CoronaNomics

Long before the coronavirus crisis began, the share of payments made using paper money had been falling. But the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated us towards a cashless future. Is the end of cash ahead? Or is that exaggerated? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Ken Rogoff (former Chief Economist at the IMF) and Sir Howard Davies (Natwest Group), and we say farewell to Lizzy on her final episode!   Music by Slenderbeats

Joe Biden is going to inherit a United States ravaged by the Covid crisis, with surges in coronavirus cases and deaths. But he'll also need to deal with a country divided on a huge range of issues, including economic policy. What is Bidenomics? And what should it be? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Rebecca Henderson (Harvard University, NBER).   Music by Slenderbeats  

The coronavirus pandemic has forced governments around the world to borrow huge sums and push up their public debts in order to support businesses, protect incomes and save lives. How long will it be before the government can realistically balance the books? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Lord Robert Skidelsky (crossbench peer, Keynes biographer), and Paul Johnson (Institute for Fiscal Studies).   Music by Slenderbeats

Digital technologies, such as Zoom, WhatsApp and Amazon have helped people during coronavirus lockdown restrictions around the world. Share prices in big tech firms have soared as a result, but what does this mean for the rest of us? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Brad DeLong (University of California at Berkeley) and Scott Galloway (NYU Stern).   Music by Slenderbeats

The coronavirus pandemic has emptied cities of workers, bars and restaurants have been closed and public transport systems have been bankrupted. But will Covid mark the end of the era of the 'Triumph of the City' and usher in a period of urban decline? Or are there reasons to be optimistic? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Lord Michael Heseltine (UK Deputy Prime Minister, 1995-97) and Catherine McGuinness (Head of Policy, City of London Corporation.)   Music by Slenderbeats

The Covid-19 pandemic is a health crisis, but also an economic one. Economists and epidemiologists are now working together, merging their models and creating the new discipline called “epi-macro”. But how will it work? And will governments listen to the results? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Professor Neil Ferguson (SAGE, Imperial College London) and Sir Tim Besley (LSE)   Music by Slenderbeats

The coronavirus pandemic has underlined the many deep social and economic fractures within countries - divides of race, class, education and income. But will it end up exacerbating them too? Could the pandemic end up making for a more equal planet? And is a reduction in the global inequality gap even a good thing? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Sir Angus Deaton (Economics Nobel Laureate, 2015)   Music by Slenderbeats

Could Covid-19 provide a chance to reset international trade relations? Can the US and China reach a ceasefire in their trade war? And what will become of Britain after Brexit? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Pascal Lamy (former Director-General of the WTO)   Music by Slenderbeats

The coronavirus crisis has plunged us all into a world of quite extraordinary economic confusion. What are the implications of this confusion? Should it change the way policymakers think? Should it prompt reform of the discipline of economics itself? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Lord Mervyn King (former Governor of the Bank of England)   Music by Slenderbeats

During the Covid-19 crisis we have tended to look to national governments to act, expecting them to pull every lever available to protect life. But have we been looking in the wrong place? Are local, state and regional authorities – often with more knowledge of which policies are appropriate and workable in a given area - better placed to take the lead in health emergencies? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Raghuram Rajan (former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India)   Music by Slenderbeats

Recent decades have seen an unprecedented peak of economic global connectedness. But that trend was visibly weakening well before the coronavirus pandemic and now many think the coronavirus crisis might put globalisation into reverse. But is that reading correct? If it is, what does that mean for our prosperity? And what could and should follow globalisation? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to speak to Dani Rodrik (an economist at the Harvard Kennedy School) and Penny Goldberg (Professor of Economics at Yale University and former Chief Economist at the World Bank).   Music by Slenderbeats

Lord Peter Mandelson and Hamid Mamdouh join CoronaNomics to discuss Covid-19's impact on world trade. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, global commerce was under severe strain. Economic nationalism, trade wars and a crisis within the World Trade Organisation were threatening to turn the tide on decades of global economic integration. Yet since the beginning of the year, as countries around the world have locked down their economies and supply chains have suffered unprecedented disruption, world trade has experienced a slump on a scale not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. So what is to be done? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to speak to Lord Peter Mandelson and Hamid Mamdouh.   Music by Slenderbeats

The United States of America is the most prosperous, the most powerful, country in the world. But it's also the nation that has suffered the highest number of deaths from this coronavirus pandemic. The US job market also seems to be suffering more than any other. So why is it that America seems unable to marshal its enormous wealth and resources to deal with Covid-19 as effectively as other parts of the world? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to speak to Robert Reich (US Secretary of Labor, 1993-1997).   Music by Slenderbeats

Cass Sunstein & Stephen Reicher on using psychology to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. The careful study of how ordinary people actually make decisions and how those decisions can be influenced has been at the vanguard of innovative policy thinking in the 21st century. But, during the Covid-19 pandemic, behavioural science has been deployed as never before, shaping life and death decisions by states around the world. Has it helped or hindered? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Cass Sunstein (Harvard Business School) and Stephen Reicher (University of St Andrews).   Music by Slenderbeats

With the majority of the world's population in lockdown and the world consequently heading for what may well end up being the biggest economic shock of modern times, the world is looking to vaccination as the only way to return to prosperity and safety. But what are the problems and pitfalls involved? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Mariana Mazzucato (director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London).   Music by Slenderbeats

Has pandemic has caused financial markets to disconnect with the real economy? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Jim O'Neill (former UK Treasury Minister & chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management) and Willem Buiter (Columbia University).   Music by Slenderbeats

The world's poorest countries may not be able to respond to the pandemic with financial rescue packages, healthcare and other support - leading to warnings of dire economic fallout, infection rates and even mass starvation. So what can be done? And how can we be sure that we are doing the right thing?   Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Esther Duflo (Nobel Prize, 2019) and Achim Steiner (United Nations Development Programme).   Music by Slenderbeats

How should policymakers balance life and death with jobs, incomes, mental health and education? Is there a way we can consider all these factors at the same time? Do we have the statistics to do it? And are the measures we're currently using all that helpful? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Lord Gus O'Donnell (former UK Cabinet Secretary) and Diane Coyle (Cambridge University).   Music by Slenderbeats

With countries all over the world on lockdown, is capitalism effectively on pause? What are the long-term impacts? Is the pre-crisis system of free-market capitalism capable of guiding the response? Ben Chu (Economics Editor of The Independent) speaks to Edmund Phelps (Nobel Prize, 2006).   Music by Slenderbeats

Since the beginning of March, Western government have stepped in and become involved in their economies on a scale never seen in peacetime. But are governments getting involved in the right way? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Rob Johnson (President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking) and Roman Frydman (Founding Editor of Project Syndicate).   Music by Slenderbeats

Amidst huge global uncertainty, one thing we can say for sure is that recession is coming, brought on by lockdowns ordered by governments in order to prevent the spread of a dangerous new coronavirus. So what does success look like? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel Prize, 2001) and Vince Cable (UK Business Secretary, 2010-2015).   Music by Slenderbeats

The pandemic began in East Asia but governments there - from China, to South Korea, to Japan, to Taiwan and Singapore - have been credited with coping far more effectively than some of their counterparts in the West. So are there lessons to be learned by the rest of the world? And not just in coping with future disease outbreaks, but in how we fundamentally order our societies? Ben Chu (The Independent) and Lizzy Burden (The Telegraph) speak to South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang.   Music by Slenderbeats