VoxTalks Economics

What's the future of capitalism? Luis Garicano asked this question to 21 of his fellow economists, and this week the interviews are published as a CEPR ebook. He tells Tim Phillips that Covid-19 may inspire us "to rethink everything we are doing". You can download the new CEPR Press eBook 'Capitalism after Covid: Conversations with 21 economists' here

Latin America has a long history of populist government. New research by Antonio Spilimbergo quantifies the consequences of populism for the region's institutions and economies. 

The CEPR's Research Policy Network on competition policy ( cepr.online/competition ) launches this week. In the first of two special podcasts on the topic, Greg Crawford and Cristina Caffarra tell Tim Phillips why it is so important to have this debate now, and how academics can use the RPN to connect their research to real-world policy. You can find out more about and register for the event on Ju...

How well has monetary policy coped with the challenge of Covid-19?Central banks get good grades in a new VoxEU ebook. But Bill English and Angel Ubide warn Tim Phillips that success today may lead to problems in future.

Every day we can see harrowing mobile phone footage from conflict zones, shot by civilians, on the TV news. Ekaterina Zhuravskaya tells Tim Phillips that data from the Israel-Palestine conflict suggests social media has changed the tone of what traditional media reports. 

The latest Barcelona Report from the CEPR discusses how central banks and asset managers should manage climate and natural disaster risks. Xavier Vives tells Tim Phillips what the report has to say about mandates, hedging and resilience.

ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance – measures of bank performance are getting a lot of attention from shareholders and policymakers. But might more investment in ESG make banks less resilient? Thomas Gehrig tells Tim Phillips what the first research on this topic reveals.

As more of us wait to have children, more of us also worry if that's best for the health of our babies. Empirical evidence has been inconclusive so far but, based on new evidence, Hans Hvide tells Tim Phillips that this might be a problem with the way the research has been done.

If you had trouble in the last four years keeping up with what was happening in the trade war, you're not alone. Chad Bown tell Tim Phillips about his new paper that explains what happened, when, what it meant - and what happens next.  

An increasing amount of trade is digital, but trade negotiations are bogged down by arguments over how to regulate it. A new VoxEU ebook investigates what gets in the way of digital trade, and editors Ingo Borchert and Alan Winters tell Tim Phillips what we can do to make it work better.

Europe has struggled through two crises in the last decade, but this time its response has been much more decisive and ambitious. George Papaconstantinou tells Tim Phillips why Covid-19 may be the catalyst for deeper EU integration. You can download CEPR Policy Insight 109: Reshaping economic policy in the EU in the post-Covid world, by Marco Buti and George Papaconstantinou, here

Can we create a database of everyone in history? What would it tell us about who we consider to be important? Etienne Wasmer, Morgane Laouenan, and Arash Nekoei tell Tim Phillips about what their projects tell us.

We measure inequality using income as a proxy for welfare. But are we mixing up "doing well" with "being well"? Leandro Prados de la Escosura thinks so, and his research contradicts much of what we think we know about the long-run trends in inequality.

What would our economies be like if Bitcoin completely displaced fiat currency? Jon Danielsson tells Tim Phillips that it wouldn't be a world that he wants to live in. 

Good-looking economists get better academic posts. Galina Hale tells Tim Phillips about surprising new research that challenges our assumptions about how departments rate and recruit candidates.

It has been two years since Wirecard suddenly collapsed. Giorgio Barba Navaretti and Alberto Pozzolo explain to Tim Phillips why it is so hard to supervise global fintechs, and how regulators can do a better job next time.

Anti-pollution laws penalise firms whose activities emit CO2. Itzhak Ben-David tells Tim Phillips that well-intentioned regulation may be causing multinationals to shunt polluting activities to poorer countries where regulation isn’t so strict.

Africa’s citizens have so far mostly been spared the direct health consequences of the pandemic, but many of its economies are on life support. Ugo Panizza and Simeon Djankov, two of the editors of a new CEPR ebook about Africa's recovery, talk to Tim Phillips about post-Covid debt, FDI, food security, and how it's in all our interests to step up and help. Download Shaping Africa’s Post-Covid Reco...

Diffusion of new drugs is painfully slow in low-income countries. Mark Schankerman tells Tim Phillips about how patent pools accelerate the process, and how we could still do a better job of licensing life-saving medicines.

Today the CEPR launches a new ebook on Europe's trade strategy. Author Christian Bluth tells Tim Phillips that nations are increasingly using global trade as a means of political arm-twisting. Should the EU do the same? Download Europe’s trade strategy for the age of geoeconomic globalisation from VoxEU.

Serious illness can be life-changing. Does it inspire us to be more charitable? Sarah Smith tells Tim Phillips whether we give more to charity after we suffer, to which charities - and what this means for their funding after Covid-19.

In classical capitalism, the rich earn their money from capital while the poor sell the value of their labour. In which countries is that still true, and how does it affect the gap between rich and poor? Branko Milanovic tells Tim Phillips about a new way in which we can think about inequality. Read about the research at VoxEU.

As the climate heats up, what does it mean for the number, and the scale, of conflicts in Africa? Dominic Rohner warns Tim Phillips about the impact that climate change has had in the continent already and the danger signs for the future.

What is behind the pinballing price movements of Bitcoin? Neil Gandal tells Tim Phillips how supply and demand works for cryptocurrencies.

A new study uses detailed data on the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany to investigate why individuals become refugees. Mathias Thoenig tells Tim Phillips about a simple policy that would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the 1930s, but is still ignored today.