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Eric Chaney, 3 September 2010
Eric Chaney of Harvard University of Chicago talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his research on the evolution of institutions in the Islamic world and the relationship with economic development. Among other things, they discuss the rise and fall of Muslim science; and the balance of power between ‘church’ and ‘state’ in times of catastrophe. The interview was recorded at the annual congress of the European Economic Association in Glasgow in August 2010.
Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano, 27 August 2010
Gianmarco Ottaviano of Bocconi University talks to Viv Davies about The Global Operations of European Firms, a report that analyses data on 15,000 firms in seven countries to show that firm size, productivity, skill intensity and the ability to innovate are associated with better export performance, foreign direct investment and outsourcing. He argues that firms can improve their competitiveness within the European single market, but competing effectively in the future will require more than just exporting to neighbouring EU countries. The interview was recorded in Rome on 19 June 2010.
Viral Acharya, 20 August 2010
Viral Acharya talks to Viv Davies about the Dodd-Frank Act and his recent work on capital requirements, market-based measures of systemic risk and stress tests. He highlights the new NYU Stern Systemic Risk Rankings of US financial institutions, which use the Marginal Expected Shortfall (MES) as its basis. Acharya discusses the shortcomings of the Basel III proposals and compares the recent European stress tests with those undertaken in the US. He highlights the importance of international coordination in the areas of derivatives, and agrees that financial reform compliance will require a cultural shift in the banking system.
Xavier Freixas, 13 August 2010
Xavier Freixas talks to Viv Davies about the outcome of the recent stress tests undertaken by European banks. Freixas explains his view of the purpose of the tests and why he considers they were successful in spite of criticisms regarding their lack of robustness. He discusses the impact of the tests on the Spanish cajas and the Spanish banking system, and comments on the surge in investment in the activities of European banks following the results of the tests.
Raghuram Rajan, 6 August 2010
Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his new book ‘Fault Lines’, in which he outlines the deep systemic problems in the world economy that threaten further financial crises – high US inequality, patched over by easy credit; excessive stimulus to sustain job creation in times of downturn; and the choices of Germany, Japan, and China to focus on export-led growth rather than domestic consumption. The interview was recorded in London in July 2010.
Bernard Hoekman, 30 July 2010
Bernard Hoekman of the World Bank talks to Viv Davies about the Vox eBook on rebalancing the global economy. They discuss why imbalances persist, what can be learned from history and the need for a more collective responsibility in responding to the current problem. Hoekman highlights the importance of supply-side factors as well as the implications of imbalances for developing countries. Regarding the current debate on austerity versus stimulus, Hoekman maintains that the real issue is more about timing and coordination. The interview was recorded in July 2010.
Richard S. Grossman, 23 July 2010
Richard Grossman of Wesleyan University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his new book ‘Unsettled Account: The Evolution of Banking in the Industrialized World since 1800’. Among other things, they discuss the problems of striking a balance between a dynamic banking system and a stable banking system. The interview was recorded at a conference on ‘Lessons from the Great Depression for the Making of Economic Policy’ in London in April 2010.
Stijn Claessens, 16 July 2010
Stijn Claessens of the IMF and the University of Amsterdam talks to Viv Davies about the 12th Geneva Report on improving the resolution of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs). Claessens discusses the trilemma of national authority, financial integration and global stability, and proposes a new concordat approach to the resolution of SIFIs on an international basis that would harmonise resolution with supervision. The view of the Report's authors is that this will help to improve the incentives for collaboration among supervisors and enhance market stability while respecting the sovereignty of individual countries. The interview was recorded on 13 July 2010.
Raghuram Rajan, 9 July 2010
Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about ‘The Squam Lake Report’, which brings together 15 leading US financial economists to map out a long-term plan for financial regulation reform. Among other things, they discuss capital requirements, contingent convertibles, living wills and executive compensation in financial services. The interview was recorded in London in July 2010.
Daniel Gros, 2 July 2010
Daniel Gros of CEPS talks to Viv Davies about Vox's latest eBook, which brings together the views of leading economists on what more needs to be done to rescue the Eurozone. While not excluding the possibility of a breakup of the eurozone, Gros discusses a potential solution for Greece and the key role of the proposed stress tests on European banks, warning that the "devil is in the detail". The interview was recorded in late June 2010.
Simon J Evenett, 25 June 2010
Simon Evenett of the University of St Gallen talks to Viv Davies about the fifth Global Trade Alert (GTA) report. They discuss why the EU – in contrast to Africa, which has resisted protectionist temptations – is now in the top five ‘offending nations’ on all of the GTA criteria. Evenett also answers recent criticisms that GTA has been ‘over-alarmist’ in its analysis of protectionist measures implemented by governments since the onset of the financial crisis. The interview was recorded in June 2010.
Sir Howard Davies, 18 June 2010
Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his new book, co-authored with David Green, ‘Banking on the Future: The Fall and Rise of Central Banking’. Among other things, they discuss the cost-effectiveness of central banks, the characteristics of an ideal central bank governor, and potential reform of the voting structure at the European Central Bank. The interview was recorded in London in June 2010.
Simon J Evenett, 11 June 2010
Simon Evenett of the University of St Gallen talks to Viv Davies about his recent Vox e-book on the US-Sino currency dispute, which brings together the latest research on the behaviour of the renminbi, the role it has played in global imbalances and the potential responses of China and its trading partners to the dispute over balances and exchange rate policies. Evenett discusses the key policy messages for the US and China - and the implications for the EU. The interview was recorded in June 2010.
David Vines, 4 June 2010
David Vines of Oxford University talks to Viv Davies about the vulnerability of Europe's monetary union and the need for a rules-based international monetary system. He argues that due to an unprecedented show of cooperation and worldwide coordination of fiscal and monetary policies, an all-out collapse has been prevented: the same level of cooperation and coordination will be needed to address the global savings-investment imbalances that continue to pose a threat to global stability. The interview was recorded in June 2010.
Pranab Bardhan, 28 May 2010
Pranab Bardhan of the University of California, Berkeley, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his new book ‘Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: Assessing the Economic Rise of China and India’. He argues that significant poverty reduction in both countries is mainly due to domestic factors – not global integration, as most would believe. The interview was recorded at the London School of Economics in May 2010.
Richard S. Grossman, 21 May 2010
Richard Grossman of Wesleyan University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the role of gold standard in propagating the Great Depression – and what we might learn for the crisis in the world’s most important fixed exchange rate system of today, the eurozone. The interview was recorded at a conference on ‘Lessons from the Great Depression for the Making of Economic Policy’ in London in April 2010.
Thorsten Beck, 14 May 2010
Thorsten Beck of Tilburg University talks to Viv Davies about his current research in the areas of finance, growth and development - and the policy lessons for developing countries. The interview was recorded at Tilburg University in April 2010.
Claudio Borio, 7 May 2010
Claudio Borio of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about where the pre-crisis consensus on monetary policy-making went wrong; the implementation, effectiveness and costs of ‘unconventional monetary policy-making’ in response to the crisis; the idea that it is no longer ‘better to clean than to lean’; and the research agenda for macroeconomics. The interview, which was recorded in April 2010, represents Claudio Borio’s personal views and does not necessarily reflect those of the BIS.
Price Fishback, 30 April 2010
Price Fishback of the University of Arizona talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about whether the current US economic situation is really comparable to the Great Depression. He argues that today’s monetary policy response is heavily and positively influenced by the failures of the past – but that today’s fiscal stimulus is far stronger than in the 1930s and out of proportion to the problem. The interview was recorded at a conference on ‘Lessons from the Great Depression for the Making of Economic Policy’ in London in April 2010.
Michael Bordo, 23 April 2010
Michael Bordo of Rutgers University compares US banking panics in the early 1930s with panics in the shadow banking system and the repo market in 2007 and in investment banks and the universal banking system after Lehman failed. He argues that the bailouts of ‘too big to fail’ banks may lead to future crises, and discusses possible remedies. The interview with Romesh Vaitilingam was recorded at a conference on ‘Lessons from the Great Depression for the Making of Economic Policy’ in London in April 2010.
Philip Cook, 16 April 2010
Philip Cook of Duke University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about cost-effective ways of reducing crime. They discuss his own research on private contributions to public order, as well as the potential impact on crime of higher taxes on alcohol, 'coerced abstinence' for convicted criminals, and social policies that may deter people from becoming criminals. The interview was recorded at the Royal Economic Society's annual conference at the University of Surrey in March 2010.
Carmen M. Reinhart, 9 April 2010
Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the sequencing of the cycle of debt build-ups – from private debt surges to banking crises to sovereign debt crises – and the four ‘deadly D’s’ that once again threaten many governments as a consequence of the current crisis – deficits, debt, downgrade and default. The interview was recorded at the Royal Economic Society’s annual conference at the University of Surrey in March 2010.
Andrew E. Clark, 2 April 2010
Andrew Clark of the Paris School of Economics talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his research on the relationship between income and health, which examines changes in the health and health behaviours (smoking and drinking) of British people who win prizes in the national lottery. The interview was recorded at the Royal Economic Society’s annual conference at the University of Surrey in March 2010.
Robert Sugden, 26 March 2010
Robert Sugden talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the new book of which he is a co-author, ‘Experimental Economics: Rethinking the Rules’. They discuss the development of experimental research in economics over the past 30 years, the design of laboratory experiments and the achievements of these methods in increasing understanding of economic behaviour. The interview was recorded in London in March 2010.
Jeffrey Chwieroth, 19 March 2010
Jeffrey Chwieroth of the London School of Economics, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the evolution of economic ideas at the International Monetary Fund, drawing on his book, ‘Capital Ideas: The IMF and the Rise of Financial Liberalization’. They discuss changes in IMF thinking about capital controls, the Tobin tax and macroeconomic policy – as well the possibility of IMF intervention in Greece. The interview was recorded in London on 16 March 2010.
Josh Lerner, 12 March 2010
Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School talks to Vox about the policies that governments employ to encourage venture capital and entrepreneurial activity, drawing on the findings in his book, Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed – and What to Do About It. The interview was recorded in London in January 2010.
John Van Reenen, 5 March 2010
How important are management practices in driving the performance of firms and the productivity of nations across Asia, Europe and North America? John Van Reenen, director of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the London School of Economics, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about CEP’s research programme on the economics of management and productivity. The interview was recorded in London in February 2010.
Tim Besley, 26 February 2010
Tim Besley of the London School of Economics – and a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) – talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the idea of creating a politically neutral, expert body to ensure the proper long-term scrutiny of a country’s public finances – by analogy with the UK’s MPC, a Fiscal Policy Committee. The interview was recorded in London in February 2010.
Paul Seabright, 19 February 2010
Paul Seabright of the Toulouse School of Economics talks to Viv Davies about a new CEPR report, Bailing out the Banks, which analyses state-supported schemes for financial institutions in the current crisis and the need to reconcile the potentially conflicting policy goals of financial stability and competition in the banking industry. The interview was recorded in London in February 2010.
Josh Lerner, 12 February 2010
Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School talks to Vox about sovereign wealth funds, which are the focus of a chapter in his new book, Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed – and What to Do About It. The interview was recorded in London in January 2010.
Joel Mokyr, 5 February 2010
Joel Mokyr of Northwestern University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his book, The Enlightened Economy, which argues that we cannot understand the Industrial Revolution without recognising the importance of the intellectual sea changes of Britain’s Age of Enlightenment. They discuss the importance of cultural beliefs for the pursuit of economic growth in today’s developing countries. The interview was recorded in San Francisco in January 2009.
Joel Waldfogel, 29 January 2010
Joel Waldfogel of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the economics of digital media, including: music file sharing (both illegal and legal) and the impact on artists and record labels; the threat that intellectual property piracy poses to the movie business; and the future of books and newspapers in the digital age. The interview was recorded in London in December 2009.
Mike Young, 22 January 2010
Mike Young, executive director of the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about how Australia has responded to the big shock to its water supply – through new regulations, through technological solutions, through public education and through the introduction of market mechanisms. The interview was recorded at the Global Economic Symposium in Schleswig-Holstein in September 2009.
Anne Murphy, 15 January 2010
Anne Murphy, lecturer in history at the University of Hertfordshire and associate director of the Centre for Financial History at Newnham College, Cambridge, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about her new book ‘The Origins of English Financial Markets: Investment and Speculation before the South Sea Bubble’. The interview was recorded in London in January 2010.
Pablo Guidotti, 8 January 2010
Pablo Guidotti, Director of the School of Government at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella and former deputy minister of finance in Argentina, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the challenges facing monetary and fiscal policy-makers as they plan their exit strategies from the extraordinary measures taken to deal with the global crisis. The interview was recorded at the Global Economic Symposium in Schleswig-Holstein in September 2009.
Joel Waldfogel, 23 December 2009
Joel Waldfogel of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his new book, Scroogenomics. They discuss his measurements of the deadweight loss of Christmas gift giving over time and across countries, the motivations that people have for giving, and his ideas for encouraging charitable giving at the holidays. The interview was recorded in London in December 2009.
Jonathan Morduch, 18 December 2009
Jonathan Morduch of New York University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his new book, Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day – co-authored with Daryl Collins, Stuart Rutherford and Orlanda Ruthven – which reports on the yearlong ‘financial diaries’ of villagers and slum dwellers in Bangladesh, India, and South Africa. The interview was recorded in New York in August 2009.
Jim O'Neill, 11 December 2009
Jim O’Neill, head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the crisis and its impact on the emerging giants of the world economy, the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China). They also discuss the value of economic research in both the commercial and academic spheres, and how the economics profession has come out of the crisis. The interview was recorded in London in September 2009.
Demetrios Papademetriou, 4 December 2009
Demetrios Papademetriou, president and co-founder of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington DC, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the key elements of wise migration policy both at a time of economic crisis and for the longer term. The interview was recorded at the Global Economic Symposium in Schleswig-Holstein in September 2009.
Partha Dasgupta, 27 November 2009
Sir Partha Dasgupta of the University of Cambridge talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about why some countries are rich and others are poor. He argues that trust is the fundamental building block of societies – without it, there can be no basis for cooperation, which in turn leads to progress and economic development. The interview was recorded in Bristol, where he was delivering the Royal Economic Society’s annual public lecture in November 2009.
Stephen Cecchetti, 30 June 2008
Stephen Cecchetti, Vox’s most widely read columnist, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about monetary policy responses to the financial crisis of 2007-2008.
Views 30020
Daron Acemoglu, 27 February 2009
Daron Acemoglu of MIT talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his new book, Introduction to Modern Economic Growth. They discuss why sustained growth took off in Europe in the nineteenth century, the roles of technology and institutions in explaining why some countries grow rapidly while others stagnate, and the growth prospects for the world’s poorest countries as well as the recent Asian success stories. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in San Francisco in January 2009.
Views 27908
Guido Tabellini, 4 July 2008
Guido Tabellini talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the role of culture and institutions in economic development over long periods of time. This was the subject of his presidential address to the annual congress of the European Economic Association, held in Budapest in August 2007.
Views 25648
Dani Rodrik, 19 December 2008
Dani Rodrik of the Harvard Kennedy School talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the role of institutions in economic development. They discuss the use of ‘growth diagnostics’ to identify the binding constraints on economic activity and hence the priorities for policy and institutional reform, drawing on Rodrik’s experiences applying the framework to South Africa. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in New Orleans in January 2008.
Views 24354
Raj Chetty, 6 March 2009
Raj Chetty talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the optimal design of tax policies and social welfare programmes like unemployment insurance. They discuss his work on US public finance as well as new research on how to improve tax compliance in developing countries. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in San Francisco in January 2009.
Views 23223
Richard A. Easterlin, 10 April 2009
Richard Easterlin of the University of Southern California talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the Easterlin paradox – his finding, first published in 1974, that although people with higher incomes are more likely to report being happy, rising incomes do not lead to increases in subjective wellbeing. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in San Francisco in January 2009.
Views 22894
Luigi Zingales, 4 July 2008
Luigi Zingales talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about corporate fraud in large US companies and the role of various actors in exposing fraud, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, auditors, employees, industry regulators and the media.
Views 21838
Raymond Fisman, 14 November 2008
Ray Fisman of Columbia University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his new book, Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence, and the Poverty of Nations, written with Ted Miguel. They discuss witch-killing in Tanzania, parking violations by United Nations diplomats, and the value of political connections in both the developing and developed world. The interview was recorded at the Centre for Economic Performance in London in November 2008.
Views 21392
John Van Reenen, 5 March 2010
How important are management practices in driving the performance of firms and the productivity of nations across Asia, Europe and North America? John Van Reenen, director of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the London School of Economics, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about CEP’s research programme on the economics of management and productivity. The interview was recorded in London in February 2010.
Views 20040
Benjamin Olken , 29 August 2008
Ben Olken of MIT talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his research on bribery in the Indonesian trucking industry – and the lessons for policy efforts to reduce corruption. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in New Orleans in January 2008.
Views 19216
Joel Waldfogel, 29 January 2010
Joel Waldfogel of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the economics of digital media, including: music file sharing (both illegal and legal) and the impact on artists and record labels; the threat that intellectual property piracy poses to the movie business; and the future of books and newspapers in the digital age. The interview was recorded in London in December 2009.
Views 19163
Carmen M. Reinhart, 25 July 2008
Carmen Reinhart, in work with Kenneth Rogoff, has developed a comprehensive new database spanning eight centuries for studying debt and banking crises, inflation, currency crashes and debasements. She talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the lessons for today’s global financial crisis, noting that although we may not have seen explicit sovereign debt defaults for a while, a growing number of emerging markets are now defaulting through inflation.
Views 7858
Carmen M. Reinhart, 7 July 2008
Carmen Reinhart talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about Vox's first book, which brings together key columns on subprime and the continuing turmoil in financial markets. She recalls Charles Kindleberger, who characterised financial crises as 'a hardy perennial'.
Views 6473
Hal R. Varian, 8 May 2009
Hal Varian, on leave from the University of California, Berkeley, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the kinds of things he thinks about as chief economist at Google – using the tools of economics to analyse business opportunities, making money out of search and content, and forecasting (including Google’s flu forecasts). The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in San Francisco in January 2009.
Views 6310
Vincent Crawford, 7 November 2008
Vincent Crawford of the University of California, San Diego talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the research programme of behavioural game theory, which uses economic theory and lab experiments to make the analysis of strategic behaviour more like the way real people think and therefore potentially more applicable. The interview was recorded at the annual congress of the European Economic Association in Milan in August 2008.
Views 6074
Willem Buiter, 18 July 2008
Willem Buiter talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the financial crisis, the global cyclical slowdown and the rise of inflation. He discusses central banks’ responses to the credit crunch and calls on them to tighten monetary policy to counter the inflationary threat.
Views 5841
Orley Ashenfelter, 24 April 2009
Orley Ashenfelter of Princeton University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his research comparing wage rates for workers in identical jobs across countries, for which he has collected data from branches of McDonald’s, the fast food restaurant chain, in North and South America, Western and Eastern Europe and the rising economies of Asia. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in San Francisco in January 2009.
Views 5808
David B Audretsch, 22 August 2008
David Audretsch of the Max Planck Institute of Economics and Indiana University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his research programme on entrepreneurship – the key institutional drivers and constraints; the impact of globalisation and new technology; the links to growth and competitiveness; and the public policy issues. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in New Orleans in January 2008.
Views 5653
Lawrence J. White, 22 August 2008
Lawrence White of New York University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the role of economics and economists in antitrust policy, notably for analysing the potentially anti-competitive effects of mergers, the impact of vertical restraints like bundling, and the use of predatory pricing. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in New Orleans in January 2008.
Views 5576
Charles Wyplosz, 30 June 2008
Charles Wyplosz talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the freezing of the interbank market as the commercial banks went from high-risk strategies to extreme caution, without taking any responsibility for their crucial role in the operations of the market and the wider economy.
Views 5168
Michael Burda, 12 September 2008
Supply side reforms have had a positive impact on the labour market in Germany, raising job creation and reducing the unemployment rate. At the European Economic Association meetings in Milan in August 2008, Michael Burda of Humboldt University in Berlin discussed these achievements and future prospects for the German economy with Romesh Vaitilingam.
Views 5154
Lawrence F. Katz, 15 May 2009
Lawrence Katz of Harvard University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his book (co-authored with Claudia Goldin), The Race between Education and Technology, a history of US economic inequality and the roles of technological change and the pace of educational advance in affecting the wage structure. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in San Francisco in January 2009.
Views 5094
Amar Bhidé, 20 February 2009
Amar Bhidé of Columbia University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his new book, The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World. He explains why know-how developed abroad enhances prosperity at home, and why trying to maintain the US lead by subsidising more research or training more scientists will do more harm than good. The interview was recorded in London in November 2008.
Views 4999
Robert Shiller, 14 August 2009
Robert Shiller of Yale University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his book, co-authored with George Akerlof, Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why it Matters for Global Capitalism. The interview was recorded in London in May 2009.
Views 4931
Benjamin M. Friedman, 3 April 2009
Benjamin Friedman of Harvard University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his book, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, which explores how growth boosts such values as opportunity, tolerance, generosity and democracy. They discuss how growth relates to inequality, happiness and the environment – and the potential consequences of a period of economic stagnation. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in San Francisco in January 2009
Views 4908
David Laibson, 2 January 2009
We need a combination of psychology and economics to understand people's savings and investment decisions, says David Laibson of Harvard University in an interview with Romesh Vaitilingam. We can then build institutions that help people do what they want to do. The interview was recorded at the Centre for Economic Performance in London, where Laibson was delivering the Lionel Robbins Memorial Lectures in November 2007.
Views 4754
Erik Berglöf, 17 October 2008
Erik Berglof, chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the interlinkages between food markets, financial markets and development, particularly in the countries in which the EBRD operates, from central Europe to central Asia. The interview was recorded at the EBRD headquarters in London in October 2008 following a public discussion meeting on ‘Rising food prices: causes, consequences and remedies’.
Views 4677
Battista Severgnini, 26 September 2008
Drawing on records from ‘Calciopoli’, a judicial inquiry into corruption in the Italian soccer league, Tito Boeri and Battista Severgnini have investigated what drives match rigging, including referees’ career concerns, competitive balance and media concentration. In an interview with Romesh Vaitilingam, recorded at the annual congress of the European Economic Association in Milan in August 2008, Severgnini discusses their findings.
Views 4675
Tito Boeri, 10 July 2009
Tito Boeri of Bocconi University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his research on public perceptions of migrants in Europe, which, in the middle of a recession, are increasingly seeing migrants as a fiscal burden and are pressing governments to reduce their access to welfare and tighten immigration policies. The interview was recorded at the Centre for Economic Performance in London in June 2009.
Views 4662
Philippe Martin, 1 August 2008
Philippe Martin talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his research with Thierry Mayer and Mathias Thoenig on the ambiguous relationship between globalisation and war – both civil war and war between states. They find that trade deters severe civil conflicts but fosters less severe ones. And trade created by regional trade agreements is pacifying in terms of wars between states, but greater overall openness has the opposite effect.
Views 4578
Hyun Song Shin, 4 September 2009
Hyun Song Shin of Princeton University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the role of securitisation, mark-to-market accounting and banks’ incentives in the current financial crisis, making an analogy between the feedback mechanisms that made London’s Millennium Bridge wobble dramatically when it was first opened and those that operate within the modern financial system. The interview was recorded in Princeton in August 2009.
Views 4576
Alan Taylor, 11 July 2008
Alan Taylor of the University of California Davis talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the first era of globalisation and the policy lessons that researchers in economic history and international economics are drawing for contemporary experiences of financial market integration, trade liberalisation and the growth of international reserves. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in New Orleans in January 2008.
Views 4573
Paul Grout, 19 June 2009
Paul Grout of the Centre for Market and Public Organisation (University of Bristol) talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his report, Private Delivery of Public Services, which surveys the theory and evidence on three models of private sector involvement in the delivery of public services: privatisation; public-private partnerships; and not-for-profit organisations. The interview was recorded in Bristol in June 2009
Views 4552
Matthew O. Jackson, 13 March 2009
Matt Jackson of Stanford University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his new book, Social and Economic Networks. They discuss the impact of communication technologies like Facebook on social and professional relationships; how social connections interact with financial transactions in settings from western banks to rural India; and the potentially negative effects of networks on social fragmentation. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in San Francisco in January 2009.
Views 4490
Avinash Dixit, 28 August 2009
Avinash Dixit of Princeton University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about game theory in economics: its emergence and development after the Second World War, particularly from the 1970s onwards; its applications in business, public policy and daily life; and the future research agenda. The interview was recorded in Princeton in August 2009.
Views 4489
Nebojsa Nakicenovic, 24 October 2008
At the Global Economic Symposium in Schleswig-Holstein in September 2008, Nebojsa Nakicenovic of the Vienna Institute of Technology and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis spoke at a session on energy versus climate change. Afterwards, he talked to Romesh Vaitilingam about the options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions – improved energy efficiency; renewables; nuclear energy; and carbon capture and storage.
Views 4456
Dean Karlan, 31 July 2009
Dean Karlan of Yale University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his research programme on microfinance, which uses experimental methodologies to examine what kinds of products work and why. They also discuss his work on ‘commitment contracts’, which people can use to try to modify their own behaviour. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in San Francisco in January 2009.
Views 4431
Randall Akee, 3 October 2008
The opening of a casino on an American Indian reservation in North Carolina offered a natural experiment to examine the impact of changes in household income on children’s later life outcomes, particularly their educational attainment and involvement in crime. In an interview recorded at the annual congress of the European Economic Association in Milan in August 2008, Randall Akee of IZA talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the findings.
Views 4421
Richard Baldwin, 30 June 2008
In this inaugural Vox Talks audio interview, Vox Editor-in-Chief Richard Baldwin and editorial board member Romesh Vaitilingam discuss the achievements of Vox in its first year, some of the ‘greatest hits’ and plans for the future.
Views 4392
Daniel Kahneman, 21 November 2008
Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about wellbeing as an indicator of social progress, arguing that we need at least two measures of happiness – one that comes when you ask people how they feel right now (‘experience happiness’) and one that comes when you ask people how they think about their life (‘life evaluation’). The interview was recorded at a workshop on happiness research at the Centre for Economic Performance in London in October 2008.
Views 4348
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Policy Insights and Reports
Xavier Vives
CEPR Policy Insight 50 models the trade-off between competition and stability in the banking sector. Competition might increase instability through two channels: by exacerbating the coordination problem of depositors/investors on the liability side and fostering panics; and by increasing incentives to take risk, and thus the raising probability of failure. Regulation can alleviate this competition-stability trade-off, but the design of optimal regulation has to take into account the intensity of competition.
Stijn Claessens, Richard J. Herring, Dirk Schoenmaker
Financial reform is finally emerging in the major economies but these reforms come up short on one crucial aspect – the resolution of systematically important, i.e., ‘too complex to fail’, cross-border financial institutions. The latest Geneva Report on the World Economy advocates a two-tier solution to this problem – a universal approach for closely integrated countries such as EU members, and a modified universal approach for other countries.
Stijn Claessens, Simon J Evenett, Bernard Hoekman
This new eBook aims to provide policymakers and their advisers with up-to-date, comprehensive analyses of the central facets of global economic imbalances and to identify and evaluate potential national and systemic responses to this challenge.
Simon J Evenett
This Report of the Global Trade Alert, published to coincide with the Toronto G-20 Leaders' Summit in June 2010, presents a comprehensive global overview of protectionist trends since the last G-20 summit in September 2009.
Richard Baldwin, Daniel Gros, Luc Laeven
The euro’s crisis is not over. Measures taken in May were critical but they were palliatives not a cure. The Eurozone rescue needs to be completed. A new Vox eBook that gathers the thinking of a dozen leading economists on what more needs to be done.
Richard Baldwin
The WTO is said to be in a funk – unable to conclude the Doha Round even as its members liberalise unilaterally and regionally. CEPR's newest Policy Insight argues that tactics used to get consensus at the last Round pushed the organisation into decision-making’s “impossible trinity” (consensus, uniform rules, and strict enforcement). A Doha package with something for everyone may be found, thus defeating the impossible triangle. The big-package tactic, however, won’t help the WTO confront 21st century challenges in a timely manner; for that, at least one of the triangle’s corners must be modified.
Simon J Evenett
With the return to economic growth of many industrialised economies in either late 2009 or the first half of 2010, combined with sustained expansions in the emerging market economies, came the hope that protectionist pressures would ease in the world economy through 2010.…
Jacques Melitz
CEPR Policy Insight No. 48 attributes the Greek-linked difficulty largely to the claim by the ECB and government officials in Eurozone member countries that the Eurozone is founded on fiscal discipline and the Stability and Growth Pact.
Francesco Paolo Mongelli
CEPR Policy Insight No. 47 argues that the benefits of a monetary union develop gradually over time and require policymakers to seize opportunities and perseverance in the face of adversity.
Simon J Evenett
Thanks to deft diplomatic footwork, a US-China confrontation over the renminbi has been avoided. But the US Treasury has merely postponed the publication of its report on foreign currency manipulators, and the dispute may overshadow the G20 meetings in June and November. The 28 short essays in this eBook provide the best available economic, legal, political, and geopolitical thinking on the causes and likely consequences of the dispute.
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Discussion Papers
Andrew K. Rose
Exchange rates may be one of a country's most important asset prices, and as such worthy of increased scholarly attention, argues Andrew Rose in CEPR Discussion Paper 7987. The paper presents a critical review of Klein and Shambaugh's new book, Exchange Rate Regimes in the Modern Era, and explores the theoretical and empirical challenges of comparing exchange rate regimes.
Wendy Carlin, David Soskice
The aftermath of the global crisis has highlighted the need to reassess outdated open economy models like the Mundell-Fleming model. The authors of CEPR DP7979 simplify an unwieldy New Keynesian model to help non-specialists and policymakers analyze key challenges of macroeconomic policymaking in an open economy, including CPI inflation targeting and exchange rate overshooting.
Salvador Barrios, Harry Huizinga, Luc Laeven, Gaëtan Nicodème
Increased globalization and decreased trade barriers worldwide have led an increasing number of corporations to expand their activities internationally. The authors of CEPR DP7047 examine the effects of host and parent country taxation on the location decisions of these multinational corporations using a range of data from 33 European countries.
Enrico Moretti
The increase in the return to education is typically measured using nominal wages. The author of CEPR DP6997 looks at housing costs for high school and college graduates and discovers that, when looking at real as opposed to nominal wages, the return to education and the increase in inequality may be smaller than previously thought.
Barry Eichengreen, Katharina Steiner
Assuming that Poland does adopt the euro, will it be able to avoid the boom-bust cycle that has afflicted other economies around the time of euro adoption? The authors of CEPR DP7027 look at the causes of these cycles and ask whether Poland's situation is any different to those of its predecessors. Their conclusions are mixed.
Francesco C. Billari, Vincenzo Galasso
Why are couples in industrialized societies having fewer children than they used to? Indeed, why are they deciding to have children at all? The authors of CEPR DP7014 seek to address these issues, focusing on the two main motives for childbearing often cited: children as a 'consumption' vs. an 'investment' good.
Andrew Ellul, Marco Pagano, Fausto Panunzi
The authors of DP6977 investigate the effect of inheritance law on investment in family firms in 32 countries.
Kathleen Cleeren, Marnik G. Dekimpe, Katrijn Gielens, Frank Verboven
Discounters, such as Lidl, operate to offer 40-60% lower prices than conventional retailers, but how much of a competetitive threat to they pose to supermarket giants? In addition to analysing "inter-format" competition between traditional supermarkets and discounters, Verboven et al. examine the competitive effect between retailers of a similar kind and the effects that local conditions can have upon the success the the two formats.
Alberto Galasso, Mark Schankerman
The 'market for innovation' - the licensing and sale of patents - is one of the principal incentives for firms to invest in R&D. In CEPR DP 6946, Galasso and Schankerman set out to examine the impact that US developments have had on market efficiency, by studying the length of patent infringement disputes and find that the US system has performed surprisingly well in recent decades.
Antoni Estevadeordal, Alan Taylor
The link between greater openness to trade and higher growth, once held sacred by economists, has come under contestation in recent years. The authors of DP6942 develop a growth model with a basis for trade in order to uncover the impressive impact trade has had upon growth of GDP, using data from before and after the Uruguay Round.
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