Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde on Central Bank Digital Currency and the Current Economic Responses to COVID-19
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
Release Date: 04/29/2020
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
Hester Peirce is a current commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission and serves on its crypto task force. Hester returns to the show to discuss her time and role at the SEC, the SEC evolving role in the regulation landscape, the problems with our current state of the financial surveillance, the state of crypto for a regulator’s perspective, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on August 11th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow Hester on X: Follow the show on X: Check...
info_outlineMacro Musings with David Beckworth
Robin Brooks is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Robin returns to the show to discuss his previous appearance in March of 2020, life at a think tank, the changing or not-so-much status of the dollar, Trump’s trade war, the current landscape of geoeconomics and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on August 7th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow Robin on X: Follow the show on X: Check out our Macro Musings to David's new BTS YouTube Channel Timestamps 00:00:00...
info_outlineMacro Musings with David Beckworth
Aditi Sahasrabuddhe is a political scientist at Brown University and the author of the new book, Banker’s Trust: How Social Relations Avert Global Financial Collapse. In Aditi’s first appearance on the show, she discusses how central bankers’ relationships in the 1920’s impacted the global economy, how the ending of those relationships played a part in the Great Depression, how we can apply those principles to the Great Recession and the present, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on July 30th, 2025 Subscribe to David's...
info_outlineMacro Musings with David Beckworth
Will Luther is an associate professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University and a fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute. Josh Hendrickson is a professor of economics and the chair of the economics department at the University of Mississippi. Josh is also a fellow at BPI. Will and Josh return to the show to defend the idea of a strategic Bitcoin reserve, discuss the future of Bitcoin, and contend with the problem of Bitcoiners, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on June 25th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David...
info_outlineMacro Musings with David Beckworth
Rashad Ahmed is a former Treasury and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency financial economist and is currently an economist at the upstart Andresen Institute for Finance and Economics. In Rashad’s first appearance on the show, he discusses the real-world impacts of the GENIUS Act, what US stablecoin regulation means for the rest of the world, the state of crypto adoption, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on June 27th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow Rashad Ahmed on X: ...
info_outlineMacro Musings with David Beckworth
Paul Kupiec is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. In Paul’s first appearance on the show, he discusses life at a think tank, the insolvency of the Fed, theories on how to fix the Fed’s balance sheet, Ted Cruz’s call to end interest on reserves, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on June 24th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow the show on X: Check out our Macro Musings to David's new BTS YouTube Channel Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro...
info_outlineMacro Musings with David Beckworth
Check out David's Substack: for a special 500th episode post! George Hall is a professor of economics at Brandeis University and formerly worked as an economist at the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank. George returns to the show to discuss the current fiscal status of the US, how the Big Beautiful Bill will impact the fiscal outlook going forward, the history of running deficits in the US, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on June 24th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow George on X:...
info_outlineMacro Musings with David Beckworth
Ben Harris served in numerous high-ranking roles as a public sector economist and is now the vice president and director of economic studies at the Brooking Institution. In Ben’s first appearance on the show, he discusses the fiscal health of the US government, including the rising primary deficient, the impact of the Big Beautiful Bill, the proposition of stablecoins and AI as a solution to our debt, his love of basketball and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on June 18th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David...
info_outlineMacro Musings with David Beckworth
Luis Garicano is a former member of the European Parliament and a professor at the London School of Economics. In Luis’s first appearance on the show he discusses his new book, Crisis Cycle: Challenges, Evolution, and the future of the Euro, the ever-changing landscape of digital money, his suggested reforms to the Euro, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on June 18th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow Luis on X: Follow the show on X: Check out our Macro Musings to...
info_outlineMacro Musings with David Beckworth
Mark Blyth is a professor of international economics at Brown University. In Mark’s first appearance on the show, he discusses his new book Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers, the concept of angrynomics, a new way to look at price controls, demographic decline, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on June 4th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow Mark on X: Follow the show on X: Check out our Macro Musings to David's new BTS YouTube Channel Timestamps 00:00:00...
info_outlineJesus Fernandez-Villaverde is a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research affiliate with the Center for Economic Policy Research, and a returning guest to the podcast. Jesus specializes in macroeconomic modeling and economic history among other topics, and he joins Macro Musings to talk about COVID-19, central bank digital currency, and developments in the Eurozone. David and Jesus also discuss the history of central banks and the interacting public, how threatening inflation could become a useful tool for a central bank, and the value economic modeling could add to the epidemiological field.
Transcript for the episode can be found here.
Jesus’s UPenn profile: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/
Jesus’s NBER archive: https://www.nber.org/people/jesus_fernandez-villaverde
Related Links:
Bonus segment with Jesus: https://youtu.be/CA6y9LqjDwQ
*Estimating and Simulating a SIRD Model of COVID-19 for Many Countries, States, and Cities* by Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Charles Jones
https://web.stanford.edu/~chadj/sird-paper.pdf
*Central Bank Digital Currency: Central Banking For All?* by Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, Daniel Sanches, Linda Schilling, & Harald Uhlig
https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/central-bank-digital-currency-central-banking-for-all/
*Central Bank Digital Currency in a Nominal World* by Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, Daniel Sanches, Linda Schilling, & Harald Uhlig
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/CBDC_Nominal.pdf
David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com
David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth