Inflation is high virtually everywhere, but what’s pushing prices to record levels in Europe is not necessarily what’s fueling inflation in the United States. The European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve share a common problem and similar financial tools to fight it, but Europe’s supply-dominated inflation and America’s mostly demand-dominated inflation require slightly different approaches. Philip Lane is Chief Economist for the European Central Bank. In this podcast, he says finding the “sweet spot” between fiscal and monetary policies will allow for continued support to vulnerable Europeans hard hit by high energy prices and double-digit inflation, while not further straining public finances. Transcript: http://bit.ly/3X55sU2

Philip Lane participated in the IMF’s Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference. Watch the Webcast at IMF.org

Most of the goods we purchase travel across the oceans in steel containers aboard the largest ships ever to sail the seas. But the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns knocked the wind from their sails and disrupted the entire global shipping network, causing supply shortages and soaring shipping costs. IMF economist Yan Carrière-Swallow has studied the macroeconomic impact of shocks to ocean freight, and in this podcast, he says shipping costs are an important driver of inflation around the world.  Transcript: https://bit.ly/3GjIdxD

Yan Carrière-Swallow is coauthor along with Pragyan Deb, Davide Furceri, Daniel Jimenez, and Jonathan Ostry, of Shipping Costs and Inflation available at IMF.org.

Most people and virtually all businesses now use electronic money for their transactions, yet central banks are still dealing with what's known among economists as the paper currency problem, which limits central banks' ability to use deep negative rates to fight recessions. In this second episode of a two-part series on inflation, economists Miles Kimball and Ruchir Agarwal discuss how fully committing to an electronic money standard would allow central banks to break the zero lower bound associated with paper currency and help them to fight both inflation and recessions more effectively, including by lowering the inflation target.  Transcript: https://bit.ly/3vncUwW

Miles Kimball is a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Ruchir Agarwal is a senior economist in the IMF Research Department.

This podcast series is based on their inflation trilogy published in Finance and Development. Read the articles at IMF.org/fandd

Everyone feels the pinch when inflation is on the rise and so the pressure on central banks to manage inflation rates has grown exponentially in recent weeks. In this first podcast of a two-part series on inflation, distinguished economists Miles Kimball and Ruchir Agarwal discuss how a robust negative interest rate policy can help central banks better control inflation and stabilize the economy. Transcript: https://bit.ly/3xlHFEK

Miles Kimball is a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Ruchir Agarwal is a senior economist in the IMF Research Department.

This podcast series is based on their inflation trilogy published in Finance and Development. Read the article at IMF.org/fandd