On Thursday, October 23, Better Markets hosted an engaging webinar, Affordability & Inflation: What if We’re Thinking About This All Wrong?, featuring Mark Blyth, Brown University political economist and author of Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers, and Jared Bernstein, former Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. The discussion was moderated by Deborah Solomon, Pulitzer Prize–winning Economics Editor at The New York Times.
Together, they explored the complex realities behind rising prices and asked whether conventional thinking about inflation—and the Federal Reserve’s response—needs a fundamental rethink.
About the Panelists:
Mark Blyth
William R. Rhodes ’57 Professor of International Economics at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs; Director of the Rhodes Centre for International Economics and Finance; Brown University
Jared Bernstein
Former Chair, White House Council of Economic Advisors
Senior Fellow for Economic Policy, Center for American Progress
Most recently, Jared Bernstein was the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2023 to 2025. Previously, he served as the chief economist and economic adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden and as the executive director of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class from 2009 to 2011. Bernstein has also worked as a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and was a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Moderated by:
Deborah Solomon
Economics Editor, New York Times
Deboarah Solomon is Economics Editor at the New York Times, overseeing coverage of tax, trade, Fed, economic policy and anything else that involves numbers, people and policy.
Mark Blyth is the William R. Rhodes ’57 Professor of International Economics at the Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University and the Director of the Rhodes Centre for International Economics and Finance. He writes about the politics of growth, distribution and decarbonization and the persistence of dubious economic ideas.