Jon Hartley and Stephen Miran discuss Stephen’s new paper on strategies to reduce the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, the state of inflation and the labor market in the US economy, estimating the neutral rate of interest and the stance of current monetary policy, and how the rise of AI and the public debt may influence monetary policy going forward.

Recorded on March 26, 2026.

ABOUT THE SERIES

Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics.

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