logo
episode-header-image
Aug 2023
1h 29m

How Martin Wolf Understands This Global ...

NEW YORK TIMES OPINION
About this episode

The world economy has experienced many shocks over the past few years: A pandemic. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Skyrocketing inflation. These are the stories that have dominated headlines — and for good reason.

But they’ve also overshadowed a set of deeper, more fundamental shifts — the rise of China as an economic superpower, the fracturing of trade relations, the realities of the climate crisis — that are transforming the global economic order and prompting ambitious policy responses from leaders across the world.

Martin Wolf is the chief economics commentator at The Financial Times, a former senior economist at the World Bank and the author, most recently, of “The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. Across his writings, Wolf has developed some of the clearest frameworks for thinking about how the global economy is changing and some of the sharpest critiques of how policymakers are responding to those changes.

We discuss how China’s meteoric economic rise has shaken the foundations of the global economy, why globalization has remained far more resilient than so many predicted, why Wolf is skeptical that President Biden’s industrial policy agenda will succeed, the debate between “onshoring” and “friendshoring” that is dividing the Democratic Party, why a recession in the United States is looking far less likely than it did six months ago, the virtues and vices of Biden’s “foreign policy for the middle class,” why China’s recent economic troubles could signal a more foundational decline, why the U.S. economy has remained so much more stronger than most economists anticipated, and more.

Mentioned:

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s speech

The I.R.A. Passed a Year Ago. Here’s a Progress Check” by The Ezra Klein Show, with Robinson Meyer

The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade” by David H. Autor, David Dorn and Gordon H. Hanson

Is the Global Economy Deglobalizing?” by Pinelopi Goldberg and Tristan Reed

Climate Progress and the 117th Congress: The Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act” by REPEAT Project

Book Recommendations:

The Narrow Corridor by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

Power and Progress by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson

The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert J. Gordon

This episode is guest-hosted by Rogé Karma, the senior editor for “The Ezra Klein Show.” Rogé has been with the show since July 2019, when it was based at Vox. He works closely with Ezra on everything related to the show, from editing to interview prep to guest selection. At Vox, he also wrote and conducted interviews on topics ranging from policing and racial justice to democracy reform and the coronavirus pandemic.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rogé Karma. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Kristin Lin. Mixing by Isaac Jones. Our senior editor is Rogé Karma. The show’s production team also includes Emefa Agawu, Jeff Geld and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Efim Shapiro.

Up next
Jul 8
How the Attention Economy Is Devouring Gen Z — and the Rest of Us
Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani are both proof of how the ability to capture attention is power. And the attention economy isn’t reshaping just politics; it’s also reshaping the actual economy: the crypto market, A.I. venture capital, and how people, especially Gen Z, are making ... Show More
1h 5m
Jul 2
The Disaster That Just Passed the Senate
President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is a bad piece of legislation. It includes trillions of dollars in tax cuts that are very much tilted toward the rich, along with savage cuts to Medicaid, nutrition assistance and green energy.And on Tuesday, July 1, the Senate passed it in ... Show More
1h 11m
Jun 28
Mamdani, Trump and the End of the Old Politics
Zohran Mamdani created a new anti-establishment playbook — in his use of social video, his focus on affordability and his position on Israel. His assumed victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, trouncing the former governor Andrew Cuomo, was one of the biggest poli ... Show More
1h 24m
Recommended Episodes
Jan 2023
Money Talks: How globalisation gave way
America has changed the way it views the rest of the world. Rather than pushing for a more globalised economy with fewer trade barriers, the US is now seeking a more protected system of international trade. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act promises nearly $400bn to boost ... Show More
41m 12s
Jan 2023
Money Talks: How globalisation gave way
America has changed the way it views the rest of the world. Rather than pushing for a more globalised economy with fewer trade barriers, the US is now seeking a more protected system of international trade. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act promises nearly $400bn to boost ... Show More
41m 12s
Apr 2024
Bidenomics: How the economy may sway the US election
The president has fired “a bazooka” of money into the economy. Will voters reward him? Joe Biden says the economy is doing great thanks to a series of policies he calls Bidenomics. The idea is to jump-start the US following the COVID collapse with massive investments in the indus ... Show More
26m 43s
Jul 2022
Martin Wolf: are we heading for a global recession?
European power prices hit record high as Russia curtails gas supplies, foreign investors have dumped a record $33bn of Indian shares since October, and the FT’s chief economics commentator Martin Wolf discusses the global economy. Subscribe to the FT News Briefing on Apple Podcas ... Show More
9m 49s
Oct 2023
The problem with Bidenomics
Will Bidenomics help the US Democrats win another term in office? Will the policies be effective in tackling the climate crisis? Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, thinks not. In the last in our series on Bidenomics, he tells Gideon why o ... Show More
23m 33s
Aug 2023
Money Talks: Lessons from the great macro experiment
American economists are scratching their heads in confusion. The Fed’s aggressive rate hikes hasn’t produced the outcome many expected. Instead of recession and massive layoffs, the US economy now looks tantalisingly close to a fabled “soft landing” with the jobs market remaining ... Show More
45m 30s
Aug 2023
In search of a new economic playbook
Chinese corporate earnings reports are forecast to log poor performance and companies are set to downgrade outlooks, and policy makers walked away from Jackson Hole acknowledging they need to adjust to the changing global economy. Plus, the FT’s Jamie Smyth explains why Ireland i ... Show More
10m 13s
Apr 2023
Larry Summers on China, Russia, and the Global Economy
Could the United States enter a recession this year? Renowned economist Larry Summers thinks such a scenario is more likely than not. He also thinks the United States’ increasingly hawkish China policy is dangerous for the world. Summers discusses all that and more with host Ravi ... Show More
36m 47s
Sep 2022
Inflation, recession? What next for the global economy? Three experts dig into the latest Chief Economists Outlook
What’s going on in the global economy? It is a question that the World Economic Forum’s Community of Chief Economists seeks to answer every three months with its Chief Economists Outlook.For large parts of the world inflation is high and rising, cutting deep into people’s real in ... Show More
35m 20s
Dec 2021
Money Talks: Omicronomics
China’s economy is slowing while America’s overheats, prompting Jerome Powell to suggest this week that the Fed could act faster than planned. As the Omicron variant triggers a fresh wave of travel restrictions, is the world economy caught between a rock and a hard place? Host Pa ... Show More
31m 3s