S8 Ep32: Bonus episode: From soft landings to hard realities
The Bank for International Settlements Annual Economic Report has just dropped, and there’s a markedly less positive tone than last year, when it was celebrating imminent soft landings in the global economy. It warns of a deteriorating outlook for growth, coupled with vulnerabilities in the global financial system.
So, what exactly is the BIS worried about, how can policy and regulation respond, and should central banks start worrying about the next systemic crisis?
Gaston Gelos and Frank Smets are Deputy Heads of the Monetary and Economic Department at the BIS and are also two of the authors who put together the report. They talk to Tim Phillips about why last year’s optimism has disappeared, and how monetary and fiscal policy can adjust to cope with a new era of uncertainty and fragmentation.
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32:14
S8 Ep31: Does better school management boost test scores?
Whether you are looking at the link from education to economic growth, household earnings or individual happiness, there’s no doubt that a better-educated population is good news. But how can policy improve education in a cost-effective way? You might assume that a good route would be to improve the management of schools, but existing research is not conclusive, and often top-down attempts to improve management meets opposition from administrators.
An experiment in Brazil has evaluated a program to improve management using existing resources in Rio de Janeiro. Tiago Cavalcanti, of University of Cambridge, Sao Paulo School of Economics & CEPR, and Felipe Puccioni of the Court of Accounts of Rio de Janeiro came up with the experiment, and they tell Tim Phillips about why universal education doesn’t necessarily mean universal learning – and how they became celebrities on national television when their successful project hit the headlines.
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24:09
S8 Ep30: Do car bans hurt politicians?
Pedestrianised areas, car-free streets, or low traffic neighbourhoods are increasingly visible in major cities. Whether in London, Paris, New York or Barcelona, these changes are always controversial – but does the loud criticism that we often hear in social media or newspapers really represent the views of voters who are affected by these policies?
Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal of the Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona Institute of Economics and CEPR spoke to Tim Phillips about whether Barcelona’s car-free “Superblocks” were vote-winners or vote-losers for the city’s mayor.
Photo: Cataleirxs
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27:39
S8 Ep29: Finding meaning at work
What’s the point of having a job? Clearly, to make money for ourselves and our families. But is it possible for us to discover some bigger purpose or meaning at work. And, if we do, who benefits? That’s the idea that a multinational organisation had when it called in a team of economists to analyse its internal programme called “Find your Purpose” (FYP). The resulting RCT set out to measure whether FYP changed how employees behaved at work, whether it helped them enjoy their jobs, and whether it increased profits too.
Oriana Bandiera of London School of Economics and CEPR was one of those economists. She tells Tim Phillips how she took the programme and found her purpose, why FYP increased the quit rate but improved productivity, and why employees who took the programme stopped worrying about their work-life balance.
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19:14
S8 Ep28: How to curb the bias against female experts
Does the public take more notice of the opinions of male or female economists? We know that female experts, whether in science, politics or the media, suffer from an authority gap: their expertise is often not given as much weight by the public as opinions held by less qualified men. But does the gap persist for the very highest achievers? And, if it closes or even reverses for them, what lessons are there for other female experts? Sarah Smith of the University of Bristol and CEPR recently conducted an experiment about which expert economists are most likely to influence public opinion. She tells Tim Phillips about a signal that reverses the authority gap, and how this insight can help other female economists to communicate their expertise.
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