Political Economy with Jim Pethokoukis

Today on Political Economy, I’m chatting with Hal Brands about America’s place in the changing global order. Under the Trump administration, the US has acted less as an “ordering power,” as Brands puts it, than it has over the past century. We talk about the evolving relationship between the US and its allies, in addition to the role of emerging technology in the competition with China.

Brands is a senior fellow here at AEI, where he researches US foreign policy and defense strategy. He is also the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the J...

Today on Political Economy, I’m talking with Tobias Peter about housing: From homeownership rates to construction types, we go over the many factors that play into a healthy housing market and explore what is holding back US homeowners.

Tobias is the codirector of the Housing Center at AEI. As a senior fellow, his research focuses on housing risk and mortgage markets. Tobias has testified before Congress and has contributed to major publications from the Wall Street Journal to Business Insider.

Today on Political Economy, I talk with Mackenzie Eaglen about the Pentagon’s evolving strategy to confront today’s national defense challenges. Mackenzie and I take a look at the military doctrine of recent administrations compared to that of today. We discuss America’s state of preparedness, the changing defense-industrial base, and the role of automation.

Eaglen is a senior fellow here at AEI where her research focuses on defense strategy, budgets, and readiness. She is a member of the Commission on the Future of the Navy and is one of 12 members of the US Army War Colleg...

Stories are the way we communicate our values, explore complex ideas, and learn to empathize with those who fundamentally differ from ourselves.

Christopher Scalia’s most recent book, 13 Novels Conservatives Will Love (but Probably Haven’t Read), delves into the particular benefit conservatives may find in literature they likely hadn’t considered.

Today on Political Economy, I talk with Chris about the unique role of novels in the development of strong morals, leadership, and sense of self.

Chris is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department here at AEI. He pre...

Today on Political Economy, I’m talking with Edward Glaeser about the problem with American housing supply and the many hurdles to building affordable homes. Ed and I look at the past century of urban and suburban construction and the attitudes and policies that have held back the US housing market.

Ed is the chair of the economics department at Harvard University, where he has been a professor since 1992. He is also a visiting senior fellow here at AEI where his research focuses on urban economic policy. His most recent co-authored paper, “America’s Housing Supply Problem: The Cl...

You remember your fourth grade history textbook: The British Empire unfairly taxed the American colonies. Tea was dumped in the Boston Harbor. Colonists refused taxation without representation. Therefore, the American Revolution was driven by economics, right? Well, maybe not.

Today on Political Economy, I’m talking with Deirdre McCloskey about the core ideas that drove the Revolution. We explore American capitalism and the idea of equal opportunity as America grows closer to its 250th birthday.

Deirdre is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. She is also a distinguished professor emerita of economics and history at...

Today on Political Economy, I’m talking with Andrew Biggs on why policymakers, the media, and most Americans are convinced of a retirement crisis that Biggs argues . . . doesn’t exist. Andrew and I discuss why this misperception continues to persist, and where the real flaws are in the American retirement system.

Andrew is a senior fellow here at AEI where he researches Social Security reform, public and private sector compensation, and state and local government pensions.

Prior to AEI, Biggs was principal deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration. In 2005, he served as t...

Today on Political Economy, I talk with Derek Scissors about what the Trump Administration’s newly-declared tariffs mean for US-China relations and what to make of today’s economic uncertainty.

Derek is a senior fellow here at AEI, where he focuses on US-Asia economic relations. He is the chief economist of the China Beige Book and previously served as a commissioner on the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is also the author of the China Global Investment Tracker.

Today on Political Economy, I talk with Mark Warshawsky about the state of the Social Security system as we size up some of the reforms currently on the table.

The arc of human history is a story of economics. Social values, human behavior, and the defining events of history are all woven into this field that seeks to explain how and why societies prosper — and why they often don’t.

Today on Political Economy, I talk with Andrew Leigh about the economic lessons we miss in history class and what we gain from a basic understanding of how our economy works.

Leigh is a member of the Australian House of Representatives and serves as the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, and Treasury.

His...

Today on Political Economy, Michael Strain and I discuss the key challenges currently facing the American economy; namely, the growing debt burden, lingering inflation, the market response to tariffs, and general uncertainty.

Strain is the director of Economic Policy Studies and the Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy here  at AEI. He has published dozens of articles in leading academic and policy journals in addition to his 2020 book, The American Dream is Not Dead. He is a professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and a research fellow at the Institute for the Stu...

Energy, transportation, housing — pro-growth advocates from Washington to Silicon Valley are calling for a revival of American infrastructure. They say, “It’s time to build.”

One massive problem, however: decades of environmental regulation, such as the National Environmental Policy Act, have slowed these efforts to a snail’s pace, if not halted them altogether.

Today on Political Economy, I talk with James Coleman about the kinds of policy reforms need before we can build.

Coleman is a nonresident senior fellow here at AEI. Concurrently, he is also a scholar...

The US government has acted as major contributor to science research since the mid-20th century, both in terms of broad basic research and targeted projects. As industrial policy has gained traction, especially during the Biden Administration, the distinction between industrial and science policy has become increasingly obscure. Hybrid policies like the CHIPS and Science Act have spurred continued debate surrounding role and value of federal funding for science research. Today on Political Economy, I talk to Tony Mills about American science policy past, present, and future.

Mills is a senior fellow here at AEI and director...

Computer chips are the driving force behind everything from smartphones and cars to military defense systems and artificial intelligence. Not only are they the essential element of modern digital infrastructure, they are a critical element in the global balance of power.

Taiwan is home to the most advanced and productive chip plants in the world, precariously placing the technology between Communist China and the democratic West. In today’s geopolitical landscape, control over semiconductor supply chains is more than just an economic issue; it’s a matter of national security. Today on Political Economy, I’m talking with C...

Growth is good for everyone in an economy, but it is also inherently disruptive. Today on Political Economy, I talk to Glenn Hubbard about why fear of change can trap us in an economic zero-sum game, and how embracing the growing pains of innovation can free us from that scenario, making things better for everybody.

Hubbard is a nonresident senior fellow here at AEI, where he writes about a wide range of economic topics, from poverty to international finance. He is the former dean of Columbia Business School, and currently serves as the director of the Jerome...

The Biden administration has set ambitious goals to decrease US carbon emissions. Starting in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act granted clean energy tax credits to businesses in hopes of encouraging a greener economy.

Kyle and Shuting Pomerleau see a carbon tax as a superior approach. To offset any regressive effects, they propose a revenue swap, using the income from the tax to directly finance an expanded child tax credit. Today on Political Economy, I talk to the Pomerleaus about their innovative policy proposal, and why a carbon tax might be a powerful, multifaceted solution.

Shuting Pomerleau...

American families are getting smaller, even as parents spend more time parenting; and while quality of life has ostensibly gone up, our willingness to bring children into our abundant world has seemingly gone down. Economists try to pinpoint market explanations and propose policy solutions to the falling birthrate, but Tim Carney has a more basic explanation for our shrinking, stressed-out families. Today I talk with Carney about his recent book, Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be.

Carney is a senior fellow here at AEI, as well as a seni...

The US dollar is the dominant global currency, but is it possible that the dollar could one day lose its top-tier status? And, if so, would that necessarily be a bad thing? To find out the answers to those and other questions, I asked AEI’s Steven Kamin.

Kamin’s research at AEI centers on international macroeconomics and finance. Prior to AEI, Kamin worked at the Federal Reserve as director of the Division of International Finance.

When it comes to deploying a new technology, there are no guarantees. While developers and policymakers do their best to minimize risk, innovation always requires a leap of faith. The policy debate around artificial intelligence seems to be a guessing game on all sides. Today, I talk with Bronwyn Howell about how we should be thinking about regulating AI, based on what we know from recent history, and acknowledging AI’s great unpredictability.

Howell is a nonresident senior fellow here at AEI. She is also a faculty member of the Wellington School of Business and Government at Vi...

The Child Tax Credit is a tax benefit available to many American families for the purpose of reducing their federal income tax liability. It’s specifically designed to help offset the cost of raising children. The CTC of today, however, differs starkly from its pre-pandemic structure. Many economists, including Kevin Corinth, think that the post-pandemic changes were a step in the wrong direction.

Corinth is a senior fellow and the deputy director of the Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility here at AEI. His research interests include poverty, safety net programs, homelessness, social capital, and economic mobility. Pr...

Generation after generation seem to pine for “the good old days,” an elusive time when many of us think morals, institutions, and the quality of life, in general, were higher. Americans are no exception to this rule, but there’s something unique about American nostalgia. While we reminisce about the past, we also owe much of our success as a nation to our forward-thinking culture that embraces the possibility of the American Dream. Today on Political Economy, I talk with Karlyn Bowman about the way Americans view their nation, and the tensions between their love of their past and their...

Medicare is a trillion-dollar federal health insurance program designed to meet the medical needs of senior citizens and Americans with disabilities. Yet, despite its staggering amount of funding, Medicare is far from a perfect system. Here on Political Economy, I sit down with Joe Antos to discuss the current state of Medicare and its systemic challenges.

Antos is a senior fellow here at AEI where he studies the economics of health policy. He is currently Vice Chair and serving a third term as commissioner at the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission. He is also a professor...

Milton Friedman was one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, right alongside John Maynard Keynes. His work pushed economic thought toward free markets in the 1970s and 1980s. His passionate defense of capitalism and economic freedom had global appeal right through the present day. As such, the closing decades of the 20th century have been termed "The Age of Friedman," yet commentators have sought to hold him responsible for both the rising prosperity and rising inequality of recent times.

Jennifer Burns is a professor at Stanford University, where she teaches 20th century American history...

Over the past 40 years, children born to parents without college degrees have become less and less likely to grow up with the advantages of a two-parent home. This trend is perpetuating inequality between college-educated and non-college-educated families. To talk about this issue, I’ve invited on Melissa Kearney.

Melissa is the Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute. Her new book is The Two-Parent Privilege: How the Decline in Marriage Has Increased Inequality and Lowered Social Mobility, and What We Can Do about It.

From the dawn of agriculture in Jericho to the artistic achievements of the Italian Renaissance in Florence, what lessons can we learn from great cities throughout history? What factors give rise to periods of innovation and creativity? In this episode of Political Economy, Chelsea Follett previews her new book, Centers of Progress: 40 Cities That Changed the World.

Chelsea is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute and managing editor of HumanProgress.org.

In the early 20th century, the idea that "big is bad" drove a muscular federal antitrust policy that viewed large corporations with suspicion. Then, in the 1980s, the Federal Trade Commission began to incorporate the lessons of economics, considering the welfare of consumers. Today, the Biden FTC wants to undo the last 40 years of antitrust policy, which it sees as a "failed experiment." Is the Biden administration right? To answer that question, I've brought on Timothy J. Muris.

Tim is a visiting senior fellow here at the American Enterprise Institute and foundation professor at the Antonin Scalia...

Does the typical American family today enjoy better living standards compared to 1985? We may have bigger TVs in our living rooms and smartphones in our pockets, but a recent report from Washington, DC, think tank the American Compass suggests the cost of a thriving, middle-class lifestyle has risen over the past generation. To discuss what that report gets right and where it falls short, I'm joined today by Jeremy Horpedahl.

Jeremy is an associate professor of economics at the University of Central Arkansas. He's also the co-author, along with AEI's Scott Winship, of the recent report, "The...

Recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called “the nation’s report card,” reveal the dire state of American education. The pandemic hit students hard, but it also presents educators and policymakers with an opportunity to rethink our schools. To discuss that, I’ve brought my colleague Rick Hess back on Political Economy.

Rick is a Senior Fellow and Director of Education Policy Studies here at the American Enterprise Institute. He’s also the author of several fantastic books, the latest of which is the recently released The Great School Rethink.

In this episode of Political Economy, I sit down with economist Leah Boustan to explore the truth behind the prevailing narratives that surround America's immigration policy debates. Are immigrants truly responsible for job loss among native-born Americans? Does immigration burden the US economy? And do today's immigrants assimilate less rapidly than their predecessors? We'll delve into those questions and more.

Leah is a Professor of Economics at Princeton University, where she also serves as the Director of the Industrial Relations Section. Last year, she and Ran Abramitzky wrote the fantastic book Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story...

Republicans in the House recently struck a deal with the Biden administration to raise the debt ceiling. But Washington debates over discretionary spending shouldn't overshadow the hard conversations we need to have about America's entitlement spending. Andrew Biggs joins this episode of Political Economy to discuss his ideas for Social Security reform.

Andrew is a senior fellow here at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies Social Security reform, state and local government pensions, and public sector pay and benefits.

We hear a lot about student debt in the news these days, but why has college gotten so expensive to begin with? My colleague Beth Akers joins Political Economy to discuss that question and to weigh in on the Biden administration's moratorium on student loan repayment.

Beth is a senior fellow here at the American Enterprise Institute, where her work focuses on the economics of higher education.

The Democratic and Republican parties have experienced substantial shifts in recent years, from each party's demographic makeup to its policy priorities. To explore that realignment and to consider the future of American political coalitions, I'm joined by my AEI colleague Ruy Teixeira.

Ruy is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the transformation of party coalitions and the future of American electoral politics.

As artificial intelligence continues to develop, many workers fear the disruptive potential of a fast-changing job market. How will AI impact the economy and how can workers prepare for the future? Today, my AEI colleague Brent Orrell joins Political Economy to answer those questions and more.

Brent is a senior fellow here at AEI, where he works on job training and workforce development. He's also host of the Hardly Working podcast.

There is a growing sense of pessimism that the American Dream is dying. Marriage rates are declining and fewer children are being born. Are economics behind this nationwide shift, or something else? I’m joined for today’s episode of Political Economy by my AEI colleague Angela Rachidi to talk about her research into whether raising a family has become unaffordable.

Angela is a senior fellow and the Rowe Scholar in poverty studies here at AEI, where she studies the effects of federal safety-net programs on low-income people in America. Angela is also author of the forthcoming report...

Here at the American Enterprise Institute we’ve launched a new Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility as part of our American Dream Initiative. Former AEI scholar Kevin Corinth has returned to the Institute to serve as deputy director. In this special episode of Political Economy, I’m sitting down with Kevin to hear more about this new center, as well as Kevin’s recent work.

Kevin is a Senior Fellow and the Deputy Director of the Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility here at AEI. He previously served as the Chief Economist in the White House’s Council...

US-China relations have been strained in recent years over issues like trade, intellectual property theft, and supply chain reliance. How should we think about the economic ties between the US and China? And what are the keys to a prudent China policy going forward? To answer those questions, I'm joined by Derek Scissors. 

Derek is a senior fellow here at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Chinese and Indian economies and on US economic relations with Asia. He is concurrently the chief economist of the China Beige Book. Derek is also author of AEI's China...

With the US reaching its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, the Republican-controlled House and Democratic administration are set to spar over raising the debt limit. To sort through what's going on and whether the Twitter idea of minting a trillion-dollar coin could be the government's "get out of jail free" card, I'm joined again by my AEI colleague Michael Strain.

Mike is the director of Economic Policy Studies and the Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also a member of the Committee on Automation and the Workforce of the National Academy...

Austrian economist Friedrich A. Hayek fought in the First World War, lived through the Great Depression and the rise of fascism, and enjoyed a postwar career as a Nobel Prize-winning economist. He is known to us today as a champion of classical liberal thought and author of The Road to Serfdom. In this episode of Political Economy, I'm joined by Bruce Caldwell to learn more about Hayek's life and ideas.

Bruce is a Research Professor of Economics at Duke University and the general editor of The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek. He is the author of 2004's ...

When we talk about poverty in the United States, what do we mean? And how do we measure it? My AEI colleague Scott Winship returns to Political Economy to give us a primer on how the "war on poverty" is going.

Scott is a senior fellow and Director of Poverty Studies here at AEI. He's also author of the new report, "Bringing Home the Bacon: Have Trends in Men’s Pay Weakened the Traditional Family?" We'll be diving into that question later in the show.

Professional sports teams love to ask local governments for public funds to build their stadiums. The teams claim these subsidies will "pay for themselves" through increased tourism and entertainment spending. But economists aren't so sure. For decades, researchers have cast doubts on these claims, yet local governments continue to help wealthy owners with their construction costs.

In this episode of Political Economy, I'm sitting down with economist and sports fanatic J.C. Bradbury to learn more about why these stadium subsidies don't seem to work out in the end. J.C. is a professor of economics at Ke...