The full-employment rate of unemployment may seem like a contradiction, but in fact, economists have long understood that some unemployment is necessary. In their new paper, Pascal Michaillat of UC Santa Cruz and Saez of the University of California, Berkeley present a new formula for identifying the efficient rate of unemployment in the U.S. and find that the labor market has been inefficiently slack for most of the last century. In this episode, Michaillat discusses the paper and potential impacts on macroeconomic theory and policy with Brookings Senior Fellow Louise Sheiner.

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

As COVID-19 swept across the globe, many nations struggled to define a cohesive public health strategy to prevent the spread of the disease. However, in spite of the lack of a clear plan, improvised strategies of behavioral changes—e.g., masking, social distancing—slowed transmission until a vaccine could be developed. The new BPEA paper, “The impact of vaccines and behaviors on U.S. cumulative deaths from COVID-19,” estimates that the ad hoc strategy prevented close to 800,000 deaths. On this episode, epidemiologist and paper co-author Stephen Kissler talks with Brookings Senior Fellow Carol Graham about the model they used to study COVID-19's impacts and what can be done to improve the government response to future pandemics.

This is the final episode of season four of the podcast.

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

The failure of three mid-sized banks in March 2023—three of the four largest bank failures in history—shook financial markets and could’ve spread to other banks if regulators hadn’t stepped in. Two on-going trends in finance contributed to these failures: an increase in uninsured deposits and the migration of business lending to non-banks. In a new paper, “The evolution of banking in the 21st century,” a group of Harvard researchers looked at regulations that could mitigate risks going forward as well as the potential implications for mergers and acquisitions among mid-sized banks. David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, hears from two of the authors, Samuel Hanson and Daniel Tarullo, on their findings in this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity.

Show notes and transcript

The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.