Risk Talking is a podcast hosted by Allison Schrager—economist, journalist, and author—where she discusses cutting-edge economics in plain language. Schrager, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal, interviews leading economists, business journalists, and historians, exploring their work in an effort to understand what’s happening in the marketplace today. Allison Schrager is also a columnist at Bloomberg Opinion and co-founder of LifeCycle Finance Partners, LLC, a risk advisory firm. She's written widely in the popular press, received a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia, and is the author of An Economist Walks into a...
Latest episodes
-
51 min
Bail Bonds and the Nature of Risk
Bail bondsman Nicholas Lindblad joins Allison Schrager to discuss the risk calculations involved in the bail business.
-
48 min
Can States and Cities Dig Themselves Out?
Yale Law School professor David Schleicher joins Allison Schrager to discuss the fiscal situation of American states and localities. His new book, In a Bad State, is out now.
-
40 min
The Banking Crisis and ESG Investing
Richard J. Shinder, founder and managing partner of Theatine Partners, a financial consultancy, joins Allison Schrager to discuss the banking crisis, ESG investing, and the interse…
-
44 min
Reforming Social Security
American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Andrew Biggs joins Allison Schrager to discuss Social Security's flaws, the tradeoffs required to rework the program, and the role of pr…
-
29 min
The Uses and Abuses of Debt
Why do cities and states find themselves in fiscal holes? Economist Robert Inman joins Allison Schrager to discuss the roots of municipal debt crises, the post-Covid balance sheets…
-
52 min
When Our Relationship to Government Changed
Economic historian Price Fishback joins Allison Schrager to discuss the economic history of the New Deal, the various programs that constituted it, and whether today’s economic str…
-
45 min
Making Sense of the U.S. Health-Care System
MI senior fellow Chris Pope joins Allison Schrager to discuss health care in the United States, the future of entitlement spending, and ways to increase competition and coverage.
-
37 min
Why America Needs Apprenticeships
Urban Institute fellow Robert Lerman joins Allison Schrager to discuss apprenticeship programs in the U.S., the need both to equip young people with occupational skills and to retr…
-
40 min
How to Fix Human Capital
Jonathan Meer joins Allison Schrager to discuss the American labor market, the need to prioritize skilled labor, and changes that educators can make to prepare young people to ente…
-
51 min
The Return of Economic Reality
Brian Riedl joins Allison Schrager to discuss the end of free-lunch economics, the hard choices facing fiscal and monetary policymakers, and the long-term demographic challenges fa…
-
57 min
How Finance Enabled Civilization
Yale School of Management professor William N. Goetzmann joins Allison Schrager to discuss the history of financial innovation, the role of markets in Athens, Sumeria, and Rome, an…
-
44 min
Higher Ed: What Went Wrong?
American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Beth Akers joins Allison Schrager to discuss student loans, the rising cost of college, and policy alternatives to blanket debt forgiven…
-
1 h 02
Wage Stagnation and Income Risk
Economist Fatih Guvenen joins Allison Schrager to discuss his research into some of the most pressing issues facing the American economy—from wage stagnation to income risk—and how…
-
48 min
Making Sense of the Housing Market
NYU-Stern professor and Manhattan Institute adjunct fellow Arpit Gupta joins Allison Schrager to discuss the state of the U.S. housing market, the long-term consequences of remote…
-
43 min
To Understand Cryptocurrency, First Understand Money
What is money? It’s a time-honored question in economics, and the stock answers usually involve such phrases as “a medium of exchange” or “a reliable store of value.” But the defin…
-
47 min
Inflation’s Revenge
For years, a cohort of economists, public officials, and journalists confidently proclaimed that inflation was a thing of the past. Demographic trends heralded long-term deflationa…
-
55 min
The Triumph of Intangibles
Everyone seems to think the world economy has taken a wrong turn, but nobody seems to agree on the reasons why. What if the culprit is the world's hidden transition from tangible t…
-
54 min
The Future Economy, with Economic Historian Joel Mokyr
On the inaugural episode of Risk Talking, Joel Mokyr, the pathbreaking economic historian, joins Allison Schrager to discuss the past, present, and future of innovation and the mod…
-
1 min
Introducing: Risk Talking
Learn about "Risk Talking" with Allison Schrager, a podcast from the Manhattan Institute.