Capital Economics has released the latest episode of its Weekly Briefing podcast, titled "A polarised US rate debate, China's lost reform and the £25bn question." The episode is dated 14 August 2026 and is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, as well as on other leading podcast platforms.

As its title indicates, the episode addresses three subjects: the polarised debate over the direction of US interest rates, the theme the publication frames as China's "lost reform," and what it calls "the £25bn question." The episode page did not include a transcript or detailed show notes, so the substance of the discussion is available only in audio form. The framing situates the episode within long-running macro debates: how the Federal Reserve should weigh inflation against labour-market conditions in setting its policy rate, and how quickly China can rebalance an economy marked in recent years by property-sector distress and elevated local-government debt.

The Weekly Briefing is a regular podcast from Capital Economics, the London-based macroeconomic research consultancy founded in 1999 by the economist Roger Bootle, in which its economists present their view of the week's principal economic and market themes.

Alongside the episode, Capital Economics highlighted three related items from its UK economics coverage, each examining the fiscal, gilt-market and growth implications of the ambitions set out by Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester:

• Burnham's ambitions will soon collide with fiscal reality — UK Economics Update
• Burnham's Gilt market luck may already have run out — Capital Daily
• Why Burnham will struggle to revive UK growth — UK Economics Focus

The attention to the gilt market reflects a UK policy debate in which the sensitivity of government borrowing costs to fiscal announcements moved sharply into focus after the September 2022 "mini-budget" episode, which prompted emergency Bank of England gilt purchases.