Zachary Mazlish on the Political Implications of Inflation and the Impact of Transformative AI
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
Release Date: 12/02/2024
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
Lukasz Rachel is a former Bank of England economist and currently is an assistant professor of economics at the University College of London. In Lukasz’s first appearance on the show he discusses his big career breaks, the implications of secular stagnation in the industrialized world, what is next for R-star, what non-Ricardian macro policy looks like, his policy prescriptions for the US, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on October 29th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow Lukasz on...
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Tara Sinclair is a professor and chair of the economics department at George Washington University. Tara returns to the show to discuss her ambitious paper simulating an FOMC meeting before it happens with LLM models, the process of building sim FOMC members, the importance of publicly funding economic data, the future of AI and macroeconomics, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on October 27th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow Tara on X: Follow the show on X: Check out our Macro...
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Bryan Cutsinger is a monetary historian and an assistant professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University. Bryan returns to the show to discuss how we think about deflation, the history of growth driven deflation, the connection between the postbellum period and today, the potential of rapid productivity growth from AI, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on September 23rd, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow Bryan on X: Follow the show on X: Check out our Macro Musings ...
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Will Roberds is an economist emeritus of the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Steve Quinn is a professor of economics at Texas Christian University. In Will and Steve’s first appearance on the show they discuss the historical significance of the Bank of Amsterdam, The use of ledger at the Bank of Amsterdam, It’s use of repo and open market operations, it’s connection to central banking today, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on September 23rd, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David...
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Jim Clouse is a veteran of the Federal Reserve System and is currently a fellow at the Andersen Institute. In Jim’s first appearance on the show, he discusses the evolution of monetary rules at the Fed, what happened at the Fed during Y2K, 9/11, the Great Financial Crisis, and the COVID Pandemic, the ever changing stigma of the discount window, Ted Cruz’s calls to end interest on reserves, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on September 11th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow the...
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Manmohan Singh is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Financial Markets Infrastructure. Manmohan returns to the show to discuss whether money still matters, the impacts of the GENIUS ACT, the lobbying show down over stablecoins in the US, stablecoins impact on the Eurodollar market, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on September 10th, 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 -...
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Raphael Bostic is the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. In President Bostic’s first appearance on the show, he discusses his love of birding, what that teaches him about central banking, the unique role of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, switching for FIT to FAIT back to FIT, what to do about inflation, the importance of globalization, rising fiscal pressures, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on September 23rd, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on...
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Jon Hartley is a macroeconomist and affiliated scholar at the Mercatus Center. Jon returns to the show to discuss the most recent Hoover Monetary Conference, the legacy of John Taylor, why central banks should be using his new measure of r-star, the status of debt management at the US Treasury, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on August 26th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow Jon Hartley on X: Follow the show on X: Check out our Macro Musings to David's new BTS YouTube...
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Marc Giannoni is a managing director and the chief US economist at Barclays Capital. In Marc’s first appearance on the show he discusses working on the 2020 Fed Framework Review, the troubling issues of Fed independence and fiscal dominance, the future of long rates and r-star, his influential 2006 paper about what good monetary policy looks like, and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on August 28th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow the show on X: Check out our Macro Musings ...
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Samim Ghamami is former SEC economist. Samim returns to the show to discuss the fiscal trajectory of the US, the outlook of interest rates, the US Treasury market’s impact on inflation, potential reforms to the Treasury market and much more. Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on August 5th, 2025 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David Beckworth on X: Follow Samim on X: Follow the show on X: Check out our Macro Musings to David's new BTS YouTube Channel Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:42 - Fiscal Trajectory of...
info_outlineZachary Mazlish is an economist at the University of Oxford, and he joins David on Macro Musings to explain some recent and important macroeconomic developments, specifically the inflation linkages to the 2024 presidential election and the macroeconomic implications of transformative AI. David and Zach also discuss transformative AI’s impact on asset pricing, optimal monetary policy in world of high growth, the causes of the slowdown in trend productivity, and more.
Transcript for this week’s episode.
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Related Links:
*Yes, Inflation Made the Median Voter Poorer* by Zachary Mazlish
*Transformative AI, Existential Risk, and Real Interest Rates* by Trevor Chow, Basil Halperin, and Zachary Mazlish
*Decomposing the Great Stagnation: Baumol’s Cost Disease vs. “Ideas Are Getting Hard to Find”* by Basil Halperin and Zachary Mazlish
*The Unexpected Compression: Competition at Work in the Low Wage Labor Market* by David Autor, Arin Dube, and Annie McGrew
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) – Intro
(00:04:03) – Inflation Made the Median Voter Poorer: Comparing Periods of Wage Growth
(00:15:26) – Inflation Made the Median Voter Poorer: The Median Change in the Wage
(00:22:19) – Assessing the Feedback to Zachary’s Article
(00:25:05) – The Significance of Transformative AI and its Double-Edged Sword
(00:27:02) – The Impact of Transformative AI on Asset Pricing and its Policy Challenges
(00:38:07) – The Broader Macroeconomic Effects of Rapid Growth
(00:41:05) – Optimal Monetary Policy in a World of High Growth
(00:43:19) – Exploring the Causes of the Productivity Slowdown
(00:49:21) – Outro