How can Biden fulfill his ‘Build Back Better’ agenda?

12/07/20 • 20 min

Dollar & Sense: The Brookings Trade Podcast

President-elect Biden will face a myriad of economic challenges when he is inaugurated next month, including a pandemic that continues to spread and unemployment numbers that remain high. Jason Furman joins David Dollar to discuss how this crisis differs from the economic issues Biden faced in 2009, what should be prioritized in a short-term stimulus package and long-term reforms, and to what extent policymakers should worry about the federal debt when designing fiscal relief.

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Reimagining the global economy for a post-COVID-19 world

When the COVID-19 pandemic sent the global economy into a deep recession, it exposed structural weaknesses in economic institutions and highlighted the need for reform. The challenges countries face today are daunting, but this moment should be recognized as an opportunity to build back more sustainable and inclusive economies. David Dollar is joined by three Brookings experts—Eswar Prasad, Marcela Escobari, and Zia Qureshi—to discuss their forward-looking policy proposals for a post-COVID-19 world.

Next Episode

Market-based solutions to climate change have failed to deliver

Carbon pricing systems have been celebrated as instruments for combatting climate change, but how effective are they really? David Victor, co-chair of the Cross-Brookings Initiative on Energy and Climate, joins David Dollar to explain why market-based solutions for addressing climate change have fallen short of their promise. Victor examines how politics have hampered the effectiveness of market policies in key sectors, like transportation and aviation, and the political barriers the Biden administration will need to overcome in order to make real progress on climate change.