What Comes After Secular Stagnation? | Barry Eichengreen

Hidden Forces

Demetri Kofinas

Government, Business

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2023

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In Episode 294 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Distinguished Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, Barry Eichengreen. In his first appearance on this podcast nearly five years ago, Dr. Eichengreen discussed the legacy of the Great Moderation, a multi-decade period of low inflation and positive economic growth that lasted between the mid-1980s and the onset of the Great Financial Crisis. Since then, developed economies have experienced a period of lackluster growth known as “secular stagnation,” characterized by historically low-interest rates, persistently low inflation, and growing levels of social and political instability.

The question that Dr. Eichengreen and Demetri wrestle with in this conversation is whether the current period of higher inflation and rising interest rates is a temporary phenomenon or if we are entering a new economic paradigm where sovereign debt levels become unmanageable, multilateral cooperation breaks down, and state power grows at the expense of capital and labor.

Their conversation includes a discussion about the future of the US dollar, the potential internationalization of the Chinese Yuan, the crisis brewing in the Japanese bond market, and the role of gold and other commodities as potential reserve assets in a world where fiat-based collateral comes increasingly under stress.

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Episode Recorded on 01/17/2023

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's up, everybody? My name is Dmitrik Afinas and you're listening to Hidden Forces,
0:06.0	a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens to challenge consensus narratives
0:14.0	and to learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world.
0:19.0	My guest in today's episode is Distinguished Professor of Economics and Political Science
0:24.0	at the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Barry Icongrin.
0:28.0	Dr. Icongrin is a prolific author and a highly regarded historian of monetary economics and political economy.
0:36.0	In his first appearance on this podcast nearly five years ago, he joined me to discuss the legacy of the Great Moderation,
0:43.0	a multi-decade Goldilocks period of low inflation and positive economic growth
0:49.0	that lasted somewhere between the mid-1980s and the onset of the great financial crisis.
0:55.0	The period that we've been living in up until very recently and that some have called secular stagnation
1:01.0	was characterized by historically low interest rates, sluggish economic growth,
1:06.0	persistently low inflation, and growing levels of social and political instability.
1:11.0	One of the main questions that Dr. Icongrin and I wrestle with in this conversation
1:16.0	is the current period of higher inflation and rising interest rates,
1:21.0	a temporary phenomenon soon to be followed by a return to secular stagnation
1:26.0	or are we entering a new economic paradigm where sovereign debt levels in the developed world become unmanageable,
1:33.0	multilateral cooperation breaks down, and state power grows at the expense of capital and labor.
1:40.0	Our conversation includes a discussion about the future of the US dollar,
1:44.0	the potential internationalization of the Chinese Yuan,
1:47.0	and the role of Gold and other commodities as potential reserve assets
1:51.0	in a world where fiat-based collateral comes increasingly under stress.
1:56.0	This episode is part of a series that I've been putting together on the future of the US dollar,
	...

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