Are we in an economic 'doom loop'?

我们是否陷入了一个经济“死亡螺旋”?

The Indicator from Planet Money

2026-02-09

9 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

Trade wars. Financial panics. Inflation. How come it feels like it’s all bad news in the global economy these days? Economist Eswar Prasad’s answer: something he calls the ‘doom loop.’ That’s where massive geopolitical and economic forces feed off each other and send us careening into disorder. Sounds dire. But it’s not hopeless. On today’s show, are we in a doom loop? And if we are … how do we get out of one? Eswar Prasad’s new book is called “The Doom Loop: Why the World Economic Order Is Spiraling into Disorder”. Related episodes: Is the financial media making us miserable about the economy?Why are some nations richer? For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • NPR When you look at the global economy today It's easy to get the impression that things are bad.

  • After all,

  • when you turn on the news and it seems like all you hear about is countries dealing with financial panics,

  • trade wars, soaring inflation, collapsing industries.

  • Yeah.

  • Is that our fault?

  • Well, remember we did our sentiment analysis.

  • We're slightly cheeryer than the average financial news source.

  • Okay.

  • So, you know, maybe like half guilty as charged.

  • Yeah.

  • Ishwar Prasad is a little different, though.

  • He's an optimist by nature,

  • and he's also a professor of economics and trade policy at Cornell University.

  • When he sat down to write his most recent book about the global economy,

  • he wanted to focus on the positive.

  • Sure, he thought the world seems like it's in turmoil right now,

  • but when you zoom out, there's a more optimistic story to tell.

  • One could argue, and I was going to argue,

  • that we're just in a transitional period where there is a lot of volatility,