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For this episode, we talk with Nina Eichacker, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Rhode Island. We discuss her wide ranging work on green industrial policy, the politics of Eurozone monetary policy, and two pre-pandemic books about American socialism. *** LINKS *** Read more of Nina Eichacker's work on her web page: https://ninaephd.org/ Follow her on twitter: @nina_econ "The Case for More Solyndras" https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/11/19/1012302/solyndra-climate-change-industrial-policy-opinion/ "Institutions, Liquidity Preference, and Reserve Asset Holding in the Eurozone Core and Periphery Before and After Crises: Some Stylized Facts" https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/qprm3/ "A Political Economy of Fiscal Space: Political Structures, Bond Markets, and Monetary Accommodation of Government Spending Potential at Municipal, National, and International Levels" https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/yxjh5/ "Can America Truly Turn Socialist?" https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.1694274 Although we did not discuss it, also be sure to check out her NOEMA article with Jason Oakes: "Fight Inflation with Surplus, not Scarcity" https://www.noemamag.com/fight-inflation-with-surplus-not-scarcity/

For this episode, Christy Thornton joins us to talk about her book *Revolution in Development.* It tells the story of the revolutionary Mexican state's exclusion from the international financial system in the early 20th century, its new conception of credit and push for multilateral development lending in the interwar period, and its ultimately tragic defense of the Bretton Wood institutions in the postwar period. Along the way she asks us to think about hegemony in the world-system, agency in the global south prior to the much-hyped moment in the 1970s, and Mexico's revolution in development as a cautionary tale about compromise with dominant institutions. Thank you to our intern, Keegan Hill, for helping to edit this episode. *** LINKS *** Christy Thornton's faculty page: https://soc.jhu.edu/directory/christy-thornton/ Buy *Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy* here: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520297166/revolution-in-development

For this episode, we talk with Skanda Amarnath, executive director of Employ America. We discuss some of the myths about inflation in the 1970s, the forgotten inflation of early 1950s, how monetary policy really works, and Paul Volcker's stolen valor. Follow Skanda on twitter @IrvingSwisher and Employ America @employamerica Read more about Skanda and EA's work here: https://www.employamerica.org/ For more on what we talk about in the show specifically, see: https://www.employamerica.org/researchreports/how-the-fed-affects-inflation/ https://www.employamerica.org/researchreports/expecting-inflation-the-case-of-the-1950s/ https://www.employamerica.org/researchreports/beyond-the-phillips-curve-a-dynamic-approach-to-communicating-assessments-of-maximum-employment/ *** OTHER LINKS *** Jeremy Rudd (2021) - "Why Do We Think That Inflation Expectations Matter for Inflation? (And Should We?)," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-062. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2021062pap.pdf Cambridge Capital Controvercy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_capital_controversy Jay Powell - "Monetary Policy in a Changing Economy" - https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20180824a.htm Isabella Weber - "Could strategic price controls help fight inflation?" - https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2021/dec/29/inflation-price-controls-time-we-use-it Great Grain Robbery - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_United_States%E2%80%93Soviet_Union_wheat_deal Medicare and inflation: Employ America - https://www.employamerica.org/researchreports/inflation-and-healthcare/ San Francisco Fed - https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2016/may/medicare-payment-cuts-affect-core-inflation/ Chicago Fed - https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/chicago-fed-letter/2018/407

Eric Helleiner joins us to discuss his fascinating new global history of neo-mercantilist ideas. In addition to the well-known "Listian Intellectual World" there is a whole universe of thinkers who were not derivative of List but did dream of industrialization by way of a protectionist and interventionist state. American Henry Carey, for example, was distinct on a number of dimensions - and more influential around the world. But there were also traditions endogenous to East Asia, which developed and expanded on earlier mercantilist discourses that can be traced back to China's Warring States period or Japan's feudal era. Rather than diffusing through the translation and circulation of a single text - as in the case of Smith or Marx - neo-mercantilist ideas seemed to spontaneously appear anytime the conditions were ripe for it. State forms other than the nation - from diaspora to empire to international institutions to a cosmopolitan world state - were dreamt of in the period before 1939 as possible vehicles for neo-mercantilist policy. Versions left, right, and center show how politically underdetermined it was as a discourse. Note: this episode was recorded prior to the invasion of Ukraine. *** LINKS *** Eric Helleiner's faculty page: https://uwaterloo.ca/political-science/people-profiles/eric-helleiner *The Neomercantilists: A Global Intellectual History* https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501760129/the-neomercantilists *Forgotten Foundations of Bretton Woods: International Development and the Making of the Postwar Order* https://www.google.com/books/edition/Forgotten_Foundations_of_Bretton_Woods/VTMPjwEACAAJ A refresher on the original mercantilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism Steve Pincus, Forum: Rethinking Mercantilism https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5309/willmaryquar.69.1.0003 Fredric List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_List Henry Carey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Charles_Carey Alexander Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures" excerpts https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch4s31.html Commodore Perry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_C._Perry Sun Yat-sen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yat-sen EF Schumacher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._F._Schumacher Gustav von Schmoller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_von_Schmoller Mihail Manoilescu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihail_Manoilescu Marcus Garvey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey Raul Prebisch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%BAl_Prebisch

For this episode, we spoke with Charles Postel about his recent book *Equality: An American Dilemma, 1866-1896.* After the Civil War, many social movements in favor of "equality" flourished in the U.S. -- champions of racial, sexual, regional, and economic equality pressed their case like never before. Organizations like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Knights of Labor mobilized women and workers on a massive scale, while the Grange - a project initiated by federal bureaucrats from D.C. - assembled farmers into the largest and most coherent organ for class-interest in the country. Each had to face up to the practical dilemmas of pursuing national political power in an uneven and divided country. ****** LINKS ****** *The Populist Vision* - https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-populist-vision-9780195176506 *Equality: An American Dilemma* - https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809079636/equality "If They Repeal the Progressive Era, Should We Care?" - https://www.jstor.org/stable/43903026 *** REFRESHERS *** The Grange - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grange_of_the_Order_of_Patrons_of_Husbandry Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union Frances Willard - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Willard Knights of Labor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_Labor Terence Powderly - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_V._Powderly Chinese Exclusion Act - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act Homestead Acts - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts Frances Ellen Watkins Harper - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Harper Elizabeth Cady Stanton - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cady_Stanton Henry George - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George Thomas Piketty - Capital in the Twenty-First Century - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century T. Thomas Fortune - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Thomas_Fortune Ignatius Donnelly - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_L._Donnelly The Omaha Platform - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Platform *** HISTORIOGRAPHY MENTIONED *** David Montgomery - Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862-1872 - https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p008696 Walter Johnson - The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States - https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/walter-johnson/the-broken-heart-of-america/9780465064267/ Gregg Cantrell - The People’s Revolt - Texas Populists and the Roots of American Liberalism - https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300100976/peoples-revolt

Amy Offner joins us to discuss the contradictions of New Deal liberalism, Colombian developmental statism, and the transnational flow of ideas. There are more continuities between the midcentury moment and today than many realize, suggesting that perhaps the worst aspects of today's neoliberalism are in fact more enduring features of capitalism. *** LINKS *** Professor Offner's faculty page: https://live-sas-www-history.pantheon.sas.upenn.edu/people/faculty/amy-c-offner Amy C. Offner - Sorting out the Mixed Economy https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190938/sorting-out-the-mixed-economy Juan Gabriel Valdes - Pinochet's Economists: The Chicago School of Economics in Chile https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/economic-history/pinochets-economists-chicago-school-economics-chile Sarah Babb - Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691117935/managing-mexico Heidi Tinsman - Buying into the Regime: Grapes and Consumption in Cold War Chile and the United States https://www.dukeupress.edu/buying-into-the-regime

What's the responsible thing to do if inflation starts to rise? This week we talk with Andrew Elrod, who recently completed a dissertation on the history of wage and price controls in America between 1940 and 1980 at UC Santa Barbara. It turns out that mainstream American history offers a number of options for dealing with accelerating prices; monetary policy doesn't have to be the only game in town. "When my new theory has been duly assimilated and mixed with the politics and feelings and passions, I can't predict what the final upshot will be in its effect on action and affairs. The task of keeping efficiency wages reasonably stable... is a political rather than economic problem. I do not doubt that a serious problem will arise as to how wages are to be restrained when we have a combination of collective bargaining and full employment. But I am not sure how much light the analytical method can throw on this essentially political problem." - JMK ****** LINKS ****** Follow Andrew on twitter: @andrewelrod Check out more of his writing here: https://andrewelrod.net/ And the articles we discussed today here: https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality-politics/andrew-elrod-specter-inflation https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/many-inflations https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/construction-labor-shortage *** MENTIONED *** Mark Erlich - https://lwp.law.harvard.edu/people/mark-erlich David Weil - Fissured Workplace - https://www.fissuredworkplace.net/ Allen J. Matusow - The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s - https://ugapress.org/book/9780820334059/the-unraveling-of-america/

This week we spoke with John Shovlin about his new book on capitalist international relations between France and Britain during the "second Hundred Years War." Its well-known that uneven commercial development provoked conflict in early modern Europe, as great powers that lagged behind fought violently to catch up. What's less well-known is that, as Shovlin shows, the same mercantilist rivalries could also provoke the opposite responses: free trade and peace projects. We ask him about the notorious John Law episode in France, hegemony and empire as master concepts for narrating international history, and the problem of protection costs for global capitalism. *** LINKS*** Check out John's personal website here: https://www.johnshovlin.com/ Buy the book: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300253566/trading-enemy Less familiar with the early modern period? The following might be worth skimming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colbertism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiocracy

This week we've brought you a double feature! First we talk to Luke Petach about his article on "Spatial Keynesianism." Macroeconomic policy was, at its inception, methodologically nationalist, and Keynesian policies fostered income convergence all across the US as poor regions caught up to wealthier ones. We talk about how that worked and why it ended. Then we bring on his co-author and former adviser, Daniele Tavani to talk about the post-Keynesian tradition, its differences with the Marxian economic tradition, and how they might be brought together again under the rubric of secular stagnation. Along the way we discuss Italy's unique place in the post-Keynesian tradition, and Piketty's contribution to the profession. The first ep ends and the second picks up @55:25. *** LINKS *** Follow Luke on twitter @LPetach Read "Spatial Keynesian policy and the decline of regional income convergence in the USA" here: https://academic.oup.com/cje/article-abstract/45/3/487/6145995 Read "Income shares, secular stagnation and the long-run distribution of wealth" here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/meca.12277 Read "Aggregate Demand Externalities, Income Distribution, and Wealth Inequality" here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3855763 Find more of Luke's papers here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NUZzlFEAAAAJ&hl=en Explore Daniele's work here: http://www.danieletavani.com/ Other papers mentioned:  Ganesh Sitaraman, Morgan Ricks & Christopher Serkin, "Regulation and the Geography of Inequality" https://dlj.law.duke.edu/article/regulation-and-the-geography-of-inequality-sitaraman-vol70-iss8/ Manduca, "How National Income Inequality in the United States Contributes to Economic Disparities Between Regions" https://equitablegrowth.org/how-national-income-inequality-in-the-united-states-contributes-to-economic-disparities-between-regions/ Nathan, "The Nationalization of Proposition 13," https://www.jstor.org/stable/418699 Kaldor, "The Case for Regional Policies," https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1970.tb00712.x Verdoorn's law, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdoorn%27s_law Nakamura and Steinsson, "Fiscal Stimulus in a Monetary Union: Evidence from US Regions" https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Faer.104.3.753

This week we spoke with Zach Carter about his award-winning book *The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes.*  Its our most comprehensive episode yet on the Keynesian Revolution, then and now. We ask Zach about the role of Enlightenment liberalism, art, love, journalism and war in the life and times of JMK, and the narrowing of Keynesianism's horizons in the later half of the twentieth century. *** LINKS *** Follow Zach on twitter @zachdcarter Find more on the book and his writing at: https://www.zacharydcarter.com/

This week we talked to David Stein about his dissertation, "Fearing Inflation, Inflating Fears" and the centrality of full employment to the black freedom struggle. From the 1930s through the 1970s, the fight for a job went hand in hand with the fight for freedom and equality. The proposal for a Job Guarantee, it turns out, has multiple origins - one was in the fight against Jim Crow monetary policy. Cold War complications  ultimately undid the movement for a time, but its coming back today.  *** LINKS *** Follow David on Twitter @DavidpStein Read David's work at the Boston Review, "Why Coretta Scott King Fought For a Job Guarantee" here:  http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality-race/david-stein-why-coretta-scott-king-fought-job-guarantee   And find the rest of his academic publications here: https://ucla.academia.edu/DavidStein Also mentioned:  - Who Makes Cents podcast (now run by Jessica Ann Levy), https://whomakescentspodcast.com/ - Landon Storrs, *The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left* https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691153964/the-second-red-scare-and-the-unmaking-of-the-new-deal-left - Destin Jenkins on white fraternity, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iAGfuPJqM8 - Cedric Robinson, http://bostonreview.net/race-philosophy-religion/robin-d-g-kelley-why-black-marxism-why-now - Kristoffer Smemo and Samir Sonti, and Gabriel Winant on the 1958 recession, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/690968

For this episode, we stood back to take stock of some Robert's own research on inequality in its all its complexity. Its a multi-dimensional issue, with generational, spatial, racial, national, and macroeconomic processes all intersecting to generate the world we see today. Check out more of his stuff here: http://robertmanduca.com/publications/ And follow him on twitter: https://twitter.com/robertmanduca