Money Talks from The Economist

Taylor Swift is reportedly worth $1.3bn. In the music industry, amassing that kind of fortune requires more than talent alone. It requires a shrewd business sense and an ability to be ruthless. In the first of two special episodes, we explore how Taylor Swift built the biggest brand in music.Hosts: Alice Fulwood, Tom Lee-Devlin and Mike Bird. Guests: Bob Reeves, a manager who was at one of Swift’s first gigs; Clay Myers, former Warner Music Group exec who helped facilitate one of Swift’s early hits; and Bill Werde, former editorial director of Billboard magazine, current director of the Bandier Program at Syracuse University and author of the “Full Rate No Cap” newsletter.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.

For decades, “the world’s factory” has been churning out goods for export. But many of those products were made not by Chinese companies, but by American, European or Japanese ones looking to take advantage of China’s cheap labour. But as the country’s economy slows, domestic firms are increasingly looking abroad for growth and, as a trade war rages with the West, they have set their sights on the global south.Hosts: Tom Lee-Devlin, Alice Fulwood and Mike Bird. Guests: Lourdes Casanova of Cornell University and Ong Kian Ming, a Malaysian former deputy minister.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.

Three seemingly unrelated events conspired to trigger the worst day for Japan’s benchmark Topix index in more than 35 years, and caused stocks around the world to plunge. Markets have started to recover but there could be more chaos around the corner. Jumpy investors remain primed to sell at even the first hint of bad news, and the strength of the American economy is now in question.Hosts: Mike Bird, Alice Fulwood and Tom Lee-Devlin. Guests: research analyst Travis Lundy and Dan Ivascyn, group chief investment officer at PIMCO.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.

At the Bitcoin conference over the weekend, Donald Trump promised that if he returns to office, he will fire the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler. The assembled crypto community cheered. We speak to Mr Gensler about how his term as SEC chair is panning out, from oversight of equity and Treasury markets, to becoming the villain of the crypto world. Also, would Mr Trump really get to fire Mr Gensler? Probably not—but what about the heads of America’s other major regulatory institutions, like the Fed? Hosts: Alice Fulwood, Tom Lee-Devlin and Mike Bird. Guests: Gary Gensler, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission; Peter Conti-Brown, professor of financial regulation at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.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.

This week we sit down with the woman who is second-in-command of a large North American country, is heir apparent to take over as party leader and whose party faces a daunting upcoming election. Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister of Canada, joins Money Talks to discuss housing shortages, immigration policy and shifting attitudes to global trade. What lessons are there from Canada for the rest of the world?Hosts: Alice Fulwood, Tom Lee-Devlin and Mike Bird. Guests: Chrystia Freeland, deputy prime minister of Canada; and The Economist’s Simon Rabinovitch.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 gender pay gap stubbornly persists across the rich world—in the OECD women earn around 12% less than men. The academic consensus has largely blamed the “motherhood penalty”—the fact that women still tend to bear the brunt of child-rearing responsibilities. But new research is challenging that view.Hosts: Alice Fulwood, Tom Lee-Devlin and Mike Bird. Guests: Marianne Bertrand, professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business; Erik Plug, professor of economics at the University of Amsterdam; and The Economist’s Christian Odendahl.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.

Last month Mistral AI, a tech start-up based in Paris, raised €600m in funding, valuing it at nearly €6bn. The deal was emblematic of the French capital’s astonishing commercial revival since the pro-business Emmanuel Macron became president seven years ago. But on Sunday that revival was thrown into doubt as snap elections produced a hung parliament, robbing Mr Macron’s party of control. Could the resulting political turmoil, and rising support for the far right, undermine business confidence and snuff out Paris’s renaissance?Hosts: Tom Lee-Devlin, Alice Fulwood, and Mike Bird. Guests: Ludovic Subran, chief economist at insurance company Allianz; Cedric O, co-founder of Mistral AI; and The Economist’s Paris bureau chief, Sophie Pedder.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.

Companies from Amazon to Intel are relocating entire departments to developing countries, where they can tap into a rich seam of highly-skilled workers at much lower wages, to do everything from HR to microchip design. It’s part of an accelerating trend since the covid-19 pandemic, which made clear to employers that tens of millions of service-sector jobs could potentially be done remotely from anywhere in the world.So what does this mean for developing countries? Could service exports be a way for the likes of India, the Philippines and South Africa to get rich in the 21st century, in the same way that Korea, Taiwan and China did with manufacturing exports over the last century? And if so, what will it mean for service-sector workers in the developed world?Hosts: Mike Bird, Alice Fulwood and Arjun Ramani. Guests: Vikram Ahuja, co-founder of ANSR, a company that sets up global capability centres in India; and Richard Baldwin, professor of international economics at the IMD Business School in SwitzerlandTranscripts 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+. ____________________

In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi sold at auction for $450 million. Meanwhile, a poster reprint would have set you back $10. Why are a small number of super-wealthy buyers willing to pay such huge sums for the right pieces? It’s a question that is becoming more widely relevant, as new art investment funds seek to open this murky and unregulated market up to the broader public. So how much does the value of your investment depend on the whims of a handful of galleries and collectors? And how can you even be sure what you’re buying is authentic? Hosts: Tom Lee-Devlin, Alice Fulwood, and Mike Bird. Guests: Noah Horowitz, CEO of the Art Basel international art fair; Lars Nittve, investment committee chair at Arte Collectum; Orlando Whitfield, an art dealer, author, and former friend of Inigo Philbrick, who committed the biggest art fraud in history; and The Economist’s Jon Fasman.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.