Importance of Macroeconomics and World Finances in the Time of COVID with Lori Leachman

Bio:

Professor Leachman is interested in studying the subjects of international trade, exchange rates, fiscal policy, and international macroeconomics. In conducting her research, she often incorporates intertemporal models, multicointegration and sustainability. Her current research project explores the political economy of intertemporal budgeting. She recently collaborated with G Rosas, A Bester, and P. Lange to complete a study on, "The Political Economy of Budget Deficits," and worked with the same team on the project entitled, "Multicointegration and Sustainability of Fiscal Practices." She has also teamed up with Bill Francis to publish the works, "Twin Deficits: Apparition or Reality?" and "Multicointegration Analysis and the Sustainability of Foreign Debt." One of her earlier works, executed with Michael Thorpe, was a study on, "External Balance in the Small Open Economy of Australia." She has also published on such subjects as capital market integration, optimum corporate capital structure, and Ricardian equivalence.

More recently, Dr. Leachman has turned her attention to creative writing. Specifically, she has written a memoir about growing up in the South, football, and her father's death from CTE. The book titled, "The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen," will be released in May of 2018. As a result of these efforts, Dr. Leachman is currently working on framing the legal and ethical issues surrounding football and the issue of informed consent. Lori Leachman is also the author of memoir about growing up in the South, in a football family, and her father's death from CTE. Her, father, Lamar Leachman, coached in the NFL for 14 years and won a Super Bowl coaching for the NY Giants. However, at the end of his life he suffered a long decline form CTE. This book tells that story as well as her family's love of the sport, and quirkiness of the South.

The book titled "The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen" is available on Amazon and at Barnesandnobel.com.

You can check out the book at her web site : www.lorileachman.net

Professor Lori Leachman brings her career's focus on international economics and her understanding of international trade importance and macro-fiscal budgeting to explain how the global community is navigating these times. She explains

• What are some important points in her career that have led to her current studies,
• Why a broader tax base and good tax collection processes are key to a healthy debt-to-GDP ratio, and
• How they U.S. is fairing in such terms and why different approaches might improve its situation.

Lori Leachman is an author and a professor of economics at Duke University. She began her career looking at the openness of economies and the degree of integration in financial markets. She then moved to currency and exchange markets and advantages of international trade. She studied how exchange rates evolved together and whether currency exchange actually worked—such as when the central back is buying or selling currency. She also studied the anticipatory nature of financial markets and international trade importance and imbalance of payments.

Most recently, she's focused on macro-fiscal processes and budgeting, namely which countries ran persistent large deficits and accumulated large volumes of debt and which countries did not. She talks about her findings and world finances more generally such as the importance of creating hierarchy in the budget process. She specifically talks about the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio, what's problematic, and how the U.S. uses the privilege of the dollar. She discusses all this in terms of how COVID is affecting systems and what we might expect in the future.

For more, see her website at Duke, econ.duke.edu/people/lori-leachman, and email her with leachman@econ.duke.edu. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK