 percent higher than they were last year.  And third, Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal...

Cardiff and Aimee answer your questions about markets, the economy, the first season of the podcast and our company, Bazaar Audio.  Go to bazaaraudio.com to find the full list of recommended links from the episode.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This episode is all about remote wok. (Or as it is also sometimes known, telework, or telecommuting, or just working from home.) The trend towards remote work has accelerated a lot during the Covid pandemic, as is clear in the data. What we don’t yet know is how much of the trend will last. And if it does last, what kind of economic and societal consequences will it have? What might be its effects on things like how we design our homes, and even our neighborhoods? What will happen to the...

As a young man in his native Benin, Leonard Wantchekon was arrested for leading a student uprising against the repressive government, tortured in prison, and 18 months later escaped from prison into Nigeria.  Nearly four decades later, he is now a Princeton economist and the founder of the African School of Economics. But the experiences and observations from his astonishing early life embedded themselves into his work in economics—not just his research, but his mission to educate a new...

Skanda Amarnath is the executive director of Employ America, an organization that advocates for strong labor markets. He recently published a research note titled "What Are You Expecting? How The Fed Slows Down Inflation Through The Labor Market", in which he and co-author Alex Williams explores how the Federal Reserve's tools work to influence employment outcomes and the prices of goods and services. Skanda joins Cardiff to discuss: — The definition of full employment — How to investigate...

Martin Sandbu is European Economics Commentator at the Financial Times, where he also writes Free Lunch, a weekly newsletter about global economic policy. And he’s the author of The Economics of Belonging: A Radical Plan to Win Back the Left Behind and Achieve Prosperity for All, which has just been released in paperback.  Martin joins Cardiff to discuss:  – How the failures of the social market economy threaten political stability and undermine openness to the rest of the world  – The...