Podcast appearances and mentions of Jonathan Haskel

Miles and guests unpack how the ONS is collecting the prices from more than a billion supermarket checkout and online sales to measure UK inflation.  Transcript Scanner data podcast transcript Miles:  Hello and welcome to statistically speaking, the official podcast of the UK's Office for National Statistics. I'm Miles Fletcher, and in this episode, we're taking an in depth look at a very big change in how the ONS produces its estimates of inflation, no longer the sole preserve of clipboard wielding prices collectors roaming the supermarket aisles. The digital revolution has now fully arrived. From this month, the UK's inflation indices are now partly based on millions of prices data gathered directly from the tills or scanners, to be precise. How is it all done? What is the role of Taylor Swift in all this? Yes, there is one. And what are the benefits for economists, decision makers and all of us ordinary folk who worry about the cost of living. Here to unpack it all for us is Mike Hardy, who has led the project here at the ONS, and top economist and former member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, Jonathan Haskel, professor of economics at Imperial College London. Professor to start with you: to understand what's changed, it'd probably be helpful to remind ourselves how consumer prices inflation has until now been calculated. Essentially, it was the ONS and its agents checking the prices of 1000s of items on a monthly basis to see how they changed.   Jonathan: Yeah, that's right, and the ONS has gone to an enormous amount of effort in order to make that collection representative and make it consistent. But of course, in the modern era of scanner, data, computers, e commerce, things like that, there are other ways of doing it. I guess the important point, which Mike can talk about some more, is that one of the things that we know from statistics is that having a big sample isn't necessarily going to be better if you have a representative sample to start with. So I think one of the interesting points about all of this is whilst the scanner data is collecting many more data points, it's a fascinating check on the representativeness or otherwise of the ONS survey and the procedures thus far as to whether the actual average of all of that will turn out to be very different or similar to what's done before. It's a great advantage to have all of this extra data, but one shouldn't overstate either the advantage or use it as a way of rubbishing what the ONS has been doing in the past.   Miles: So to put it this way, perhaps then, what the ONS has traditionally been doing in collecting prices, is to take this big monthly snapshot of retailing and prices, and what people have been paying for items. What it's got now, what it's moving to in the digital age is moving from a still picture, perhaps to a rolling 4k video, and from that, it can find out exactly what has been missed out of the inflation calculations previously.   Jonathan: Well, I'll just put a little bit of a spin on that. One of the things that the price collectors do, and they're very, very careful to do, is to make sure that that snapshot is consistent across the snapshots, if you sort of see what I mean. So there is a bit of a rolling element to those snapshots already, because, for example, if you're going to collect the price of, let us say, Ladies jeans, which is something that I was doing with the price collector recently, you want to be sure you collect the price for the same good over time. And the point about the price collectors is they're extremely conscientious about making sure that, in the case of ladies jeans, they are coloured blue. They've got either a flared leg or not a flared leg. They've got the same number of pockets, they've got the same amount of stitching, they've got different decorations on them. To make sure that those goods remain the same is actually very important, and that's something actually which the hand collection can do. And as I say, I think that means that the snapshot element is maybe not quite the right metaphor, if I may say, miles. It is the relation. It's a consistent element over time, a consistent snapshot if that's using a metaphor   Miles: That said it's more than just blindly following the same list of products every month. But nonetheless, the traditional way of doing things has had significant. What do you think those are?   Jonathan: I guess the limitations are that when one is collecting a sample, any kind of sample at all, one is always doing one's best to try to hope that that's a representative sample, and having more data then is going to help if it turns out that the sample is unrepresentative. So I think that's one part of it. I think the other part of it is, of course, it's becoming increasingly costly to hand collect these numbers, and you know, like any public agency, one wants to be as careful as one possibly can with taxpayers money. That's the sort of second thing. And the third thing is, especially in the era of the Internet and dynamic pricing and so forth, these prices change, you know, at sort of dizzying rates as firms change their prices throughout the product cycle of the good. And therefore the sort of consistent snapshots may miss some of that variation,   Miles: And all that data, of course, is out there to be learned from, isn't it? Essentially, Mike, is that what the scanner data project has been, it's been all about harvesting that data and using it to produce what's being described as a step change in how inflation is calculated.   Mike: So we've been transforming our consumer price statistics for some time, and we've been acquiring a wide range of data sources with the aim of improving the quality and granularity of our consumer price statistics. So in recent years, we've used administrative data for rail fares and second hand cars, and we will be incorporating grocery scanner data for 50% of the grocery market, where we will be moving from using around 25,000 prices for those retailers to 300 million derived from the sale of over a billion products, so much more granular and rich information on the prices within those retailers. Importantly, as well, we not only have the price of everything within a store, so we move away from the sample that Jonathan described. So taking the price of a small number of products within each store to collecting all of the prices within store, from supermarket checkouts to also getting a better understanding of how much of each product people are purchasing. So that gives us a much clearer picture of inflation by using these large administrative data sets.   Miles: Because the purpose here is to get a sense of how the cost of living is changing for people as well, isn't it? And presumably, if you're just checking the same prices of the same goods month after month, you're not understanding about how price changes are influencing people's purchasing decisions. Does it help with that?   Mike: Yeah, so the scanner data, as I said, gives us a complete kind of picture of all the prices within a store, and it gives us the underlying quantities, so how much of each particular product is being purchased, it also gives us the price at the till, rather than the price on the shelf. So that captures a number of different things that we were unable to capture with the sample data. So the first being if consumers switch from a premium to a value brand, for example, in response to cost of living rising. We pick that up in the scanner data and also discounting, we can better reflect that particularly store cards, because we now understand for a particular product, total spending on that product and the quantity of that product sold, which allows us to get an average price for that product. So we better capture store discount cards, which are available in many of the supermarkets.   Miles: And so by getting a sense of the changing availability of products and what people are actually spending on them, it becomes much more useful then as a cost of living index as well as simply a measure of price change. Yes.   Mike: So the way we currently produce our inflation statistics is that we have a large virtual shopping basket of goods and services. There are 760 items in that basket. We set the weights at the start of the year, and we set the basket, and then we track the prices of those 760 representative items throughout the year. What the scanner data allows us to do at a very detailed level for certain is what we describe as consumption segments. So a consumption segment would be rice for example, is to reflect change in consumer spending patterns within that consumption segment. So for example, if somebody changes the type of rice that they're buying, they decide to buy microwave rice instead of basmati rice, or they decide to switch from a premium rice product to a value rice product, then we'd capture that in the scanner data on a monthly basis, whereas in the previous approach, we'd just monitor the price of a small number of products. So maybe we would monitor the price of microwave rice and basmati rice just over the year. But now with the scanner data, we have the price of all rice sold within a store, and we can reflect people's changing consumer spending patterns when purchasing a particular consumption segment, which I've described here as rice. Miles: And that in turn, I guess, can also influence the way you weight the index as well in future, because that's a fundamental part of calculating inflation that perhaps a lot of people don't fully appreciate. Mike: Yeah, so it'll still be a fixed basket, but the lowest level of aggregation, so that the most detailed data that we have -  that data that's coming in from retailers, where we have the kind of total sales plus the quantity, which allows us to derive a price or a unit cost within that calculation - we would reflect kind of change in weights at that very detailed level. But it will still remain a fixed basket that most of our stakeholders are familiar with, because at a higher level in the aggregation, we constrain the weights at the start of the year. Miles: What was involved in getting these changes so far? It sounds like a huge project, and presumably, first you had to get the retailers on board. Mike: Yes, that in itself was a huge undertaking. We've been engaging with the grocery sector for a number of years. We have the Digital Economy Act in the UK, which is a legal gateway for us to access the data. But instead of using the legislation, we wanted to work collaboratively with the retailers. So we started by engaging with them and requesting the data naturally. They had a range of questions about what we needed the data for, how we were going to publish it, how it was going to be stored. We needed to ensure that we were kind of meeting all of their requirements in terms of them transferring across the data, and they needed to be confident that we are using it for the public good, and there wouldn't be data leaks from their perspective, so that the data are tightly controlled. So that was a process in itself, which took a number of years. Then the existing systems that we have at ONS had to be moved to the cloud because they just simply weren't capable of processing the millions and millions of data points that we have for scanner data. And the scanner data is very different in nature to sample data, so we had to develop a wide range of methods to use the data. So we have two advisory panels. Jonathan's actually Chair of our stakeholder panel, but we also have a technical panel as well. So over the number of years that we've been developing this project, they've been advising us on the methods that we should be using. We've also been engaging with international experts and other national statistics institutes as well. So we had to, you know, gain access to the data. And that's a fairly new area for ONS, commercial kind of data partnerships. You know, we had to move all of the existing IT infrastructure to the cloud, because you need to aggregate the scanner data with the kind of locally collected data, so the data collected in stores. And we also had to develop a wide range of methods as well. The challenge here as well is that our risk appetite is close to zero with consumer price statistics. They are used to inform pensions, benefits, taxes, student loans. So we need to get the numbers right. So our risk appetite has been quite low, and that's quite a difficult tension to manage when you're kind of trailblazing in a number of different areas, whether that's data acquisition systems and methods, but at the same time, you need to ensure that you get the numbers right. So we've ensured that we've taken some time to make sure that, you know, we're comfortable with the methods that are in place and the processes to be able to produce our inflation statistics on a monthly basis.   Miles: And one of the reasons, I guess, it's taken a few years to get all this in train and deliver the results is you had to check whether or not your new estimates of inflation were going to be radically different from the ones that have been published already, because that would itself have had some pretty profound consequences, wouldn't it? How did you provide that assurance? Mike: We make changes to our consumer price statistics every March. That's when the basket is updated. That's when the weights are updated. So going back to the beginning of last year, we felt in a reasonably good position to implement scanner data at that point in time, we were nearly ready, but working with the stakeholder advisory panel and broader group of stakeholders. So over the last year, we've been parallel running the data in the background. So every month, we obviously publish the numbers, and then alongside that in the background, we've been producing prices index and other measures, including grocery scanner data and cross checking it against the published estimates.   Miles: How closely do they align now? Mike: Very well. So the impact at a headline level, for the duration of the impact analysis, which is from 2019, up to pretty much the current period, is kind of negative 0. percentage points for CPI. So that is a small impact at headline. We should note, though, that in 39 of the 66 months, the headline rate would have been different, albeit slightly different, in most of those months. A number of takeaways from this. I think we can have confidence, as Jonathan said, in the kind of sample approach that we currently take at a headline level, you know that's robust. We have a good sample design. What the scanner data allows us to do is get deeper insights into what's driving inflation. So over that period, we tended to find that inflation was slightly higher at the beginning of that period, and then lower from 2022 onwards. And that's why the average over the period is small, because there's an element of off setting. But I'll give you one example of where we've been able to provide deeper insights. So from 2022 onwards, where inflation, utilizing the scanner data was slightly lower, in some of the categories, actually inflation was higher, such as bread and cereals and oils and fats. And that can be attributed within those categories to breakfast cereals and margarine, which are products affected by the Russia, Ukraine war. So we're seeing the impact at a more granular level using the scanner data and being able to better capture changes in price,   Miles Did it have a slightly predictive effect? Then you could spot early examples of inflationary pressures coming through better than has been possible before.   Mike: Well, I wouldn't say early. You know, our role is to produce inflation for periods in the past, forecasting inflation is more of a job for the Bank of England, but at a more detailed level, yes, we could definitely see insights that we were not able to see with the sample data that we were using prior to the implementation of scanner data.   Miles: And Jonathan, from the economist point of view, looking at the new scanner data driven inflation estimates and the path of price changes that that reveals, does it materially change the macroeconomic story?   Jonathan I'm not sure it does actually miles, which may come as a big disappointment to listeners to this podcast who are thinking: well, why has Mike and his team put in all this effort? But in a sense, it's actually a very good result because it goes back to what I was trying to say earlier on, which is it suggests that the sampling frame that the ONS were using to sample a subset of all these prices was actually a pretty well chosen frame. So on the sort of headline kind of effect, it doesn't change things much. Where it does change things is in the detail, as Mike has just been saying, and especially since this is groceries data around food inflation and food prices. And the reason, Miles, I find that important, and I think the community of economists will find that important, is I had the privilege of being on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee up until a year and a half ago, and especially Mike mentioned it during the war in Ukraine, we were very attentive on the committee to changes in food prices, because changes in food prices turn out, the evidence suggests, to be extremely salient to consumers when they're thinking about, you know, how their cost of living is really affected. So since there's going to be much more colour on how it is those food prices have changed, I think that's going to help policy makers, for example, at the Bank of England, get under the hood a little bit of the types of price changes which are very salient to consumers.   Miles So would it be fair to say then, looking back as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, thinking about potential changes in interest rates, it might not necessarily have led you to make a different decision, but it would have made you better informed or more confident in that decision.   Jonathan I think that's right. I don't think we would have changed our decision. And in any case, one never makes policy decisions in hindsight, you know. What we know now about the covid vaccine, we didn't know then, and so of course, we would have made a different decision, but we didn't know that. Now, I don't think it would have changed the decision, but as I say, I think since especially these food prices are so salient to consumers, it's going to allow the current Committee, which you know, again, to be clear, I'm not on, so this is just me speculating. It's going to allow the current committee to have a much better view as to what these various price changes are and what it is consumers are doing. And that's going to turn out, I think, to be extremely, or potentially extremely important. Because if the current rise in energy prices is maintained for a long time that might well feed through to food prices in various ways, and then we're going to need all the detail that Mike and his team are providing in order to make better policy.   Miles Lots of information about price changes here, but also we're getting an insight into sales volumes as well. Are we not, Mike, even though we're not at this stage actually using these data to compile the retail sales indices?   Mike: So we're not at this stage, the focus is consumer price statistics and using the scanner data for 50% of the market in March. And then there is a plan to expand that market coverage moving forwards and onboarding more retailers. There's potential to use these data sources in other parts of the ONS, you know, for example, in national accounts, for household expenditure and for retail sales. And we'll work collaboratively with the retailers if we want to use their data for other statistics moving forwards. But there are certainly benefits to using these data sources beyond prices   Miles You mentioned earlier work that had to go on with retailers to get them to get their confidence in all of this, and presumably there needs to be a clear message to shoppers, it's not about spying on people's shopping habits?   Mike No, it's a really good point, actually. So we do not have access to what individuals are purchasing. We just get aggregated data. So for a product that's sold within a store, we know the total value of sales, and we know the number of that product that have been sold, we do not know what individuals are purchasing in store, so we don't have access to the loyalty card data which would give us that information.   Miles And that brings us to a very important point that's always worth stating about official statistics. Generally, the ONS will never publish anything that discloses the identity of any individual or indeed any retail outlet, so we can't even say which specific retailers are taking part, although you do have good coverage of the sector,   Mike Yes, so at this stage, we can just say we have coverage of 50% of the market. Co Op are the only retailer that are happy to be named, and we've previously done a press release with them. The other retailers that are included within that 50% have explicitly asked not to be named as a data provider, which we will obviously respect. Miles And as you say, it's all put into a big aggregated pot of data anyway, although it does provide some local and regional insights as well, of course, that perhaps weren't there in such quantity before   Mike It does. So the scanner data that we receive for the retailers that are providing data, we have that broken down by store. So what we do by region is aggregate each of the retailers data together with our local collection data. So I should highlight that that's not disclosive. So it's not possible to identify any retailer within those statistics, but we will be publishing some micro data by region for our stakeholders. I should also note, as well Miles, we've talked a lot about the impact of the headline level being quite small, there are other benefits to this project. So one is that it de risks the ongoing production of consumer price statistics. So some of the systems that we previously had in place had been in place since the 90s and they needed to be moved to a modern alternative so as part of that work we've done that, and also it sets a really good foundation for the future. So now we have the IT infrastructure, the methods in place to be able to use alternative data sources for other parts of the basket. So it gives us a very good foundation to transform our consumer price statistics moving forwards.   Miles Jonathan, coming back to you and the economist's point of view, what is the potential? We talked already, obviously, about the corroborative value of producing inflation statistics with much more certainty than before, but what do you see as the broader economic value and insights that we're getting from this now?   Jonathan I think there are two. One is, as I was mentioning before, a more sort of forensic vision about what it is that consumers are doing. The second, though, is a little bit more indirect, but let me put it on the table anyway. Miles, which is, as Mike has been saying, in order to implement this, the statistics agency ONS, or whoever, whichever statistics agency in the world is going to do this is going to need to invest in it and new processes and new equipment and so forth. And that, of course, spreading that good practice over all areas of this, and I'm not just talking about the ONS, I'm talking about any statistics agency anywhere in the world, will be very, very helpful, because, of course, that would improve all of the data collection processes in the statistics agency, and for economists, that would be an enormous boon.   Miles Mike, can we turn to some of the other benefits and some of the other aspects of the general improvement of inflation statistics that coincide with the introduction of scanner data this month. Intrigued to hear about something called the Taylor Swift effect. Can you unpack what that is and why it's relevant to all this?   Mike So the famous Taylor Swift effect. This is in relation to hotel prices. So we currently collect previously collected hotel prices on a particular date in the month, and when there was a Taylor Swift concert close to one of the cities that we were collecting hotel prices in, that had an impact on hotel prices on that particular day, so that then, in turn, had an impact on the hotels index, which then kind of fed into the headline measure. So what we've done in response to that is to collect prices on two days during the month, so that those kind of one off events such as a Taylor Swift concert or, you know, a sporting event, do not have such a disproportionate impact on our headline measures of inflation. We still want to capture that price increase, but by collecting on two dates over the month rather than one, we're softening its impact. And I think that's only right because it's not necessarily representative of hotel prices across the UK.   Miles So you can't blame Taylor Swift for higher inflation. Is the message as it was simply a quirk of how prices were collected by taking those single points, which sometimes happened to fall on days when there were big events going,   Mike Yes, that's because we were collecting the hotel price on, you know, one particular day during the month. We've already announced that we'll be changing that for the forthcoming year to two dates during the month. But you know, something we may consider over the medium to longer term is whether we use administrative data for hotels, and that would certainly soften the impact of one off events in a particular city, because you'd be collecting data over the entire month. We already collect data across a wide range of locations, but having many more data points would soften the impact of those kind of one off events.   Jonathan You're right to ask Miles about the Taylor Swift effect on inflation. And I had the privilege of being on the Monetary Policy Committee at the time, and I remember we discussed this. There's bad news and good news so that the bad news is that I was only vaguely aware of Taylor Swift's music. Thanks to my children, I know something about it, but I was no great expert. The good news was that, because the ONS were very open about the collection protocols, which Mike has just talked about, we were actually able, as a committee, to sort of reverse engineer what inflation would have been had Taylor Swift not been there. And that enabled us to essentially look through what was just a volatile bit of the index. So I'm pleased to say that this was an example where, you know, communication between bureaucratic agencies, which can maybe be improved, and often it's maybe not as good as it might be, was a case where, actually, it worked quite well. And I think it's for others to judge, but I think the bank did not make a bad policy mistake.   Miles Yeah, I guess it's a limitation, isn't it? Of calculating inflation, you've got to pick a day on which to take the sample prices. If you happen to pick the day when Taylor's in town, it's going to have a distorting effect.   Jonathan Oh, and sporting, as Mike was saying, sporting effects, the World Cup and all that kind of thing. But as I say, I think this is just an example of where, in fact, the lines of communication between the bank and the ONS actually work very well. And as I say, we were very aware on the committee I was on at the time. We're very aware of what the biases were, and I think that's sort of quite a nice, sort of mini lesson for how the bureaucracy worked. Even if our musical taste didn't work quite so well, at least the bureaucracy did function on this occasion.   Miles It wasn't you there pushing up the hotel prices in Cardiff then! I think we can be fairly, fairly confident of that. But we have another example, though, don't we? A more regular example recently, and that's the collection of airfares. It's similar thing, isn't it, over holiday periods gone?   Jonathan Well, again, that's exactly right, but again, I sort of hate to be, you know, boring the listeners with a tale of bureaucratic interrelations. But as I say, I think this is an example where the communication between the policy making authorities and the stats agency worked well on this occasion. We're aware of the ONS protocols. They were open with us, but you know that was not to be then pushed on further about how these things are collected. And if you're aware of that, you can then go to the Monetary Policy Committee, or whatever it might be, and make them aware about what all these biases might be. And so what I think is an important effect in the headline, has less of an effect on the chances, as I say, in this in this case of the bank, of making a policy mistake,   Miles You can make sure these things are priced in as they say but there's a point about public confidence as well, though, isn't there? People are rightfully sceptical, and a lot of people claim there's nothing as misleading as an average particularly when it comes to the collection of prices.   Jonathan Well, it's both the average and the volatility, which I think is difficult. And so when ONS staff are on the radio explaining what the inflation numbers are, they often get rather held up in some ways of explaining particularly volatile components, such as hotels and such as airfares, and I don't know what that does for the confidence of people in the overall index. I mean, in some sense, that means that the ONS are doing their job about collecting what the index is and sticking to international protocol on all of this, which in some sense is a confidence booster. But I can quite understand that people listening to a description about how volatile these things are, they might just say, Well, you know, I'm really not sure about what this index is telling me. So I think it's a communications problem ultimately as well.   Miles Well, certainly. Well, we work hard at the ONS to mitigate, as you say, but I guess the fundamental point for people to understand is that the more data that's going in, the more reliable your estimates, at least more comprehensive your estimates are going to be coming out,   Jonathan But also the protocols that Mike's been talking about, if I may say, about not concentrating data collection on a particular day which might coincide with a Taylor Swift concert. Or in the case of airfares, it might be half term on that particular day, and the airfares are particularly high and so forth. So flexing those methodological issues, I think, is going to help smooth out some of this volatility.   Miles Okay, in terms of the International picture, how advanced would you say the UK is now compared to other, you know, similar economies and the way it calculates inflation?   Mike So there are some countries that adopted scanner data, you know, a number of years ago, such as the Netherlands: early adopters. I think they've had scanner data in their consumer price statistics for at least 10 years, perhaps more. Then there are a range of other countries that are in a similar position to us who have recently stood up projects to utilize scanner data. So, you know, during our journey, we've relied heavily on international best practice and working with other NSIs to learn from them and their experiences of utilizing scanner data. And now we're in a position where we're about to implement grocery scanner data. You know, we've ensured that we are also sharing best practice with other NSIs as well, as they start to embark on this journey.   Miles So not quite the first but among the sort of first wave, then?   Mike Among the chasing pack, I'd say Yes,   Miles Jonathan, could I finish off with you then with a question all about the bigger distant future. When you take a big step forward like this and introduce a huge increase in the amount of data, it presents a sort of tantalizing vision of the future, Jonathan, does it not? Where we're able to measure the economy almost in in real time, and the insights that that might be able to produce is that pie in the sky, or do you think we will get there eventually, that you could almost have a daily estimate of GDP, if that was worthwhile, or, perhaps more usefully, real time estimates of household incomes, for example, see how people are getting on?   Jonathan I think Miles, it's a fascinating conjecture, and my immediate reaction is, we don't want to overstate this again, for the reason I've been saying it's not necessarily the case that more data is better. We want to be sampling representatively which the ONS seems to have been doing, even though it's only collecting 25,000 prices a month. Those 25,000 appear to be fairly representative. On the other hand, if there's a lot of dynamics to those prices, you know, discounts, changes in quality, you know, sort of digital changes to all these various prices. We want us as a statistics agency and as a measurement community, to be picking all that stuff up as well. So that seems to me to be the vision about going on the digital side and collecting all of this: that we can get much finer grain information about these prices. But as I say, I don't want to overstate it. Mike won't take any of the credit, but I'm going to give him some credit. It is down to Mike and his team. As I say, that 25,000 prices turns out to be an amazingly representative sample of the approximately now 300 million prices which are being collected instead.   Miles Well, it's a lovely fitting note on which to wrap it up, and that is a fitting moment to leave this topic. Our sincere thanks to guests Mike Hardy and Professor Jonathan Haskell. Also to our producer Julia short. It's time for me to say goodbye as well as this is my last podcast before I stand down as head of media for the ONS after 13 fascinating years. But you can expect these podcasts to continue as of course, will the ONS itself. So don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye.  

The evolving economic landscape makes institutional reforms in areas like finance, planning, and public infrastructure, a necessity. AI is capable of causing an economic shakeup similar to the transition from horses to steam, with far-reaching ramifications throughout the world's economies.Jonathan Haskel is a professor of economics at Imperial College Business School, in London, and also the author of a few books, including Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy and Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy.Greg and Jonathan discuss how traditional institutions, intellectual frameworks, and measurement disciplines are struggling to adapt to an economy increasingly dominated by intangible assets such as software, data, and branding. Jonathan explains the complexities of valuing and measuring intangibles, the role of venture capital, intellectual property laws, and the impact of AI and general-purpose technologies. The episode also covers the necessity for institutional reforms in areas like finance, planning, and public infrastructure to better support the evolving economic landscape.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:The two boosts of productivity31:30: When you have a general-purpose technology, which is also an invention, method of invention, you get two boosts to productivity. The first boost to productivity is in the invention sector itself—what I would call the intangible sector itself, as in the R&D and the software and all that—you get a boost to productivity there. And then the second boost to productivity is when all of those new inventions—now think of steam—start spreading out to the economy as a whole, to be used in the transport sector, in companies, in firms, and all that kind of thing.The intangible things the new economy makes03:23: What does the new economy make? It's people writing software. It's people writing movie scripts. It's people trying to think of new ways to market their product or publicize their brand or rearrange their organization. Those are all very intangible things.What makes the intangible economy unequal?18:39: We first got into this. We were thinking that spillovers would be the predominant economic force, and therefore a more intangible economy would be, in some broad sense, a more equalized economy…[19:04] But that, of course, goes against people's intuition. We think the economy, in some sense, has become more unequal. And we changed our mind during the writing of the book, actually, and ended up thinking that the forces of synergies are a force, of course, for making it more unequal.The human edge in a world of intangibles55:01: Once you start thinking about the task of coordinating the synergies and getting all these people together—guess what—that needs people, people. And scientists might be really good at that, but artists and poets and historians and students of ancient Greek—they might be really good at that as well. So, I am optimistic, actually, that the future could admit people with all sorts of backgrounds and all sorts of skills into this new world.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Diane CoyleBaruch Lev BooksIntangible AssetSoftware DevelopmentPaul RomerIntellectual PropertyDataThomas PhilliponDouglass NorthAbundance by Ezra KleinGeneral-purpose technologyEric BrynjolfssonRobert GordonGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Imperial College Business SchoolWikipedia ProfilePrinceton University Press ProfileBank of England ProfileSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Amazon Author PageCapitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible EconomyRestarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible EconomyMeasuring and Accounting for Innovation in the Twenty-First CenturyNBER PageGoogle Scholar Page

In this episode, our guest is Jonathan Haskel from Imperial College and we talked about productivity puzzle in the UK, general productivity slowdown, intangible capital, and finance! Current Host: Ruveyda Gozen (@ruveyda_gozen)04:00 Productivity Puzzle in the UK 11:12 Productivity Slowdown and Intangible Capital29:25 Finance and Intangible Capital Investment35:34 Some “personal” questions!41:53 Game on! This or That? 

In a desperate attempt to be relevant given the US Election, Tom and Stuart dedicate this episode of The Studies Show to talking about government investment in science. How bad is it if politicians cut the science budget? Exactly how much do you get back for every pound or dollar spent on science—and how is that even calculated in the first place?The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine—a journal of science, history, and technology that discusses the secrets behind human progress. You can read their published essays at worksinprogress.co, or their shorter pieces on their Substack at worksinprogress.news.Show notes* Nature's editorial: “The world needs a President who respects evidence”* Trump's science budget cuts: NIH/EPA, CDC* Nature's editorial on the “surge in far-right parties” in Europe cutting the science budget* Tom's 2015 BuzzFeed News article on science budget cuts in the UK* Article on Argentinian science budget cuts under Javier Milei* Andre Geim and Nancy Rothwell's 2024 Guardian article on how £1 of science funding gets you £12 back* Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake's book, Capitalism Without Capital* Haskel's 2014 paper finding a £4 return on investment for every £1 spent on science* 2024 UK National Centre for Universities and Business report finding that £1 of science investment leads to £3-4 of private investmentCreditsThe Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. We're grateful to Jonathan Haskel for talking to us for this episode; as always, any mistakes are our own. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

As inflation dynamics diverge between the UK and the US, the Bank of England (“BOE”) is poised for potential interest rate cuts ahead of the Federal Reserve. Bloomberg reports that the momentum of lowering inflation in the UK, with further easing expected, bolsters the case for a summer rate cut. Despite warnings from BOE Monetary Policy Committee members Jonathan Haskel, Catherine Mann and Megan Greene about the likelihood of rate cuts, market dynamics suggest a shift in monetary policy could occur sooner due to the UK's distinct economic conditions.Stocks featured:Mondi, Dr Martens and DunlemTo find out more about the investment management services offered by Walker Crips, please visit our website:https://www.walkercrips.co.uk/This podcast is intended to be Walker Crips Investment Management's own commentary on markets. It is not investment research and should not be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy, sell or trade in any of the investments, sectors or asset classes mentioned. The value of any investment and the income arising from it is not guaranteed and can fall as well as rise, so that you may not get back the amount you originally invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Movements in exchange rates can have an adverse effect on the value, price or income of any non-sterling denominated investment. Nothing in this podcast constitutes advice to undertake a transaction, and if you require professional advice you should contact your financial adviser or your usual contact at Walker Crips. Walker Crips Investment Management Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and is a member of the London Stock Exchange. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul talks to Professor Jonathan Haskel, an external member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee and co-author of ‘Restarting the Future: How to fix the intangible economy', and Sree Kochugovindan, senior economist at abrdn, about the intangible economy. The economy increasingly consists of ideas, brands, and relationships. This shift from “stuff” to intangibles has wide-ranging implications for productivity, competition, inequality, and how policymakers should manage the modern economy.

Jonathan Haskel, an independent member of The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee spoke yesterday of his view that interest rates will have to rise from their current level of 4.5% if inflation is to be brought under control. Haskel went on to say that his personal view is that the risks to the economy are skewed towards inflation. It is likely that he was influenced by recent predictions that the country will just about avoid a recession this year, while the prices have failed to stabilize completely. “Although our present circumstances are far from ideal, embedded inflation would be far worse”, Haskel went on to say. His MPC colleagues Swati Dhingra and the Bank's Governor, Andrew Bailey will speak later. Bailey will appear before the Parliamentary Economic Affairs Committee, while Dhingra will be speaking to students at the Manchester Metropolitan University. Beyond Currency Market Commentary: Aims to provide deep insights into the political and economic events worldwide that can cause currencies to change and how this can affect your FX Exposure.

No cenário doméstico, texto do novo arcabouço fiscal recebeu 31 sugestões de emendas em comissão do Senado. Omar Aziz, relator do marco fiscal no Senado, vai se reunir com Haddad e líderes partidários e afirmou que o projeto deve ser votado até o dia 21 de junho. Arthur Lira escolheu método que dificulta a aprovação de emendas parlamentares na tramitação da reforma tributária. Integrantes do planalto sinalizam que governo precisa de pelo menos R$ 110 bi para zerar déficit primário em 2024. No cenário internacional, inflação ao produtor vem abaixo do esperado no Japão. Jonathan Haskel, membro do Banco Central Europeu, reforçou que não se pode descartar futuros aumentos na taxa de juros. Podcast Direto ao Ponto do Banco Modal com as principais notícias de Brasil e Internacional ao longo do overnight. Por Rafael Rondinelli, economista do Banco Modal.

每天早晨8:30 讓我們一起解讀財經時事 參加財經皓角會員 : https://yutinghao.finance 主持人：游庭皓（經濟日報專欄作家、小一輩財經人話翻譯機） 音頻收聽請在Podcast或Soundcloud搜尋『游庭皓的財經皓角』 Telegram: https://t.me/yu_finance 我的粉絲專頁:https://reurl.cc/n563rd 網站參加會員手冊 https://reurl.cc/0Xlnob 歡迎來信給小編幫您處理 jackieyutw@gmail.com """"" 打賞網址 ：https://p.ecpay.com.tw/B83478D """""" 書名：衝破經濟停滯 作者： 喬納森‧哈斯克爾, 史蒂安‧韋斯萊克 原文作者： Jonathan Haskel, Stian Westlake 譯者： 曹嬿恆 出版社：商周出版 出版日期：2023/03/04 https://reurl.cc/zAqOme (YT抽書的朋友要公開訂閱我們財經皓角頻道唷♥️) (FB抽書的朋友要公開分享直播影片+您想要抽書留言♥️) 《早晨財經速解讀》是游庭皓的個人知識節目，針對財經時事做最新解讀，開播於2019年7月15日，每日開盤前半小時準時直播。議題從總體經濟、產業動態到投資哲學，信息量飽滿，為你顛覆直覺，清理投資誤區，用更寬廣的角度帶你一窺投資的奧秘。 免責聲明：《游庭皓的財經皓角》頻道為學習型頻道，僅用於教育與娛樂目的，無任何證券之買賣建議。任何形式的投資皆涉及風險，投資者需進行自己的研究，持盈保泰。

In this lecture, Professor Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake join us to discuss their latest book ‘Restarting the future: How to fix the intangible economy'. Our economies have become increasingly reliant on intangible assets that derive their value from ideas, knowledge and relationships rather than material properties. Haskel and Westlake explore how intangible assets differ from tangible ones and why it is important that the institutions that govern our economies keep up with the intangible revolution. This public event took place on 28 February 2023. It forms part of the ‘Polycrisis!' event series hosted by the University of Bath Institute for Policy Research (IPR).

We're all familiar with some of the challenges ahead in the UK: a fiscal squeeze, limp productivity, a labour shortage and an ageing population with increasing needs.  As Andy Haldane put it in our recent REAL Challenge lecture, two routes to prosperity for the UK include increasing the number of workers and their productivity. But both of these routes now appear to be hampered by increasing ill health.  Since the pandemic, 600,000 working people have become economically inactive – that's the size of the city of Manchester taken out of the economy. Two-thirds are the over 50s who've left and aren't looking for work. And at the other end of life, younger people entering work are reporting markedly more ill health due to depression and anxiety, and more young men in particular are economically inactive. Can we carry on like this if our economy is to recover? Or is it now time for us to get serious about these trends, and how? To discuss, our chief executive Dr Jennifer Dixon is joined by:  Sarah O'Connor, employment columnist at the Financial Times.  James Banks, Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Show notes Health is wealth? REAL Challenge annual lecture (2022) The Health Foundation  Is poor health driving a rise in economic inactivity? (2022) The Health Foundation  Proportion of UK workers on low pay at lowest level since 1997 (2022) Financial Times  There is a deepening mental health recession (2022) Financial Times  Is worsening health leading to more older workers quitting work, driving up rates of economic inactivity? (2022) IFS  The rise in economic inactivity among people in their 50s and 60s (2022) IFS  Half a million more people are out of the labour force because of long-term sickness (2022) ONS  Reasons for workers aged over 50 years leaving employment since the start of the coronavirus pandemic: wave 2  New Polling for Phoenix Insights (2022) Public First  Mental health conditions, work and the workplace (2022) Health and Safety Executive  Labour Market Statistics, October 2022 (2022) Institute for employment studies  Economic inactivity and the labour market experience of the long-term sick (2022) Jonathan Haskel and Josh Martin (this piece is currently a work in progress and a preliminary download has been made available by the authors) 

https://www.alainguillot.com/jonathan-haskel/ Jonathan Haskel is Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London and author of the book Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy

The past two decades have witnesses sluggish economic growth, mounting inequality, dysfunctional competition, and a host of other ills that have left people wondering what has happened to the future they were promised. Listen in as our guest Stian Westlake gives us some key insights from the book he co-authored with Jonathan Haskel, Restarting the Future-How to fix the intangible economy. In the podcast we discuss how these problems arise from a failure to develop the institutions demanded by an economy now reliant on intangible capital such as ideas, relationships, brands, and knowledge.

This week Mark Mills expands on his Wall Street Journal review of the book Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake.  

This week Mark Mills expands on his Wall Street Journal review of the book Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake. Source

This week Mark Mills expands on his Wall Street Journal review of the book Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake. Source

Andrew Carter speaks to Chief Executive of the Royal Statistical Society and former government advisor Stian Westlake about his new book, Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy, which he co-authored alongside Jonathan Haskel. This episode explores how there has been an incomplete transition from an economy based on physical capital to one based on intangible capital - such as ideas, brands, and knowledge. Westlake argues that this has left our economic institutions geared to an outmoded way of doing business, and that an institutional refresh is needed to drive growth and address inequalities. This episode is part of Centre for Cities' City Talks series. Please rate, review and share the episode if you enjoyed it.

The knowledge economy. Intellectual property. Software. Maybe even bitcoin. All pretty much intangible, and yet all clearly real and genuinely valuable. This is the realm where economist Jonathan Haskel of Imperial College London mints his own non-physical scholarship. “In the old days,” relates the co-author of Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy, “the assets of companies, the sort of secret sauce by which companies would generate their incomes and do their services for which they're employed for, was very tangible-based. These would be companies with lots of machines, these would be companies with oil tankers, with buildings, with vehicles to transport things around. Nowadays, companies like Google, like Microsoft, like LinkedIn, just look very different.” And that difference, he explains to interviewer David Edmonds in this Social Science Bites podcast, is knowledge. “What they have is knowledge,” says Haskel, “and it's knowledge assets, these intangible assets, which these companies are deploying.” Intangible investments, as you might expect, have different properties than do tangible ones. Haskel dubbed them the four S's: Scale. Once you have a handle on a successful intangible, like software, that can generally scale up without more capital spending; Sunk Costs. These are invested costs you can't get back, such as the costs of developing software; Spillovers. Aspects of your intangibles that others can copy or adopt for themselves; and Synergies. “If you put all these intangibles together,” he explains, “you get more than the sum of the parts.” Meanwhile, intangibles help keep modern economies humming – we think. “Accountants and statistical agencies are quite reluctant to measure intangibles because it's -- intangible. It's a rather difficult thing to get at; these are often goods that aren't traded from one person to another …” Part of Haskel's research effort is to quantify how much investment in intangibles is going on “behind the scenes,” which fits in with other interests of his such as re-engineering how gross domestic product gets measured. Businesses are now spending more on intangibles then on tangibles: Haskel's work reveals that for every monetary unit companies spend on tangible assets, they spend 1.15 on intangible ones. In addition to serving as a professor at the Imperial College Business School, Haskel is director of the Doctoral Programme at the Imperial. He is an elected member of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth and a research associate of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, the Centre for Economic Performance, LSE, and the IZA, Bonn. Haskel has been a non-executive director of the UK Statistics Authority since 2016 and an external member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee since 2019.

Hub Dialogues (part of The Hub, Canada's daily information source for public policy – https://www.thehub.ca) are in-depth conversations about big ideas from the worlds of business, economics, geopolitics, public policy, and technology.The Hub Dialogues feature The Hub's editor-at-large, Sean Speer, in conversation with leading entrepreneurs, policymakers, scholars, and thinkers on the issues and challenges that will shape Canada's future at home and abroad.This episode of Hub Dialogues features host Sean Speer in conversation with British economist Jonathan Haskel about his influential, new book (co-authored with Stian Westlake), Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy. If you like what you are hearing on Hub Dialogues consider subscribing to The Hub's daily email newsletter featuring our insights and analysis on public policy issues. Subscription is free. Simply sign up here: https://newsletter.thehub.ca/.The Hub is Canada's leading information source for public policy. Stridently non-partisan, The Hub is committed to delivering to Canadians the latest analysis and cutting-edge perspectives into the debates that are shaping our collective future.Visit The Hub now at https://www.thehub.ca. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

What do lighthouses, the wheelie suitcase, Harry Potter, and Wikipedia have in common? They showcase the progressive evolution towards investment in the "intangible economy": one prioritizing knowledge, relationships, design, reputation, and other internal organization over physical assets. Jonathan Haskel is Professor of Economics at Imperial College (London) and the co-author of a new book "Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy". Bethany and Luigi sit down with Haskel to discuss the characteristics and consequences of this economy, its value to society, the system of rewards and incentives behind it, and the role for government in regulating it. They also discuss the leaked Supreme Court memo on Roe v. Wade and the extent to which corporate America should be weighing in on political debates. (49:46)

Today's topic is the intangible economy, what it means for competition, policy, inequality, and so much more. For fifty years, the percentage of investment in corporate America and elsewhere allocated to intangible assets has risen slowly but steadily as a percentage of the total. An increasingly intangible rich economy has a meaningful impact on the way companies are valued, how startups are financed, how economic data is measured and reported, and the effectiveness of policy makers' tools to manage the economy. A paper from McKinsey states that over the past 25 years the share of total investment in intangibles increased by 29 percent in the United States and ten European countries. Rising investment in intangibles has been linked with increasing total factor productivity of entire economies. This could indicate that the deceleration of productivity growth over the past decade partly reflects a slowdown in investment in intangible assets. That is one of the many contentions of co-authors Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake in their fascinating new book Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy. I caught up with Professor Haskel for the New Books Network, and here is a portion of that discussion. New Books NetworkKick the Dogma

The past two decades have witnessed sluggish economic growth, mounting inequality, dysfunctional competition, and a host of other ills that have left people wondering what has happened to the future they were promised. Restarting the Future reveals how these problems arise from a failure to develop the institutions demanded by an economy now reliant on intangible capital such as ideas, relationships, brands, and knowledge. In this groundbreaking and provocative book, Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake argue that the great economic disappointment of the century is the result of an incomplete transition from an economy based on physical capital, and show how the vital institutions that underpin our economy remain geared to an outmoded way of doing business. The growth of intangible investment has slowed significantly in recent years, making the world poorer, less fair, and more vulnerable to existential threats. Haskel and Westlake present exciting new ideas to help us catch up with the intangible revolution, offering a road map for how to finance businesses, improve our cities, fund more science and research, reform monetary policy, and reshape intellectual property rules for the better. Drawing on Haskel and Westlake's experience at the forefront of finance and economic policymaking, Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy (Princeton UP, 2022) sets out a host of radical but practical solutions that can lead us into the future. John Emrich has worked for decades years in corporate finance, business valuation and fund management. He has a podcast about the finance/investment space called Kick the Dogma. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The past two decades have witnessed sluggish economic growth, mounting inequality, dysfunctional competition, and a host of other ills that have left people wondering what has happened to the future they were promised. Restarting the Future reveals how these problems arise from a failure to develop the institutions demanded by an economy now reliant on intangible capital such as ideas, relationships, brands, and knowledge. In this groundbreaking and provocative book, Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake argue that the great economic disappointment of the century is the result of an incomplete transition from an economy based on physical capital, and show how the vital institutions that underpin our economy remain geared to an outmoded way of doing business. The growth of intangible investment has slowed significantly in recent years, making the world poorer, less fair, and more vulnerable to existential threats. Haskel and Westlake present exciting new ideas to help us catch up with the intangible revolution, offering a road map for how to finance businesses, improve our cities, fund more science and research, reform monetary policy, and reshape intellectual property rules for the better. Drawing on Haskel and Westlake's experience at the forefront of finance and economic policymaking, Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy (Princeton UP, 2022) sets out a host of radical but practical solutions that can lead us into the future. John Emrich has worked for decades years in corporate finance, business valuation and fund management. He has a podcast about the finance/investment space called Kick the Dogma.

The past two decades have witnessed sluggish economic growth, mounting inequality, dysfunctional competition, and a host of other ills that have left people wondering what has happened to the future they were promised. Restarting the Future reveals how these problems arise from a failure to develop the institutions demanded by an economy now reliant on intangible capital such as ideas, relationships, brands, and knowledge. In this groundbreaking and provocative book, Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake argue that the great economic disappointment of the century is the result of an incomplete transition from an economy based on physical capital, and show how the vital institutions that underpin our economy remain geared to an outmoded way of doing business. The growth of intangible investment has slowed significantly in recent years, making the world poorer, less fair, and more vulnerable to existential threats. Haskel and Westlake present exciting new ideas to help us catch up with the intangible revolution, offering a road map for how to finance businesses, improve our cities, fund more science and research, reform monetary policy, and reshape intellectual property rules for the better. Drawing on Haskel and Westlake's experience at the forefront of finance and economic policymaking, Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy (Princeton UP, 2022) sets out a host of radical but practical solutions that can lead us into the future. John Emrich has worked for decades years in corporate finance, business valuation and fund management. He has a podcast about the finance/investment space called Kick the Dogma. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

The past two decades have witnessed sluggish economic growth, mounting inequality, dysfunctional competition, and a host of other ills that have left people wondering what has happened to the future they were promised. Restarting the Future reveals how these problems arise from a failure to develop the institutions demanded by an economy now reliant on intangible capital such as ideas, relationships, brands, and knowledge. In this groundbreaking and provocative book, Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake argue that the great economic disappointment of the century is the result of an incomplete transition from an economy based on physical capital, and show how the vital institutions that underpin our economy remain geared to an outmoded way of doing business. The growth of intangible investment has slowed significantly in recent years, making the world poorer, less fair, and more vulnerable to existential threats. Haskel and Westlake present exciting new ideas to help us catch up with the intangible revolution, offering a road map for how to finance businesses, improve our cities, fund more science and research, reform monetary policy, and reshape intellectual property rules for the better. Drawing on Haskel and Westlake's experience at the forefront of finance and economic policymaking, Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy (Princeton UP, 2022) sets out a host of radical but practical solutions that can lead us into the future. John Emrich has worked for decades years in corporate finance, business valuation and fund management. He has a podcast about the finance/investment space called Kick the Dogma. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

The past two decades have witnessed sluggish economic growth, mounting inequality, dysfunctional competition, and a host of other ills that have left people wondering what has happened to the future they were promised. Restarting the Future reveals how these problems arise from a failure to develop the institutions demanded by an economy now reliant on intangible capital such as ideas, relationships, brands, and knowledge. In this groundbreaking and provocative book, Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake argue that the great economic disappointment of the century is the result of an incomplete transition from an economy based on physical capital, and show how the vital institutions that underpin our economy remain geared to an outmoded way of doing business. The growth of intangible investment has slowed significantly in recent years, making the world poorer, less fair, and more vulnerable to existential threats. Haskel and Westlake present exciting new ideas to help us catch up with the intangible revolution, offering a road map for how to finance businesses, improve our cities, fund more science and research, reform monetary policy, and reshape intellectual property rules for the better. Drawing on Haskel and Westlake's experience at the forefront of finance and economic policymaking, Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy (Princeton UP, 2022) sets out a host of radical but practical solutions that can lead us into the future. John Emrich has worked for decades years in corporate finance, business valuation and fund management. He has a podcast about the finance/investment space called Kick the Dogma. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

David Trainer, president at investment-research firm New Constructs, says that 80 percent of the Standard & Poor's 500 companies are overstating earnings, and he highlighted Illumina as topping the list, saying the company is overvalued as a result. The company is currently trading for about $350, but Trainer put it in "The Danger Zone" because it has an economic book value of "negative two dollars." Also on the show, Ron Ruffinott of Toluna discusses their recent survey showing that one-third of Americans feel markedly worse off financially now compared to a year ago, economist/author Jonathan Haskel discusses his new book -- "Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy," and Brad Lamensdorf of Active Alts and the Ranger Equity Bear ETF returns to talk stocks in the Market Call.

On today's episode, Andrew is joined by Jonathan Haskel, the author of Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy. Jonathan Haskel is professor of economics at Imperial College Business School and an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stian Westlake is the chief exec at the Royal Statistical Society, and before that he was a policy advisor to government and the executive director at Nesta. He is the co-author with Jonathan Haskel of Capitalism without Capital, and they have a new book out, Restarting the Future (22 March 2022). Stian discusses how recessions might be different under an intangible economy. I ask him (H/T Tyler Cowen) how national security concerns might be different in a very intangible world. Part of his answer: ...if you are an interconnected, relatively open economy, and Russia was always the most relatively interconnected of the BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, China] countries, the intangible economy kind of makes it easier to turn off those taps in a way…. how dependent some of these kinds of more security based, more military based factors have been on intangible assets. We've probably all seen the stories of the dependence of the Russian air force on US GPS devices, which has led to them being more observable and perhaps has played a role in the fact that they have not been as present in the conflict as people thought they would be. I think that kind of interconnectivity is like many things in the intangible economy. It's great for winners, it's great if you're the US or if you're a US ally and it's probably not so great for the losers. … We chat about these observations: Stagnation Inequality Dysfunctional Competition Fragility Inauthenticity And Stian offers an intangible lens to explain the observations. We discuss: BS jobs and whether culture and trust might be upstream of this. Why we need new institutions to tackle intangible challenges, whether this would be more technocractic and if there is a political economy challenge on this. The importance of where the intangible meets the tangible, for instance, we have heat pump technology but not the intangible systems and ideas to install them. Sanitation is “hardware” but building and co-ordinating all this is an intangible and institutional challenge more than a hardware challege. What the trade-off is between losing red tape and increasing the risk of corruption. Stian argues for why the tax treatment of debt and equity would be a good idea (while acknowledging this would be politically hard). We play over/under rated on: Innovation Prizes, Blogging, Sugar tax, Carbon tax, Plastic Bag Tax, Innovation agencies, GDP and UBI, universal basic income. Stian ends with some life and career advice. Video and transcript are available here, with further links.

Today's episode is about something you might have noticed just by looking around you. Especially if you're old enough.The economy has been shifting away from the material and towards the intangible -- things like data, design, personality, research, ways of expressing ourselves. The importance of these things has grown, reflected in the investments that businesses have made. More money now goes to branding, and research and development, training, and software, and the tech we love to use for pleasure and for work. Today's episode is all about the profound and subtle consequences of this shift. And it's about why the economy and society have lagged behind it.Joining Cardiff to explain it all is Stian Westlake. Stian and his co-author Jonathan Haskel wrote a book a few years ago called “Capitalism without Capital”, that chronicled the trend towards the intangible economy. And they have a new book out now called “Restarting the Future”, which explains how people and businesses and policymakers can finally catch up to the trend -- and harness it to make the world better. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute's Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush talks with Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake. Jonathan Haskel is professor of economics at Imperial College Business School at Imperial College London and an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. Stian Westlake is chief executive of the Royal Statistical Society in the United Kingdom. Haskel and Westlake talk about their pioneering work on intangible assets: how to define them to reflect their growing role in companies and economies, the benefits and risks, and how to enable a smoother transition to a dematerialized economy with such assets at its core. They answer questions including the following: ● So we really are now in the knowledge and know-how economy. Is this a new era for capitalism? ● Are intangibles good for us? ● How do you tell whether investment in intangibles is smart or dumb? ● Are intangibles a recipe for inequality? ● What needs to be fixed to ease the transition to the intangibles economy? This conversation was recorded in December 2021. To read a transcript of this episode, visit: https://mck.co/HaskelWestlake Follow @McKinsey_MGI on Twitter and the McKinsey Global Institute on LinkedIn for more.See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute's Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush talks with Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake. Jonathan Haskel is professor of economics at Imperial College Business School at Imperial College London and an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. Stian Westlake is chief executive of the Royal Statistical Society in the United Kingdom. Haskel and Westlake talk about their pioneering work on intangible assets: how to define them to reflect their growing role in companies and economies, the benefits and risks, and how to enable a smoother transition to a dematerialized economy with such assets at its core. They answer questions including the following: ● So we really are now in the knowledge and know-how economy. Is this a new era for capitalism? ● Are intangibles good for us? ● How do you tell whether investment in intangibles is smart or dumb? ● Are intangibles a recipe for inequality? ● What needs to be fixed to ease the transition to the intangibles economy? This conversation was recorded in December 2021. To read a transcript of this episode, visit: https://mck.co/HaskelWestlake Follow @McKinsey_MGI on Twitter and the McKinsey Global Institute on LinkedIn for more. Read more > Listen to the podcast (duration: 39:16) >

"Following last week's inflation data that showed prices are still rising rapidly, monetary Policy Committee Member Jonathan Haskel was the first to put his head above the parapet. Haskel said he sees two major issues that could derail the recovery in the coming weeks/months. First would be the bank withdrawing monetary support by slowing the rate at which it is purchasing assets or ending the programme completely and, second, the continued rise in cases of Covid-19 driven by the highly transmissible Delta Variant. Two of Jonathan Haskel's colleagues on the MPC have called for tapering to begin sooner rather than later. Gertjan Vlieghe and Michael Saunders, both considered hawks, believe that the bank should be preparing the ground for a tightening. " Beyond Currency Market Commentary: Aims to provide deep insights into the political and economic events worldwide that can cause currencies to change and how this can affect your FX Exposure.

This episode features the renowned British economist and author Jonathan Haskel. He talks about the shift from tangible to intangible assets and how the economy has evolved over the last 20 years. The pandemic is sort of a kick to the intangible assets programme and the vaccine itself is an incredible intangible asset.

In this video I will talk about the Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy book by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake. We live in a new era of capitalism, when we invest in assets that we can't touch. This book is about intangible assets and it's properties, why are companies investing in it and how it plays a part in our economy. Twitter: https://twitter.com/AttilaonthWorld YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCADpTO2CJBS7HNudJu9-nvg

As we move toward an economy that invests in intangibles like innovation, brand and reputation, what impact does that have on company value? We are joined by Professor Jonathan Haskel, Professor at Imperial College Business School and advisor to the Bank of England, to discuss how intangible factors are playing an increasingly important role in business performance and overall economic growth.

This week we have an interview with Sarah Caro, who describes herself on Twitter as ‘Editorial Director for Social Sciences at Princeton University Press, long-suffering Arsenal fan and qualified optimist'. In this interview we focus mostly on the first of those, though the third clearly influences everything Sarah does.As you'll hear, she's had an amazingly dynamic career, having worked at a significant number of leading publishers in senior roles across a number of disciplines. Along with her management role, so still finds time to commission and edit books: she's the editor of one of Princeton's highest-grossing, highest-profile recent titles, Capitalism Without Capital by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake.Of PUP's place in economics publishing, Sarah says:Princeton has always been very good, especially in economics, at commissioning high profile authors and fashioning them so that they still have huge intellectual heft and are highly respected within the academy, but they're read by a very wide audience of people outside the academy, including policymakers and people working in the finance industry, and just generally people who are involved in all aspects of government and business.The post Conversations with Publishers: Sarah Caro, Princeton University Press appeared first on The Hedgehog and the Fox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stian Westlake joins City Journal editor Brian Anderson to discuss the future of productivity and how institutions and policymakers can adapt to the new "intangible" economy. Throughout history, as documented in the book Capitalism Without Capital by Westlake and coauthor Jonathan Haskel, firms have invested in physical goods like machines and computers. As society has grown richer, companies have invested increasingly in "intangible" assets: research and development, branding, organizational development, and software. Today's challenge is to build the institutions and enact the policies that will maximize the new economy's potential.

Glöm fabriker, datorparker och maskiner, för vi lever i ett århundrade där ekonomisk framgång i växande grad tillskrivs vår förmåga att utveckla och utnyttja det osynliga kapitalet: varumärken, mjukvara, patent, design och företagskulturer. Erika och Johan har läst "Capitalism Without Capital", av Jonathan Haskel och Stian Westlake.

Tuesday 12th March 2019 US stocks rose sharply in the overnight session following the release of US retail numbers, which showed a bounce back in January. As Phil Dobbie discusses with NAB’s Rodrigo Catril, the markets chose to ignore that there was also a sizeable downward revision to December’s numbers. The pound showed strong growth on news that Theresa May was popping over to Strasbourg for last minute talks, ahead of the vote on her deal tonight. But, before you get too carried away, hear what the Bank of England’s Jonathan Haskel had to say about the next two years. Plus, the NAB Business Survey is out today – will it provide further recovery after December’s big fall in business conditions?

Political journalist Ece Temelkuran confronts rising populism in ‘How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship’. (Starts at 1.20) Bank of England advisor Jonathan Haskel introduces us to the dark matter of investment in ‘Capitalism without Capital’. (Starts at 20.22) Trina Beckett uncovers the fascinating lives of ‘The Wives of The Generals’ in her biography ‘Deadlier Than the Male’. (Starts at 45.10)

When we think about the economy, we tend to think about stuff. Physical goods are manufactured and sold, factories are built and upgraded, innovation gives us shiny new gadgets we can hold in our hands.But this is becoming a less and less accurate way of thinking about things. Increasingly, intangible assets are what matter.According to Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, the authors of the brilliant Capitalism Without Capital, these intangible assets don’t play by the basic laws of economics. And so the rise of assets you can’t touch, they argue, is having a big impact on how the economy works.Haskel and Westlake start with a simple, even obvious, insight and end with an important and thoughtful book about the nature of the modern economy. Their work has received high praise from high places. Bill Gates calls Capitalism without Capital “required reading for policymakers”.For this week’s episode of free exchange, I spoke to Stian about his book, which is out now in paperback, and the implications of the ideas contained within it. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It's always scary to hear a Wall Streeter utter the hackneyed phrase, “this time it's different.” And yet today it really is. Especially the economic conditions that make up the operating system for today's world. As markets ride a roller coaster this week, as the political environment is heavily focused on international trade and tariffs on manufactured objects like cars and jeans, the reality is that all of this is yesterday's way of looking at the economy. This, according to Jonathan Haskel, who is a member of the Bank of England's rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee (the equivalent of the US Federal Reserve), a professor of economics at Imperial College London, and the director of the school's doctoral program. He has also taught economics at the London Business School, the Tuck School at Dartmouth, and the Stern School of Business at New York University. Haskel explains in this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast that, while people once invested in things that grow (in the agrarian age) or in things that could be made with steel and sweat (in the manufacturing age), today, no matter how hard politicians try and take us back, the investments are made in human capital, in ideas, in imagination, and in zeros and ones. The problem for economists, according to Haskel, is that things like R&D, marketing, design, and software are much harder to measure and value.   The idea, Haskel tells Jeff Schechtman, is that intangible assets are created, distributed, and often valued differently than traditionally manufactured items. “Products you can't touch have a very different set of dynamics in terms of competition and risk and how you value the companies that make them.” Trying to determine the impact of all of this on the economy — when much of what is produced is abstract, symbolic, and speculative — has been difficult, Haskel explains, because so much has eluded traditional description, measurement, and accounting. For example, he laments that we lack the ability to measure a company, even one as big as Microsoft, whose market value a decade ago was $250 billion, while its physical basis — the value of its properties and equipment — was only about one percent of that. Finally, Haskel explains that the “shift to intangible investment” has widespread consequences that affect long-term inequality, infrastructure development, taxation, and other areas. It also leads to what Haskel calls “secular stagnation,” by allowing firms to scale quickly after they emerge, then engulf and overpower competitors, as opposed to enhancing an economy based on the rising tide that lifts all boats. It's clear that we can't watch the current daily gyrations in the stock market without understanding this evolving dynamic. Jonathan Haskel is the author of Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy (Princeton University Press, November 18, 2017).

Why can't some of the most profitable companies in the world be valued? From fitness classes to global tech firms and coffee chains, Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake reveal the growing dominance of the intangible economy and the implications for society, equality and productivity.

Capital has changed and capitalism is changing as a result. For the first time in history, businesses are investing more in things you can neither see nor touch – so-called intangible capital – than in traditional physical assets like buildings, machines, computers or vehicles. Intangible capital, such as R&D, design, software, brands and organisational capabilities, have different economic properties from traditional assets. As a result, the rise of the intangible economy is changing the economy and society in important and non-obvious ways. This new intangible economy helps explain a range of big puzzles and problems: why productivity is stagnating, why inequality is rising, why populism is on the rise. It also helps managers, investors and policymakers understand what to do about it. Jonathan Haskel, economics professor at Imperial College Business School, and Stian Westlake, policy adviser to the Minister of State in the Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy at the University of Cambridge, have written a new book, "Capitalism without Capital." They will discuss this new economic trend and what it means for the future. SPEAKERS Jonathan Haskel Professor of Economics, Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London Stian Westlake Policy Adviser to the Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, Center for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge MODERATOR: Jane Wales CEO, World Affairs and Global Philanthropy Forum; Vice President, The Aspen Institute We want to hear from you! Please take part in a quick survey to tell us how we can improve our podcast: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PWZ7KMW

A mysterious doll's house is at the centre of Jessie Burton's novel The Miniaturist, now dramatised for television. Burton tells Tom Sutcliffe about the claustrophobic world she created amidst the wealthy merchant traders of 17th century Holland. The economist Jonathan Haskel points to the quiet revolution that has taken place since then, as developed countries now invest more in intangible assets like design and software, than in tangible goods like machinery and computers. He asks what impact this has had on economic inequality and low productivity. And then two objects that tell stories far beyond themselves: the umbrella and the Ferrari. Marion Rankine looks at the humble brolly, now a simple object to protect you from the rain, but once a powerful symbol of class and power. And 70 year after Enzo Ferrari brought out his first car, the guest curator at the Design Museum Andrew Nahum looks back at the creation of an iconic brand. Producer: Katy Hickman Picture courtesy of Ferrari.

What has led to the rise of the ‘intangible economy’? And what impact is it having on levels of inequality and productivity? Economic analysts Stian Westlake and Jonathan Haskel investigate. For all sorts of businesses, from tech firms and pharma companies to coffee shops and gyms, the ability to deploy assets that one can neither see nor touch is increasingly the main source of long-term success. What does the future of an intangible world look like, and how can managers, investors, and policymakers exploit the characteristics of an intangible age to grow our companies and economies? This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 23rd November 2017. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/11/capitalism-without-capital