Policy Punchline

A conversation with Jason Furman, Harvard Professor and former Obama Administration economic advisor, discussing key economic policy issues. Furman shares insights on economic resilience, fiscal stimulus responses to the 2008 and COVID-19 crises, healthcare reform, the role of economic analysis in policymaking, and the future of AI in the economy. He addresses how economic indicators can be improved, the challenges of implementing healthcare cost controls, the importance of honest analysis of trade-offs in policy decisions, and his thoughts on integrating AI into economics education. The interview was conducted by Princeton students Alice McCarthy '27 and David Piegaro '25 and is part of the Policy Punchline podcast series, supported by Princeton's Julius Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance.

The Art of the Long-Form: Crafting Epic Business Narratives and Creating Amazing Podcasts Every Host has a Story.... In this latest episode of Policy Punchline, we sit down with David Rosenthal, co-founder and co-host of the Acquired Podcast. From his days as a Princeton "organization kid" to becoming a leading voice in business history storytelling, Rosenthal's journey is as unconventional and inspiring. As a French literature major turned venture capitalist turned full-time podcaster, Rosenthal offers insights into the evolving landscape of tech, entrepreneurship, and digital media. Throughout our conversation, Rosenthal takes us behind the scenes of Acquired, revealing the meticulous research process and unparalleled access that sets his long-form business histories apart. He shares reflections on his time at Princeton, his stint on Wall Street during the 2008 financial crisis, and his transition into venture capital. Rosenthal's perspective on the serendipitous nature of career paths and the importanc

In this latest episode of Policy Punchline, we dive deep into the world of financial regulation and economic policy with our distinguished guest, Aaron Klein. Klein, the Miriam K. Carliner Chair and Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, brings a wealth of experience from his pivotal roles in shaping U.S. financial policy. His journey—from the halls of Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs to the front lines of financial regulatory reform in DC—provides a unique lens through which we explore the ever-evolving landscape of economic policy. As a key player in the development of the Dodd-Frank Act, Klein draws on his firsthand experience to shed light on the successes and pitfalls of pre- and post-Crisis regulations. Throughout our conversation, Klein touches on his time in Congress to explain what the institution can and cannot do well to respond to financial crises, explores regulatory nuances from predatory banking practices to consumer credit, and emphasizes the piv

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Pinelope Goldberg, the Elihu Professor of Economics at Yale University and former Chief Economist of the World Bank Group. We discuss her extensive research into globalization, trade liberalization, and development. We address some of the most critical questions of global economics: how has the reduction in trade barriers affected countries across the development spectrum, and distributionally within nations? What are many economists getting wrong about trade policy? What various sorts of development paths allow low-income countries to grow rapidly? She leverages her wide body of research to give insight into these questions, including her recent publication “The Uneven Effects of Globalization,” which challenges some of the common critiques of trade liberalization, and other research that has explored the effects of freer cross-border exchange on labor dynamics and inequality within countries. Moreover, she discusses her experience at the helm of economics at the World

In this episode of Policy Punchline, we delve into the remarkable career path and insights of Anthony Scaramucci, the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge and former White House Communications Director. We start with Scaramucci's upbringing on Long Island in the 1970s, its influence on him as he made his way into the heart of Wall Street and eventually the corridors of the White House. Scaramucci describes the corrupting dynamics of power in Washington, and explains conflicts and confrontations he encountered during his time in the Trump administration. He offers his perspective on press freedom and Russian sanctions, which sometimes diverged from the administration's stance. Through this lens, Scaramucci provides a glimpse into the divisive leadership style of President Trump from firsthand experience. He gives us these reflections on the past, but a look forward as well, making his pitch for the role of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in the future of our financial system. From the digitizat

In this episode of Policy Punchline, we are honored to welcome Sir Angus Deaton, the esteemed British-American economist and recipient of the 2015 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Sir Deaton discusses the dynamics of wealth, health, and inequality across the globe and, as per his latest book, Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality, his adopted homeland. We discuss the "deaths of despair" framework developed by Anne Case and Professor Deaton as well as the recent refinement of the theory and popular critiques. We delve into his extensive research on income and health inequality, exploring the intricate relationship between economic prosperity and public health outcomes. He challenges conventional wisdom by emphasizing that inequality within nations can have profound effects on societal structures and individual lives, often leading to significant disparities in health as well as political resentment. We discuss his book "The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and th

In this episode, we are joined by Ashoka Mody, the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor in International Economy and Lecturer in Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. We discuss his latest book, India is Broken, and dive into some of the larger questions surrounding Indian economic development. Why has India’s development stalled in comparison to other Asian economies? What do the headline GDP growth numbers and international press coverage miss in their optimisim towards India? How can India address its ills including rampant political corruption and inadequate education? These are all questions that Mody answers through an examination of India through multiple lenses: economic, social, historical, and cultural. We join him on this journey and follow up on his arguments as constructed in India is Broken, while also taking them to new places, like the issue of climate change in the policies of Indian economic development. Join us for a conversation that takes a more skeptical vi

In this episode of Policy Punchline, renown MIT economist Daron Acemoglu takes us through the tumultuous and fascinating history of new technologies and how they have reshaped the societies we live in. He takes us back to the pre-Industrial era, showing that as new technological systems of agriculture changed, exploitative economic systems did not. He busts common myths about the nature of economic growth in the Industrial Age, presenting a darker and more nuanced look at that explosion of economic development. He argues that the advent of the personal computer in the 1980s had a real cost for employment outcomes — not enough new jobs were generated to match the jobs that were replaced by this innovation. Looking back, he proposes that technology can either complement the value of labor, generating new tasks associated with them, or can displace existing workers by performing the same tasks they did. In many ways, the effect of technology one way or another is not inevitable — it is a policy decision up to

Marcin Piatkowski is a Senior Economist at the World Bank and an Associate Professor of the Kozminski University in Warsaw. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Kozminski University and an MA in Finance and Banking from the Warsaw School of Economics. Professor Piatkowski began his career in Citibank Poland and Citigroup USA. He then served in various governmental and NGO roles, including as an economist in the European Department of the International Monetary Fund, Advisor to the IMF’s Executive Director, and Advisor to Poland’s Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance. Before he moved to the World Bank in 2008, he was Chief Economist and Managing Director of PKO BP, the largest bank in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2018, he released a book with Oxford University Press, called “Europe’s Growth Champion: Insights from the Economic Rise of Poland,” which was awarded the best book in economics in 2019 by the Polish Academy of Sciences. ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Interviewed by Sullivan

Dr. Marc Ecko is a serial entrepreneur who has been one of the influential figures of the early 2000s in shaping culture, especially around hip-hop and streetwear. His brand — Ecko Unltd. — amalgamated the cultural elements of hip-hop with Dr. Ecko’s own fashion vision to create a worldwide brand with over a billion dollars in revenue. He then went on to found Complex magazine, one of the foremost media outlets for fashion, hip-hop, sports and popular culture today. Complex has roughly 100 million unique visitors per month and is considered one of the premier media companies, particularly in the digital space. Now, Dr. Ecko is involved with several philanthropic ventures, such as through his role at the XQ Institute, which is dedicated to improving high school education across the country, and the Emerson Collective, an impact investing organization dedicated to reform in the United States and abroad. In this episode, we discuss Dr. Ecko’s journey and how he preserved his own creative vision at scale, while

Matthew Yglesias is a leading policy blogger and journalist, and has long pioneered what political media looks like on the internet. He has written about politics and public policy for a wide array of publications, including the American Prospect, the Atlantic, the Center for American Progress, and Slate. In 2014, Matt co-founded Vox with Ezra Klein and Melissa Bell, where he served as a senior correspondent. He left Vox in 2020 to start his own Substack, Slow Boring. Yglesias also released his third book in 2020, titled One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger. More recently, Matt just launched his new podcast, ‘Bad Takes,’ which seeks to challenge extremely online political opinions. In our conversation, we seek to zoom out from the thrall of internet politics and look at Yglesias’ role in the current political media landscape. How does Matt use Twitter, and what does he think of its role in democratic discourse? What is the future of political media? What does the emergence of individualized me

(Disclaimer: This episode was originally recorded in July 2021.) Dr. Tiffany Vora is an educator, researcher, and entrepreneur who is the chair of medicine and digital biology at Singularity University. She does a huge amount of work in science communication, advising startup founders, and science writing. She studied molecular biology and chemistry at NYU and a PhD from Princeton. In “Science Communication in the Post-COVID era”, we talk about the pace of change in science communication. Given the timing of the interview, we also discuss in detail how the pandemic and being in the virtual/digital space has changed science communication. Dr. Vora believes that many brilliant scientific minds haven’t been trained in science communication, and that there is potential for so much progress in science communication if the gap between knowledge creation and distribution is bridged. Similarly, there is a lot of misinformation out there, and deciding which sources to trustworthy and getting the public to trust th

Dr. Ethan Nadelmann is one of the foremost experts on drug policy in the US and the world. Originally from New York City, he received his BA, JD, and PhD from Harvard, then his master’s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics. After teaching politics and public affairs at Princeton University from 1987 to 1994, he went on to found and direct the Lindesmith Center and the Drug Policy Alliance, and through them, has advocated for drug policy reform for almost thirty years. From pushing for marijuana legalization to fighting against the War on Drugs and policies like civil asset forfeiture, his work has impacted countless people both in the US and around the world. Today, he’s also the co-host of the boundary-pushing podcast PSYCHOACTIVE. In this interview, Ryan and Eliot talk to Dr. Nadelmann about lessons he’s learned from his career, possible solutions to current drug issues, and much more.

Professor Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Natural and Social Science at Yale University. His research is focused on understanding social networks through their biological and evolutionary determinants, which encompasses studying a broad range of topics from epidemiology and contagion to human behavior and psychology. Professor Christakis has been recognized for his contributions to the field of sociology, was named a member of the Time 100, and has published many articles and several renowned books relating to epidemiology and evolutionary genetics. In addition to his research, Professor Christakis has practiced medicine in the field of palliative care for many years and continues to advocate for academic freedom and free speech on college campuses. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Host: Neal Reddy Editor: Marko Petrovic

Lord Mervyn King is a professor of economics and law at the NYU Stern School of Business and the School of Law, and the former governor of the Bank of England. He served as Governor of the Bank of England and Chairman of its Monetary Policy Committee from 2003 to 2013. Lord King was knighted (GBE) in 2011, made a life peer in 2013, and appointed by the Queen a Knight of the Garter in 2014. Lord King’s most recent book, Radical Uncertainty, co-authored with John Kay, examines rationality, decision making under uncertainty, and the flaws with modern economic thinking. The book offers a powerful critique of the current state of economic scholarship and policymaking, arguing that the field of economics has developed an overreliance on fundamentally flawed models as well as misconceptions about risk and uncertainty. In this episode, we discuss Radical Uncertainty, touching on Lord King’s motivations in writing the book, its core ideas, and the implications of his critique on the future of economic policymaking

Gregory Zuckerman is a nonfiction author and special writer at The Wall Street Journal. Before joining the Journal, Zuckerman was managing editor of Mergers and Acquisitions Reports, a trade publication of Investment Dealers’ Digest, and the New York Post as a media reporter. At the Journal, Zuckerman is an investigative reporter covering business and investing topics. He is a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award, the highest honor in business journalism. He regularly appears on CNBC, Fox News, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg Television, and more. Zuckerman’s works include The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution, The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters, and his latest book, A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine, covering mRNA vaccine development. A Shot to Save the World was longlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award. In this episode, we hit a

Professor Sandro Galea is a physician and epidemiologist who is dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at Boston University School of Public Health. His research is centered on the social factors that influence health and trauma, and his work is highly cited in the field of public health. Some of his most notable work relates to the ramifications of mass trauma after natural disasters and catastrophes, which his latest book, The Contagion Next Time addresses as it confronts the pivotal moment of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this interview, we start by discussing the concept of health itself. What qualifies as health? Are we too limited in our effort to make society healthier? We then move to Professor Galea’s scientific and moral critiques of public policy actions that according to him impact health negatively, from budgetary decisions to international relations. Despite Professor Galea’s critiques of public health policy, we end the interview on an optimistic note— Professor Galea observes that we are in an unprec

This interview marks my last interview as the host of Policy Punchline. I will soon release another recording giving you an update about Policy Punchline’s future, but for now I just want to present to you the following conversation with Prema Gauranga Das. Over the last three years with Policy Punchline, I’ve interviewed more than 150 guests, mostly public intellectuals, policy makers, journalists, investors… but this is my only interview with a monk – a Hindu monk. Premji has been a resident monk at Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Temple in Mumbai with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (also known as ISKCON) for the last 20 years. Like many of his peers, Premji completed his Bachelors degree in engineering from the University of Pune, a top university in India, and subsequently had a 4-year stint at India’s largest auto manufacturing company. But he quit his job to become a monk and to explore a more fulfilling and purposeful lifestyle, after being inspired by the teachings of His Divine Grace

Dr. Jean Hebert is a professor at the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is also a professor in the department of genetics, and has conducted research that has been published in renowned journals such as Science. His current scope of research in the Hebert Lab includes devising methods of cell replacement for the adult neocortex after cell damage or age-related degeneration. In “Do Our Minds Have to Decline With Age?”, we explore just that, diving into topics such as the neocortex and neocortical function, cell damage, and age-related deterioration. ‘Dying of old age’ is not a medical term; rather, it is a description of what happens when critical parts of the body fail. Theoretically, if all parts of the body can be kept ‘young’ and healthy, we might have a chance of extending life indefinitely. While we are a long ways off from that, current cutting-edge research in the field of cell grafting, like conducted at the Hebert Lab, might hold to key to

Dr. Anders Sandberg is a James Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. He is a senior research fellow on the ERC UnPrEDICT Programme, and a research associate to the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and his research focuses on existential risks and long-term societal and ethical facets of new technology regarding human enhancement. Existential risks are risks that deal with the end of something — in this case, the end of humanity and Earth-originating intelligent life. As Prof. Sandberg explains, the most dire of risks lead to a lot of interesting implications and there are many interesting links that bridge different risks. Understanding those linkages are interesting and useful in discovering what the risks are, and also what we can do about it. Risks are broadly classified into anthropogenic (in this sense, self-inflicted) and external (n