On this episode, in the wake of the Taliban's rapid takeover of Afghanistan, a discussion of the forces and issues that have shaped Afghanistan over the last two decades and will continue to do so with Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in Foreign Policy and the Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at Brookings,. Her insights on what has happened in Afghanistan help make sense of an incredibly complex situation and offer some ideas of what to expect moving forward. This conversation to...
Aug 20, 2021•59 min
On this 400th episode of the Brookings Cafeteria podcast, Marcela Escobari, a senior fellow in Global Economy and Development at Brookings, talks about her new report on how to tackle the worker mobility crisis in the U.S. economy. In the face of rising inequality, stagnating wages, a shrinking middle class, and now a global pandemic, many American workers are finding it difficult getting ahead. And today, millions of low-wage workers lack job security and benefits and face the threat of disloca...
Aug 13, 2021•31 min
Millions of households have built financial security through pensions and retirement saving plans, but millions more remain unable to access these wealth accumulation vehicles. In a new book from the Brookings Institution Press, “Wealth After Work: Innovative Reforms to Expand Retirement Security,” editors William Gale, Mark Iwry, and David John present proposals that show how policymakers can help all Americans gain access to retirement saving accounts, obtain better information about their sav...
Aug 06, 2021•39 min
The COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 caused a tidal wave of displaced workers who applied for unemployment insurance, or UI. But states, hampered by limited staff and outdated systems, struggled to get relief to these workers quickly and to implement expanded UI programs under the CARES Act. On this episode, a discussion with Annelies Goger, co-author of a new report that focuses on a holistic redesign of the labor and education digital ecosystems to improve user experience and equity in access. Goger...
Jul 30, 2021•51 min
An interview with Brookings Senior Fellow John Hudak about his new paper, "Reversing the War on Drugs: A five-point plan," in which he lays out a series of policy actions the Biden administration could take short of full federal legalization to promote justice and equity and to help reverse some of what he calls the disastrous consequences of the War on Drugs. Also on this episode, Senior Fellow David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, explains how the onset o...
Jul 23, 2021•29 min
Just days before tax fraud, larceny, and other charges against the Trump Organization and one of its top executives were filed in New York, Brookings published a report by four leading experts titled “New York State’s Trump Investigation: An analysis of the reported facts and applicable law.” On this episode, one of the report’s co-authors—Ambassador Norm Eisen, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings, discusses the report's findings. This conversation occurred after the initial charg...
Jul 16, 2021•39 min
China is no longer just a rising power; it is now a truly global actor, economically and militarily. In a new book from the Brookings Institution Press, a collection of experts provides a broad assessment of the implications of China’s role as a world power. The book, “Global China: Assessing China’s Growing Role in the World,” is edited by Tarun Chhabra, Rush Doshi, Ryan Hass, and Emilie Kimball. On this episode of the Brookings Cafeteria, Brookings Press Director Bill Finan interviews Hass and...
Jul 09, 2021•35 min
Billions of dollars and other currencies are in tax havens outside the owner’s country of origin, allowing individuals and corporations to evade taxation by their home governments. Since many of these offshore accounts are secret, it’s difficult to trace what’s legal and what is not. In new research, Brookings expert Matthew Collin, a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Global Economy and Development, examines a leaked dataset from a bank in the Isle of Man to find some interesting discoveries about w...
Jul 02, 2021•33 min
Truth is contested ground. Facts are under attack. From disinformation to conspiracy theories, from social media pile-ons to campus intolerance, Americans are facing an epistemic crisis in their ability to distinguish fact from fiction and truth from falsehood. This episode features the author of a pathbreaking book on this crisis and how we get out of it. Jonathan Rauch, senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings, is the author of The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, just pu...
Jun 25, 2021•24 min
As the nation observes Juneteenth, we are still grappling with serious issues around civil rights, economic and political inequality, and unfairness in the criminal justice system. Now, a year after widespread protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a police officer once again brought these issues to the top of the national conversation, Makada Henry-Nickie, a fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings and an expert on policies that advance inclusive economic opportunities for disad...
Jun 18, 2021•27 min
On this two-part episode, Senior Fellow William Frey from the Metropolitan Policy Program answers a few questions about recent and upcoming 2020 Census data. Also, Brookings scholar Richard Reeves and AEI scholar Scott Winship discuss the new AEI-Brookings report, "Long shadows: The Black-white gap in multigenerational poverty." 01:30 = Discussion on the Census with William Frey 16:00 = Interview with Richard Reeves and Scott Winship. Show notes and transcript: Follow Brookings podcasts on Apple...
Jun 11, 2021•56 min
The world is in an age of peace, relatively speaking. Great powers are not fighting each other and haven’t for a long time. But, the expert guest on this episode says, the United States must stay good at the art of war. Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon talks about his new book, “The Art of War in an Age of Peace: U.S. Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint,” published in May by Yale University Press. In it, O’Hanlon presents a national security policy that contends with current challenges like Russ...
Jun 04, 2021•1 hr
On this episode, an interview with Sanjay Patnaik, director of the Center on Regulation and Markets at Brookings and the Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Development. He discusses the mission of the center, and also talks about his own research on topics like climate resilience and carbon pricing. Also on this episode, David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, offers his views on why inflation expectations are extremely important. Show notes and tra...
May 28, 2021•33 min
In his new book, “Middle Class Shanghai: Reshaping U.S.-China Engagement,” Brookings expert Cheng Li, who directs the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings, argues that American policymakers should not overlook the dynamism and diversity in present-day China, exemplified by the city of Shanghai and its expansive and cosmopolitan middle-class culture. Moreover, Li argues, Washington should neither underestimate the role or the strength of the Chinese middle class, nor alienate this force wit...
May 21, 2021•36 min
A discussion on criminal justice reform with Rashawn Ray, a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings, and Brent Orrell, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who led the Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform. The working group issued the report “A better path forward for criminal justice,” featuring essays by more than a dozen experts offering a range of research-grounded policy analysis and ideas to move the criminal justice system toward ...
May 14, 2021•49 min
More than one in ten mothers of young children left their jobs due to child-care responsibilities at some point in 2020. That’s one of ten facts in a new report from The Hamilton Project at Brookings titled, “Ten economic facts on how mothers spend their time,” which is the theme of this Mother’s Day weekend episode of the Brookings Cafeteria. Lauren Bauer, a fellow in Economic Studies and The Hamilton Project, and one of the report’s authors, discusses some of the ways that work, time use, and ...
May 07, 2021•31 min
Three people involved in addressing climate change through girls’ and gender-equal education share their insights and policy ideas about how a green learning agenda can help address the climate crisis through education. Christina Kwauk is a nonresident fellow in the Center for Universal Education at Brookings; Lucia Fry is director of research and policy at Malala Fund; and Raju Narzary is a Malala Fund Education Champion and executive director of North East Research and Social Work Networking i...
Apr 30, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Richard Bush, whose experience with Taiwan spans decades, discusses his new book, “Difficult Choices: Taiwan’s quest for security and the good life,” just published by the Brookings Institution Press. Also, David Wessel offers his thoughts on the Federal Reserve's approach to inflation, calling it a "big deal." Show notes and transcript: Follow Brookings podcasts on Apple or Google podcasts, or on Spotify. Send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at on Twitter. The Brookings Cafeteria...
Apr 23, 2021•39 min
Infrastructure is front and center in the Washington DC policy debate, and with President Biden’s 2.3 trillion dollar proposal on the table, this won't be another so-called infrastructure week that comes and goes with a chuckle but no action. On this episode of the Brookings Cafeteria, Adie Tomer, the co-author of a deeply important report on how to address America’s infrastructure challenges and opportunities, talks about what it means to not just rebuild infrastructure, but to REIMAGINE it. Ad...
Apr 16, 2021•55 min
How does an online community, dominated by privileged parents, discuss its local school system? In a new report titled “We all want what’s best for our kids: Discussions of D.C. public school options in an online forum,” Brookings researchers examined thousands of messages on the D.C. Urban Moms school discussion forum to find out what they were talking about and how their conversations reflect continued racial segregation in the public schools of the nation’s capital. The report is co-authored ...
Apr 09, 2021•26 min
Teacher diversity is teacher quality, and students of color especially benefit by having teachers who look like them, says Michael Hansen, co-author with Seth Gershenson and Constance A. Lindsay of "Teacher Diversity and Student Success: Why Racial Representation Matters in the Classroom," published in March by Harvard Education Press. Hansen, who is the Herman and George R. Brown Chair and director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, and also a senior fellow in Governance Stud...
Apr 02, 2021•42 min
In "Assignment Russia: Becoming a Foreign Correspondent in the Crucible of the Cold War," award winning journalist Marvin Kalb tells the story of how as a young reporter and student of Russia he was present not only at the creation of a new way of bringing news immediately to the public, but also doing so in the midst of Cold War tensions between Eisenhower’s America and Khrushchev’s Soviet Union. In this episode, Brookings Institution Press Director Bill Finan interviews Kalb about his new book...
Mar 26, 2021•31 min
March is typically a time to celebrate women’s contributions in history, but the past year of COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on women – especially women of color. On this episode, in honor of Women’s History Month, we asked women at the Brookings Institution to share their thoughts on what top policy considerations they have for the Biden administration to help address the needs of women – both in the US and around the world. Also on this episode, Marcela Escobari offers another edit...
Mar 19, 2021•38 min
On this sixth and final episode from the Blueprints for American Renewal and Prosperity project, two Brookings experts discuss their blueprints for climate and resilience. Nathan Hultman is a nonresident senior fellow in Global Economy and Development at Brookings and also the director of the Center for Global Sustainability and associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. He is the co-author with Samantha Gross of “How the United States can return to credible clima...
Mar 12, 2021•41 min
March 2021 marks ten years since an earthquake off Japan’s Pacific Coast and the tsunami it caused led to reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to melt down, releasing radiation and forcing the government to evacuate over 100,000 residents in surrounding areas. As the author of a new book from the Brookings Institution Press writes, failures at all levels of Japan’s government and private sector worsened the human and economic impact of the disaster and ensured that its consequen...
Mar 05, 2021•31 min
On this fifth episode from the Blueprints for American Renewal and Prosperity project, two Brookings experts discuss their blueprints for strengthening governance to meet key international challenges in the technology arena. Senior Fellow Landry Signé is co-author with Stephan Almond of "A blueprint for technology governance in the post-pandemic world," and Senior Fellow Joshua Meltzer is co-author with Cameron Kerry of "Strengthening international cooperation on artificial intelligence." Also o...
Feb 26, 2021•46 min
On this fourth episode from the Blueprints for American Renewal and Prosperity project, Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds talks about how to make Congress a better place to work, and Senior Fellow Elaine Kamarck discusses how to build an agile government for an era of megachange. Also on this episode, Amar Bhattacharya, senior fellow in Global Economy and Development and the Center for Sustainable Development at Brookings, says this is a decisive decade for the planet as we face the two crises of COV...
Feb 19, 2021•45 min
Who do you turn to for support and access to opportunities? Who can help you with information about a new job, or educational choices, or health care and housing? This is your social network, your social capital, and it matters for your economic mobility in this society. On this episode, a discussion with a scholar who, along with teams of researchers, has analyzed how social networks in four American cities impact social mobility, and what that research says in particular about social networks ...
Feb 12, 2021•39 min
In this episode, a discussion about a new book from the Brookings Institution Press titled "Rivalry and Response: Assessing Great Power Dynamics in Southeast Asia." In this timely volume, leading experts from Southeast Asia, Australia and the United States assess great power dynamics between the U.S. and China in the region by examining the strategic landscape, domestic governance trends and economic challenges in Southeast Asia. The book's editor is Jonathan Stromseth, who hosted the Lee Kuan Y...
Feb 09, 2021•19 min
Earlier this year, the Africa Growth Initiative (AGI) at Brookings released the latest edition of the annual Foresight Africa report. AGI Director Aloysius Uche Ordu, also a senior fellow in Global Economy and Development, discusses the themes in the report. Also on this episode, Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds explains how the budget reconciliation process in Congress works, especially the Senate parliamentarian’s critical role, and why Democrats may use it to pass President Biden’s COVID-19 relie...
Feb 06, 2021•52 min
