VoxTalks Economics

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.

Among other things, it has not been a great year for global democracy. So in the final VoxTalk of 2020, Konstantin Sonin tells Tim Phillips how authoritarian leaders grab and hold on to power. 

Will the pandemic create more or fewer babies? Joshua Wilde tells Tim Phillips how Google search data can provide the answer.

When the galleon San José sank in a typhoon in 1694, it was carrying a cargo worth 2% of the GDP of the entire Spanish empire. Fernando Arteaga, Desiree Desierto and Mark Koyama tell Tim Phillips about how bribes sank Spanish treasure ships. Read the Vox column about Spanish shipwrecks.

Africa's roads were originally built so that colonial powers could extract its natural wealth. What has happened since then? Steven Poelhekke of the University of Auckland examines the maps with Tim Phillips.

Laotians are still suffering collateral damage from a covert war that the US waged in the country half a century ago. Felipe Valencia Caicedo tells Tim Phillips about the devastating impact of the bombing of Laos, and how we can help victims of conflict in future.

When we compare ratios of debt to GDP, do we look closely enough at the political and financial context in which the debts were calculated? Eric Monnet of the Paris School of Economics tells Tim Phillips about how our statistical methods and assumptions have evolved.

The EU's increasingly complex system of fiscal rules should be replaced by a system of fiscal standards instead, Olivier Blanchard tells Tim Phillips. You can watch the recording of Olivier presenting his paper on Fiscal Standards for Europe at the 72nd Economic Policy Journal Panel Meeting here The full paper, Redesigning the EU Fiscal Rules: From Rules to Standards by Olivier Blanchard, Alvaro L...