Money Talks from The Economist

AI is changing the way we shop. Instead of searching on Google or Amazon, consumers are increasingly asking ChatGPT what to buy. AI agents are even autonomously handling purchases from start to finish. What does the rise of agentic commerce mean for brands—and will big online marketplaces lose out?Hosts: Mike Bird and Alice Fulwood. Guests: Anita Balchandani, senior partner at McKinsey and Julie Bornstein, founder of Daydream.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Richard Thaler may just understand people’s foibles better than any other economist. Governments around the world have deployed the Nobel prizewinner’s brand of behavioural economics to nudge people into doing everything from saving for retirement to donating organs. So how does he reflect on a lifetime of nudging?Hosts: Alice Fulwood, Ethan Wu and Mike Bird. Guest: Richard Thaler.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Taiwan’s wildly-successful export economy has made it one of the wealthiest countries on earth. But, according to The Economist’s Big Mac index, there’s a secret sauce: it has perhaps the world’s most undervalued currency. That makes the island’s manufacturers more competitive abroad. But, at home, ordinary Taiwanese find themselves much worse off. So, Ethan travelled to Taipei to find out how the currency has stayed so weak for so long and what that means for Taiwan’s relationship with America.Hosts: Ethan Wu, Mike Bird and Alice Fulwood.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

By some measures, the Amazon is a multi-trillion-dollar resource. Five years’ worth of global emissions are stored in the rainforest, which is about twice the size of India. But to the 30m people who live there, the trees have almost no economic value, which explains why as much as a fifth of the forest has been cleared to make way for cattle and soybean farms. Ahead of this year’s COP climate-change conference in Brazil, The Economist’s Gavin Jackson travelled to the Amazon to understand how to fix the incentives driving deforestation.Hosts: Mike Bird and Alice Fulwood. Guest: Gavin Jackson.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

France has been cycling through governments with head-spinning speed. Part of what has brought each down is a contentious 2026 budget. Sophie Pedder, our Paris bureau chief, shares her exclusive interview with Roland Lescure, France’s finance minister. They discuss how he intends to get the budget passed at last, and what is at stake if he does not. Hosts: Mike Bird, Ethan Wu and Alice Fulwood. Guest: Roland Lescure.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

The coronavirus pandemic, war in Europe and the perpetual problem that is Argentina have made the last few years some of the most tumultuous in the International Monetary Fund’s history. As the fund's chief economist, then as First Deputy Managing Director, Gita Gopinath was in the middle of the upheaval. Now she’s at Harvard and free to speak candidly about what it was like  to be in the IMF leadership, dealing with a tense and fractured geopolitical backdrop, as well as critics in the Trump administration. Hosts: Mike Bird, Ethan Wu and Alice Fulwood. Guest: Gita GopinathTranscripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

This year’s Nobel prize in economics was awarded to Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt and Joel Mokyr. Their work explains why, after millennia of stagnation, economic growth took off. In addition to his new Nobel we talk to Mr Mokyr about another rare accolade he earned this week—being described, in the pages of The Economist, as a “nice man”. We also speak to Mr Aghion about the work that earned him and his co-author, Mr Howitt, their share of the prize.Hosts: Alice Fulwood, Ethan Wu and Mike Bird. Guests: Joel Mokyr of Northwestern University and Philippe Aghion of the London School of Economics.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Until recently, tech bosses who invested their company's money too freely could expect to be punished by investors. Not so in the age of AI. Last year, $1trn was spent on AI hardware and software. Spending is still surging, to the delight of investors. The value of America’s stockmarket has risen by $21trn since the release of ChatGPT in 2022. But AI companies and services still only account for revenue in the low tens of billions of dollars. Could that mismatch turn the AI market boom to bust?Hosts: The Economist’s Mike Bird and Alice Fulwood. Guests: Byrne Hobart, author of “Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation”, and Harris Kupperman of Praetorian Capital Management.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.