logo
episode-header-image
Jun 2025
41m 45s

The Wolf-Krugman Exchange: AI hype vs re...

Financial Times
About this episode

In the fourth of this six-part series of The Economics Show, Martin Wolf, the FT’s chief economics commentator, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman ask if advances in artificial intelligence will reshape the working world as we know it. Or are we hearing an old familiar story that has been told many times before? 


Paul Krugman’s Cultural Coda:

Loretta Lynn - "Coal Miner's Daughter":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9eHp7JJgq8&list=RDf9eHp7JJgq8&start_radio=1


Martin Wolf’s Cultural Coda:

Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, published in 1924.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Mountain


Read Martin Wolf's selection of the best economics summer reads for 2025 here


Read Martin’s FT column here


Subscribe to Paul’s substack here


If you’d like to get in touch and ask Martin and Paul a question, please email economics.show@ft.com 

 

Subscribe and listen to this series on The Economics Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Episodes are also available on the FT’s YouTube channel.


The Wolf-Krugman Exchange is produced by Sandra Kanthal and Mischa Frankl-Duval, and the broadcast engineer is Andrew Georgiades. The sound engineer is Jean-Marc Eck. Manuela Saragosa is the FT’s acting co-head of audio.


Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Yesterday
The economics of birth control. With Martha Bailey
When it comes to women controlling their own economic destinies, perhaps nothing has had a more profound impact than the contraceptive pill. But the US may be on the cusp of change. Earlier this year, the Trump administration froze some federal funding for subsidised access to co ... Show More
32m 4s
Oct 2
How to get immigration right. With Adam Ozimek
Many argue immigration is key to America’s economic success. So as President Trump clamps down on it, what might he be getting wrong and what does the optimal skilled immigration landscape look like for the US and elsewhere? John Burn-Murdoch, the FT’s chief data columnist, speak ... Show More
34m 18s
Sep 24
China’s economy vs the world. With Michael Pettis
US President Donald Trump has railed against his country’s trade deficit with China. But as Chinese surpluses continue to flow into other countries, it’s worth asking how China got to where it is today, and whether Chinese growth can lift all boats. In this week’s episode, Martin ... Show More
33m 42s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2025
Coming soon: The Wolf-Krugman Exchange
In a special six-part series of The Economics Show, Martin Wolf, the FT’s chief economics commentator, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman discuss the economic events reshaping the world in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s election. Subscribe and listen to this ... Show More
2m 8s
Aug 2024
The Swing-State Economic Realities, Pagaya CEO
 Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF. Bloomberg News Senior Economics Writer Shawn Donnan and Bloomberg Economics US Economist Stuart Paul on their Big Take story: The Swing-State Economics Realities Shaping the US Election.  Bloomberg News US Sem ... Show More
39m 10s
Aug 2024
The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes: What’s wrong with economics?
This week, we’re bringing you something from our fellow FT podcast, The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes.  Sir Angus Deaton won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2015. So when he says he is rethinking many of his assumptions about the field, it matters. Today on the show, Soumaya ... Show More
34m 42s
Dec 2024
Special episode: Market Outlook 2025
As part of a special two-week series featuring highlights from Julius Baer’s recent Beyond Markets podcasts, today's show features a clip from a conversation where Christian Gattiker, Head of Research, and Mark Matthews, Head of Research Asia, talk to Bernadette Anderko about the ... Show More
12m 28s
May 2023
The Fellas Debate the Financialization of JPEGs | Bell Curve
SPECIAL EPISODE: We decided to skip Empire's roundup this week and replace it with this epic roundup from Bell Curve! Bell Curve is our sister podcast that features Jason, Mike (Blockworks' other co-founder) and Vance + Michael from Framework Ventures. In this episode of Bell Cur ... Show More
1h 11m
Mar 2024
Listener mailbag with the Unhedged podcast
More questions — more answers! We’ve partnered with the FT’s Unhedged podcast for a special two-part episode, fielding questions you have submitted about markets and finance. The host of Unhedged, Ethan Wu, plus the FT’s US financial commentator Rob Armstrong and markets editor K ... Show More
24m 5s
Sep 2024
Much to absorb in this data-heavy week
Investors are grappling with a flood of data this week. Yesterday’s releases from the US revealed a two-year high in the trade deficit, a slowdown in the labour market and a cautious outlook from the Fed’s Beige Book. However, there was some respite as US factory orders rebounded ... Show More
15m 58s
Apr 2025
The Inbox Episode
This episode marks our four-year anniversary doing the Inside Economic podcast, and we devote the conversation to responding to listener questions.  We’ve been getting lots of great Qs, ranging from the global trade war and DOGE cuts to immigration and productivity growth.  Keep ... Show More
1h 8m
Jan 2025
SoftBank wants a piece of the AI pie
Apple revealed quarterly results that slightly exceeded Wall Street expectations, SoftBank is in talks to invest as much as $25bn into OpenAI, and the European Central Bank cut interest rates as it warned about headwinds to the bloc’s economy. Plus, there are concerns that China’ ... Show More
12m 47s
Apr 2025
EMERGENCY PODCAST: USA vs China Trade War w/ Richard Werner | PBD Podcast | Ep. 574
Patrick Bet-David sits down for an emergency podcast with economist and "Father of Quantitative Easing" Richard Werner for a deep-dive conversation into the future of global finance. They discuss the rise of de-dollarization, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), the real stor ... Show More
1h 8m