Macro Musings with David Beckworth

Stephan Luck is a Financial Research Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In Stephan's first appearance on the show, he discusses how the 2008 Great Financial Crisis shaped his career, how he and his coauthors leverage LLMs to comb through massive amounts of historical data, what this data can teach us about responding to bank failures, what people get wrong when they try and make historical analogies to the GENIUS era, the lessons we can learn from the German hyperinflation, and much more.
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Recorded on June 1st, 2026
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Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:55 - Stephan's Career
00:11:21 - Bank Failures
00:28:19 - Policy Implications of Bank Failures
00:37:21 - National Banking System
00:46:30 - German Hyperinflation
00:57:06 - Outro

Barry Eichengreen is well known author, economist, and economic historian from the University of California, Berkeley. In Barry's first appearance on the show he discusses a career in untangling the world's monetary history, the origins of his new book Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto, the first uses on currencies in the 7th Century BC, the unexpected start of the dollar, how we landed on the central bank model, the dollar's rise to global reserve currency, which if any currencies as poised to take on the dollar, and much more.
Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel!
Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links.
Recorded on May 27th, 2026
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Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:17 - Barry's Books
00:10:14 - Money Beyond Borders
00:17:17 - Lydia and Greece
00:20:46 - Renaissance of Credits
00:23:36 - Spanish Silver
00:28:26 - The Emergence of Central Banks
00:38:11 - British Empire vs. Roman Empire
00:43:34 - Dollar as One of the Dominant Reserve Currencies
00:56:29 - Outro

Yesha Yadav is a professor of law, the Milton R. Underwood Chair, the Associate Dean & Robert Belton Director of Culture & Community, and the Co-Faculty Director, Master of Laws (LL.M) Program at the Vanderbilt University Law School. Chris Odinet is a professor of law, Mosbacher Research Fellow, and Affiliate Professor of Finance at Texas A&M University School of Law. Andrea Tosato is professor of law at the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. Yesha, Chris, and Andrea join the show to discuss their avenues into stablecoin regulation, their four-part definition of moneyness (nature of the claim, safety, discharge capacity, and negotiability), how Tether and Circle stack up to these definitions, the stablecoin bankruptcy conundrum, the progress the GENIUS Act made on closing legal loopholes, their prescriptions for policymakers, and much more.  
Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel!
Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links.
Recorded on May 20th, 2026
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Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:26 - Career Backgrounds of Chris, Yesha, and Andrea
00:02:35 - Background on the Paper
00:06:52 - Structure of Money
00:17:33 - Moneyness: Nature of the Claim
00:22:37 - Moneyness: Safety
00:23:45 - Moneyness: Discharge Capacity
00:30:50 - Moneyness: Negotiability
00:31:55 - How Stablecoins Currently Hold Up in Moneyness
00:58:18 - Recommendations to Policymakers
01:10:51 - Outro

Jeffrey Lacker is the former president of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank and is a senior affiliated scholar at the Mercatus Center. Jeff returns to the show to discuss the history of the Fed Treasury Accord, the state of fiscal dominance, his five proposals for a new Fed Treasury Accord, his calls for reform around the discount window, a memorial to his friend and colleague Charlie Plosser, and much more.
Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel!
Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links.
Recorded on May 20th, 2026
Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus
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Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:56 - Fed Treasury Accord
00:18:26 - Fiscal Dominance
00:22:05 - Jeff's Five Proposals
00:49:05 - Charlie Plosser
00:55:49 - Outro

Nik Bhatia is an author of two economics books, a visiting fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute and the founder of The Bitcoin Layer. In Nik's first appearance on the podcast, he discusses his niche in the Bitcoin community, the role of Bitcoin as a transaction asset, the threat or lack thereof of quantum computing on Bitcoin, his issues with the current eurodollar market, his new proposal to use stablecoins as statecraft, and much more.
Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel!
Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links.
Recorded on May 5th, 2026
Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus
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Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:49 - Nik's Career and Background
00:12:32 - Crypto Assets for Transactions
00:18:28 - Quantum Computing and Bitcoin
00:24:08 - Stablecoins as Statecraft
00:58:36 - Outro