ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Filippo Gaddo, Managing Director at Alvarez and Marsal, SPE Councillor and host of the Econ Thoughts SPE Podcast, spoke with Mark Blyth, William R. Rhodes Professor of International Economics at Brown University and author of numerous books on the topics of inflation, austerity and growth.
The last twenty years have seen two major shocks to the global and national economies, with profound political and social consequences, in particular the rise of populist sentiments and parties. Changes in the industrial landscape and the recent surge in inflation have been part of the explanation for such trends but there is much more to it. Mark Blyth joined the SPE podcast to provide his insights which he highlighted in two books, Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers (2025), and Angrynomics (2020).
The discussion opens with Mark’s analysis of the post-pandemic inflation surge, drawing on his recent book Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers. Mark challenges the view that inflation was primarily a monetary phenomenon, instead arguing that it reflected overlapping global supply shocks—from broken supply chains to Europe’s energy crisis—with sharply uneven distributional effects. A central theme is the disconnect between how economists measure inflation and how households experience it, particularly through persistent increases in the price level of essentials such as food, rent, and energy. Mark explains why this gap has had powerful political consequences, even as headline inflation has fallen, and why central banks’ traditional tools were poorly suited to addressing the underlying causes.
The conversation then turns to Angrynomics and the economic roots of populism. Mark argues that today’s political anger is best understood through long-running patterns of wage stagnation, deindustrialisation, and regional divergence, rather than purely cultural explanations. Filippo and Mark explore how globalisation and financialisaton weakened labour power, increased economic fragility for large parts of the population, and eroded dignity and purpose—dynamics that inflation has only intensified. The episode closes with a forward-looking discussion on what might ease these pressures, including higher and more inclusive growth, large-scale housing construction, skills investment, and reforms that restore mobility and opportunity—offering a clear-eyed account of why economic shocks matter politically and what it would take to rebuild resilience and trust in democratic capitalism.
Mark Blyth is the William R. Rhodes ’57 Professor of International Economics and the Director of the Rhodes Centre for International Economics and Finance at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. He holds a joint appointment in the department of political science.
He is the author of many award-winning books including, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (New York: Oxford University Press 2015), Angrynomics (New York: Columbia University Press 2020), Diminishing Returns: The New Politics of Growth and Stagnation (Oxford University Press 2022), and in 2025, Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers.
He writes about the politics of growth, distribution and decarbonization and why people continue to believe dubious economic ideas despite buckets of evidence to the contrary.
