Macro Hive Conversations With Bilal Hafeez

Matsuoka-San is the Chief Economist of SBI Securities in Japan. Before that, he was the Chief Economist for Japan at Deutsche Bank. Overall, he has been involved in macroeconomic analysis at research institutions and financial institutions for the past 30 years. He is known to be one of the leading Japan economists with unique insights on structural issues. Over the years, he has been highly ranked in numerous surveys, including the Institutional Investor survey. In this podcast, we discuss:
The "Inconvenient Mix" of Inflation
Japan's Real Neutral Interest Rate
The Case for Nominal GDP Targeting
Consumption Tax: Regressive Relief?
Wage Growth Divergence
The Working Hours Trap
Fiscal Dominance and Vulnerability
The Enigma of Yen Weakness
Work-from-Home and Birth Rates
Erosion of the US Dollar's Premium
The AI/Semiconductor "Vertical Jump"
US vs. Japan: Labour Participation Trends

Stefan Jansen is the founder and CEO of Applied AI. He advises Fortune 500 companies, investment firms, and startups across industries on data & AI strategy, building data science teams, and developing end-to-end machine learning solutions. 

Before his current venture, he was a partner and managing director at an international investment firm, where he built the predictive analytics and investment research practice. He was also a senior executive at a global fintech company with operations in 15 markets, advised Central Banks in emerging markets, and consulted for the World Bank. In this podcast, we discuss:
Defining AI as a Moving Target
The Trading vs. Business Data Science Divide
Synthetic Data and the "Fat Tail" Challenge
Shapley Values: Turning Black Boxes Grey
Agentic AI and Unstructured Data
RAG, Provenance, and the Context Window Debate
The "Alpha Factory" Workflow
Reinforcement Learning (RL) for Execution, Not Prediction
The Critical Role of Human Context
Advice for the AI-Native Job Market

William W. Beach is the Senior Fellow in Economics at the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) and the Coffin Fellow at the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation. Beach also serves on the UKG Workforce Institute Advisory Board.  

Prior to these appointments, Beach was the fifteenth Commissioner of Labor Statistics at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, DC. He took up his duties there on March 28, 2019. Prior to joining BLS, Dr. Beach was vice president for policy research at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University from February of 2016 to March of 2019; and, prior to that served as the Chief Economist for the Senate Budget Committee, Republican Staff, from 2013 through early 2016. In this podcast, we will discuss:
The "Fiscal Precipice"
The "Crowd Out" Effect
Social Drivers of Debt
The "Undemocratic" Tax System
The Social Security Countdown
The Future of "Enhanced Labour"
The Data Response Crisis
Modernising Federal Statistics

Martin Wolf is the chief economics commentator at the Financial Times in London. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2000 'for services to financial journalism'. In this podcast, we discuss:
AI: The Ultimate General-Purpose Technology
Market Complacency in the Middle East
Jay Powell's "Superb" but Flawed Legacy
The "Perverse" Risks of Kevin Warsh
The UK's Productivity Puzzle and Brexit
From "Democratic Recession" to Depression
The "Graduate Trap" and Disaffected Youth
Advice for the Next Generation

Daniel Rasmussen is the founder and managing partner of Verdad Advisers, an investment firm with over $1 billion in assets under management across multiple asset classes. He is the author of The Humble Investor (2025) and American Uprising (2011). Prior to founding Verdad, he worked at Bain Capital Private Equity and Bridgewater Associates. In this podcast, we discuss:
Investing as Meta-analysis
The Evolution of Private Equity
Stranded Software Assets
The Private Credit Mirage
The "Adjusted EBITDA" Trap
Small-Cap Growth Dangers
The AI Capex Cycle
AI Productivity Mindset