Fearonomics

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the key role of the state amidst managing public health and economic disaster. However, if the role of state is growing, is it actually a good thing? These are just a few of the questions discussed in this special live launch of 2020-21 Transition Report: The State Strike Back. EBRD's Anthony Williams was join by a great line up of guests: Mariana Mazzuca...

Rate, review and download our podcast   It’s been almost a year since reports of a new strain of coronavirus first emerged. Even back then the IMF was sounding the alarm about the high and rising levels of debt in developing economies.   Today, after lockdowns and severe economic contractions, debt is growing almost as fast as the coronavirus pandemic is spreading.   “It’s not the moment to be tim...

Rate, review and download our podcast The full cost of the coronavirus pandemic is still unknown. But state spending has skyrocketed as governments try to protect whole sectors and industries which were put into induced comas this spring.  How will we pay our debts incurred during this crisis? What will be the price of recovery? In this coronavirus special, EBRD Managing Director of Communications...

The coronavirus pandemic  has locked populations inside their houses and put millions under the spotlight of a new state-controlled panopticon, watching us and our movements in the name of public safety. Our  Pocket Dilemma podcast  presenters, Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law, were joined on Zoom by: Peter Pomerantsev-   Senior Fellow, LSE. Author: This is Not Propaganda, Nothing is True and Every...

Rate and review our Coronavirus and Capitalism special podcast episode In only a few months, the coronavirus pandemic has seriously shifted the balance of power between the state and the private sector. How is this impacting our politics and economies?  This Pocket Dilemmas podcast special on capitalism in the post-Covid-19 era was organised by the EBRD and the  Athens Democracy Forum  (in associa...

Will the coronavirus pandemic change capitalism forever? Could such changes lead to economies and societies which are more cohesive, inclusive and fairer than those of the recent past? In this coronavirus special, EBRD Managing Director of Communications,  Jonathan Charles  and  EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik  were joined by: Sir Paul Collier , Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the...

The recent 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer revealed a dramatic turnaround in levels of popular trust in governments, from their lowest to highest ever recorded levels. Indeed, government is now the institution most people trust, for the first time in the survey’s 20-year history. How brittle is this new found faith in those who govern us? Will it outlive the peak of the   global coronavirus pandemic...

Rate and review our Coronavirus special podcast episode   The coronavirus pandemic has already turned global politics and economics upside down. Are there lessons to be learnt from previous crises? What will happen to the nation state and how will Covid-19 impact the European project? What happens when millions of people are forced to stay at home and have time to imagine a world run differently t...

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas The coronavirus pandemic is changing our attitude to far more than just public health. The ways we work, socialise and travel may not be the same again for some time. But does the impact of Covid-19 affect men and women differently? Coronavirus seems to have a higher fatality rate in men. At the same time, women may suffer more from the eco...

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas For all the loss of human life and damage to the economy inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic, could the disease herald opportunities as well as threats? Could now be the time for socially responsible and impact investing to transform the global economy for the post-Covid-19 era?   Our presenters, Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law, were join...

Rate and review ERD/LSE IGA joint podcast   The economic and political impact of the coronavirus pandemic is growing more dramatic by the day. Millions of businesses and the jobs they support are under threat. Civil liberties in many countries are being drastically curtailed as governments fight to control the spread of Covid-19.   How will all this change the world economy and what does it mean f...

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas   More and more countries have responded to the coronavirus pandemic by closing themselves off from the rest of the world and shutting their borders, either partially or altogether. Even the European Union’s Schengen zone has reintroduced border checks.   Our presenters, Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law, were joined on Zoom by our Chief Econ...

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas We say goodbye to our former Chief Economist Sergei Guriev and look back at his 3 years at the EBRD. This special episode, recorded in August, focuses on the main themes of his time with us: reforms, democracy and economic growth. Join Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law in conversation with Sergei Guriev, now a Professor of Economics at Scienc...

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas Does the uncontrolled growth of large cities endanger smart and sustainable living? From adaptive traffic lights to wooden skyscrapers, what is the future for our cities? Will they look more like an urban paradise or suburban sprawl stretching as far as the eye can see? Could algorithms help us adopt the right policies to control and manage...

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas Join Jonathan Charles and Kerry Law on a journey to the region which breached the Berlin Wall and tore down the Iron Curtain in 1989. Where are the peoples of Germany, Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union three decades on?  we ask in this very special episode of our Pocket Dilemmas podcast. How far have their dreams of fre...

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas What are the lessons to be learnt from  Chernobyl ? How does one decommission a power plant which has been the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident and manage its legacy? The EBRD has been working on making the Chernobyl nuclear power plant safe for over 25 years, as explained in the latest episode of the Pocket Dilemmas podcast. Taki...

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas  Earlier this year Bill Gates tweeted an infographic showing ‘how much life has improved over the last two centuries,’ particularly as measured by an apparent decline in extreme poverty. The graph provoked fierce debate amongst economists across the globe. In this episode of Pocket Dilemmas our presenters, Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law, w...

 How does sexual orientation affect the pay gap? While we often hear of the gender pay gap, we set about exploring how sexual preferences impact salaries and rights in the workplace and elsewhere.  On this week’s episode of Pocket Dilemmas we speak to Kitt Carpenter Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt University, and Cevat Aksoy, one of our economists, on the LGBTQI pay gap and were surprised by...

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas  We recorded the most recent episode of Pocket Dilemmas in front of a live audience in Bosnia and Herzegovina ’s capital Sarajevo, host of last week’s 2019 Annual Meeting and Business Forum . Our presenters, Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law, led a discussion of the most pressing challenges of our time - climate change, technology, urbanisati...

Taking the cryptic out of cryptocurrencies Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast, Pocket Dilemmas   What is the future of money? Are cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin a modern-day miracle or a mirage? We invited our very own Stuart Trow and Zeynep Gurguc from Imperial College London to help us resolve this week’s dilemma on our podcast Pocket Dilemmas . We also talked to Jelena Madir, Chief Cou...

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas What is the future of work? How will technology, automation and AI change our jobs and will we and our children actually have jobs the way we do now? Will, in fact, the future be a battle between us and the machines? This week we have Jason Furman from Harvard Kennedy School and our Chief Economist  Sergei Guriev  as our guests to help us r...

Should algorithms rule the world? Maybe they do so already and we just never noticed. Will they in fact do a better job than mere humans? How do governments use them to create legislation? What are the ethical implications of the algorithm use for policy-makers? We invited Jonnie Penn, Google Technology Policy fellow, and Dawn Duhaney, Partnerships Manager at UK Wellcome Trust to be our guests and...

Episode One, dedicated to the origins of Brexit and its impact on the EBRD regions ( over 30 economies inside and outside the EU), was recorded in front of a live audience at our headquarters at the heart of the City of London on 3rd April and you can now listen to it here. Are there winners and losers? What do people outside the EU think about Brexit? We have all the answers here. The Pocket Dile...

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is launching our new podcast,  Pocket Dilemmas,  with a live event at our London HQ on the origins of Brexit and its impact on EBRD countries. Pocket Dilemmas is presented by a broadcasting legend Jonathan Charles and an amazing Kerrie Law. They explore the burning issues of today- from algorithms to cryptocurrencies with a great selection of gu...