Econ to Icon

Tim Harford is one of Britain's best-known explainers of economics — presenter of BBC Radio 4's More or Less , author of multiple bestselling books including  The Undercover Economist , and longtime columnist at the Financial Times . But as this episode makes clear, almost none of it was planned. Tim talks to Paul Johnson and Michael Kell about a career built on curiosity, accident, and a willingn...

Stephanie Flanders is one of the UK's most recognisable economics voices. She grew up in a family steeped in journalism and performance — her father was the comedian and songwriter Michael Flanders, of Flanders and Swann fame — and came of age politically during the high-water mark of Thatcherism, when she first realised that if you wanted to understand politics, you had to understand economics. T...

Sir Steve Webb is widely regarded as one of the most effective pensions ministers Britain has ever had. In this first episode of Econ to Icon, Paul Johnson and Michael Kell sit down with the man who drove through the new state pension, helped introduce automatic enrolment, and has spent his post-political career holding the system to account from the outside. Steve is characteristically direct, se...

In this short introductory episode, hosts Paul Johnson and Michael Kell introduce Econ to Icon. This is a podcast about people whose careers began in economics and went somewhere remarkable, exploring the substance of what they did and the choices they made about their career. Paul Johnson has spent nearly four decades working on the economics of public policy — as Director of the Institute for Fi...