Economics Matters by Laurence Kotlikoff
Economics can make a massive difference - collectively and personally.
- Top in Finance
- #38
- Subscribers
- 163K
- Paid subscribers
- 100+ paid
- Badge
- Bestseller 100
- Followers
- 171K
- Paid plan
- $15/mo
- Recommends
- 84
- Podcast
- Yes
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What they write about
An economist's newsletter mixing personal financial planning with public policy. Recurring subjects include Social Security and Medicare decisions, retirement planning software, federal debt and fiscal policy, and interviews with authors and economists, alongside occasional cultural digressions.
- personal finance
- social security
- medicare
- fiscal policy
- retirement planning
- economics
Recent examples: Betsy Stevenson, Former Department of Labor Chief Economist and University of Michigan Professor · 2013 Oxford Union Debate: “That This House Still Dreams the American Dream.” Yea or Nay?
Written from Economics Matters by Laurence Kotlikoff’s own published post titles and openings in Sep 11, 2026. It describes the subjects the newsletter covers, not its views, and is not investment advice.
Growth history
Subscribers (thousands, nightly)
163K on Sep 10, 2026 → 163K on Sep 30, 2026
Followers (thousands, nightly)
Rank in Substack’s finance leaderboard: #38 today · #35 a week ago
Stats worth sharing
Tracked since Sep 10, 2026 — 21 daily snapshots so far. The card below is built from what we track and refreshes nightly.
- Percentile
- Top 8%
- Best rank seen
- #31
- Rank, 7 days
- −3 places
- Followers added
- +234
- Posts
- 8
- Reactions per post
- 17
- Reactions tracked
- 285
of 525 ranked finance newsletters
on Sep 17, 2026
since tracking began
last 30 days
average, recent posts
across 17 posts
Most-reacted post we have seen: The Brilliant and Captivating Justin Wolfers Talks Economics and the Economy — 53 reactions on Jul 31, 2026.
Recent posts
- Betsy Stevenson, Former Department of Labor Chief Economist and University of Michigan Professor
Betsy Stevenson lives and breaths economics. Amen to that. She’s one of the best our profession has to offer. Please listen/watch this truly insightful episode of Economics Matters. Betsy’s Bio Betsy is a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Michigan. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Lyft, Inc and a faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London, a fellow of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich, and an elected member of the National Academy of…
- 2013 Oxford Union Debate: “That This House Still Dreams the American Dream.” Yea or Nay?
Economics Matters — Blog/Podcast/Financial Riddler/MaxiFi Puzzler Sign up at larrykotlikoff.substack.com for a free short-term subscription. I’ll immediately make it a free lifetime subscription. Also, pls sign up kids, parents, … — everyone you know. Paid subscriptions come with a monthly Q&A session via Substack Live. I’ll email you the day and time. Submit questions on anything and everything via chat. I’ll be live. Subscribe as a Founding Member - Please help me continue providing high-level economics content and cover the significant podcast costs. Subscribers receive a free, one-hour…
- Iran’s Prime Hostage -- Donald Trump
Economics Matters — Blog/Podcast/Financial Riddler/MaxiFi Puzzler Sign up for a free short-term subscription at larrykotlikoff.substack.com. I’ll immediately make it a free lifetime subscription. Also, pls sign up kids, parents, … — everyone you know. Paid subscriptions come with a monthly Q&A session via Substack Live. I’ll email you the day and time. Submit questions on anything and everything via chat. I’ll be live. Subscribe as a Founding Member - Help me provide high-level economics content and break even covering my significant podcast costs. Comes with a one-hour financial therapy…
- Harvard's Pathbreaking Economist, Raj Chetty, Joins Economics Matters to Discuss US Inequality and Mobility and How to Fix Both
Do listen to this podcast. You will learn amazing things about the limits of rational economic choice, the importance of the quality of teachers on children’s lifetime earnings, the extent of US economic mobility and its remarkable dependence on where people grow up, the critical importance of cross-class connections (the nature and extent of your social capital) and exposure to role models to your economic success, and AI’s potential to make tremendous improvements in government job-training and career guidance programs. Raj Chetty’s Bio Raj is the William A. Ackman Professor of Economics at…
- Mr. Fiscal Policy, Eugene Steuerle, is Back to Discuss "Abandoned -- How Democrats and Republicans Have Deserted the Working Class, the Young, and the American Dream"
Worried about $40 trillion in federal debt? Worried about Social Security cutting your benefits by one fifth in six years? Worried that the US is in far worse fiscal shape than Italy? Worried that the American Dream is, for far too many, a vicious nightmare? Worried that the land of opportunity is now the land of inequality? Worried that your kids will have it worse than you? Gene Steuerle, Washington’s fiscal policy aficionado, will take you from worried to terrified. So, grab a drink, an Ativan, or some weed and sidle up to our national horror story. It’s one Gene knows by heart, by mind…
- One Enchanted Evening with Robert Pinsky at Providence’s Marvelous Stewart House Home Décor Shop
Providence, RI’s Stewart House Presents Robert Pinsky Sisters and soulmates, Karen and Ellen, own Stewart House , a fabulous home décor store in Providence, RI. Karen is a former English teacher and, on some nights, she and Ellen transform the Stewart House into a poetry-reading forum. After attending one of those evenings. I was inspired and immediately asked my friend, Robert Pinsky, if he’d come to Providence to appear at Stewart House. I also asked Robert to discuss his two books — The First Two Books of Poems and Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry , both just-released by…
- Update on Argentina and the Prospects for Dollarization with Brilliant Economist, Emilio Ocampo
Last November I spent a week in B uenos A ires meeting with senior Argentine government officials, key business leaders, including members of the banking community, and leading Argentine economists. My visit led to this Financial Times op-ed entitled, “Here’s How to Make Argentina Grow Again.” Argentina has an amazing collection of brilliant economists. Former Economics Minister, Domingo Cavallo, my lifetime close friend and graduate-school classmate, has done it all and seen it all when it comes to Argentina’s economic history. We spent many hours on my trip discussing President Milei’s…
- Making Optimal Military Career Decisions with MaxiFi Planner
Economics Matters — Blog/Podcast/Financial Riddler/MaxiFi Puzzler Sign up for a free short-term subscription at larrykotlikoff.substack.com. I’ll immediately make it a free lifetime subscription. Also, pls sign up kids, parents, … — everyone you know. Paid subscriptions come with a monthly Q&A session via Substack Live. I’ll email you the day and time. Submit questions on anything and everything via chat. I’ll be live. Subscribe as a Founding Member - Help me provide high-level economics content and break even covering my significant podcast costs. Comes with a one-hour financial therapy…
- Beth Kobliner, Author of the Bestseller, "Get A Financial Life," Provides the Basics for Optimizing Your Financial Future
Please tune in/watch this fun conversation with one of our nation’s top financial journalists. Beth is brilliant in the both the British and American senses of the word. Her advice and insights are for keeps and for posterity, as in your kids and grandkids. Get a Financial Life, Now in its 5th Edition, is the perfect graduation gift. But it’s also one of the best guides going for your own financial future. As NEWSWEEK wrote, “A life’s work of smart financial advice.” Beth’s Bio Beth Kobliner is an American personal finance journalist, commentator, and author, best known for the New York Times…
- Sec. Bessent, Your Bond-Market Band-Aid Can’t Hide Our Ugly Pig: $40 Trillion in Federal Debt
Economics Matters — Blog/Podcast/Financial Riddler/MaxiFi Puzzler Sign up for a free subscription at larrykotlikoff.substack.com. I’ll immediately make it a free lifetime subscription. Also, pls sign up kids, parents, …, everyone you know. Paid subscriptions come with a monthly Q&A session via Substack Live. I’ll email you the day and time. Submit questions on anything and everything via chat. I’ll be live. Subscribe as a Founding Member - Help me provide high-level economics content and break even covering my significant podcast costs. Comes with a one-hour financial therapy session…
- Is AI the End of Mathematics or an Exciting New Beginning?
Want to see what two of the world’s top math stars are doing? Check out Daniel Dadush’s and Daniel Pomerleano’s CVs. In addition to writing articles that make my head spin, they have been keeping a close eye on AI, particularly its ability to solve long-standing math problems. Are mathematicians about to go extinct? Watch/listen to this captivating podcast about AI’s math accomplishments and the future of the field. Btw, the two Daniels and I go back a long way. I went to graduate school with their parents. Daniel Dadush is a mathematician and computer scientist at the Department of…
- Phil Moeller, Author of Get What's Yours for Medicare Provides a Critical Guide to and Scary Update on Medicare
My great friend and co-author, Phil Moeller, is back with a timely heads up on all things Medicare. Phil’s book , published by Simon & Schuster, is the premier resource for ensuring you make the informed and optimal Medicare decisions that will carry you through the long term. To quote his Wiki page, Phil was a reporter for the Charlotte Observer and the Chicago Sun-Times , business editor for the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Baltimore Sun, and editor of The Hartford Business Journal. He later wrote for U.S. News & World Report , Money magazine, and the PBS NewsHour . In 2015, he…
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Data: Substack public leaderboards and publication archives, refreshed nightly, plus public beehiiv sitemaps and recommendation pages, refreshed weekly. Source for this page: Economics Matters by Laurence Kotlikoff. Subscriber counts are Substack’s own rounded public figures, so week-on-week changes move in steps. beehiiv audience sizes are self-reported by the publisher and are not verified. Last snapshot: Sep 30, 2026.