Archive

Argentina Bank Governor Santiago Bausili on Addressing Imbalances

SANTIAGO BAUSILI, RODRIGO VALDES May 8, 2025

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 Department head, Rodrigo Valdés discuss the challenging process of stabilizing Argentina’s bi-monetary economy.

F&D Magazine / Economic growth

Xavier Jaravel on Democratizing Innovation to Spur Growth

XAVIER JARAVEL April 1, 2025

Most of today’s innovators emerge from a narrow demographic group with specific backgrounds, which Xavier Jaravel says creates the phenomena of “Lost Einsteins” and “Lost Marie Curies". Jaravel is a professor of economics at the London School of Economics. In this podcast, he talks about the benefits of unleashing untapped talent and broadening the pool of innovators worldwide.

F&D Magazine / Education

Amory Gethin Measures the Economic Value of Education

AMORY GETHIN March 20, 2025

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 is an economist in the World Bank Development Research Group working on growth and inequality and has sought to quantify the economic value of education as it relates to global poverty reduction. In this podcast, Gethin says investing in education advances those who pursue degrees and those who don’t.

F&D Magazine / Economic growth

Karthik Sastry on Animal Spirits and the Economy

KARTHIK SASTRY March 12, 2025

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. Karthik Sastry is a macroeconomist and assistant professor at Princeton University. In this podcast, he says personal instincts and primal urges are known to cause cycles of boom and bust, and one way to gauge those emotions is through economic narratives.

F&D Magazine

Oren Cass on the Invisible Hand

OREN CASS March 3, 2025

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 voluminous economic treatise, Smith is most remembered for “the invisible hand,” a metaphor that Oren Cass says has wrongly been associated with the idea that markets magically self-correct. Cass is the founder and chief economist at American Compass. In this podcast, he says the contortion of Smith’s idea led to a blind faith in markets, whereas “the invisible hand” was really about ensuring the alignment between private profit and the public interest.

Driving Change / Development

Driving Change: Rumana Huque on the Real Costs of Bangladesh’s Tobacco Dependency

Rumana Huque February 28, 2025

The International Economic Association’s Women in Leadership in Economics Initiative (IEA-WE) connects women economists worldwide and helps showcase their important empirical research, especially in developing countries. IMF Podcasts has partnered with the IEA-WE to produce a special series featuring the economists behind the invaluable local research that informs policymakers in places often overlooked.

F&D Magazine

Sanjeev Gupta on Health Financing

SANJEEV GUPTA February 25, 2025

The pandemic was a brutal reminder of how crucial public health systems are, yet health budgets in developing economies are still underfunded. In this podcast, Center for Global Development fellow Sanjeev Gupta says greater revenue collection and improved budget execution would strengthen health systems and reduce the need for foreign assistance.

Technology

Simon Johnson on Technology, Institutions and Prosperity

SIMON JOHNSON February 14, 2025

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 research that won him the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. In this podcast, Johnson discusses the interdependence of institutions and technology, the topic of his latest book Power and Progress.

F&D Magazine / Development

Elizabeth Johnson on Fixing São Paulo’s Housing Deficit

ELIZABETH JOHNSON December 19, 2024

As urbanization continues to grow worldwide, affordable housing is a rare commodity in many cities. São Paulo, South America’s biggest city, has gained over 2 million new residents in the past decade alone. Elizabeth Johnson heads Brazil research at TS Lombard and says the city is now looking to its largely abandoned downtown core to address its housing woes.

F&D Magazine / Housing

Deniz Igan on The Housing Affordability Crunch

DENIZ IGAN December 12, 2024

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. In this podcast, IMF economist Deniz Igan says the pandemic triggered an unusual sequence of events that housing markets around the world are still struggling to correct.

Driving Change / Data collection

Driving Change: Rose Ngugi on how Indices are giving Kenya an Edge

ROSE NGUGI December 4, 2024

Driving Change: Women-Led Development Economics from the Ground Up is an IMF / IEA-WE collaborative podcast series. This episode features Kenyan economist Rose Ngugi whose indices are helping local counties design better policies.

Driving Change / Inclusion and gender

Driving Change: Ipek Ilkkaracan on Why Investing in Care Pays Off

IPEK ILKKARACAN December 4, 2024

Driving Change: Women-Led Development Economics from the Ground Up is an IMF / IEA-WE collaborative podcast series. This episode features Turkish economist Ipek Ilkkaracan, who makes a strong business case for investing in social care infrastructure.