VoxTalks Economics

VoxTalks Economics


Latest Episodes

S5 Ep3: The other great migration
January 21, 2022

In the 20th century at least 6 million African Americans migrated from poor southern states to northern cities to escape discrimination and poverty, changing the course of American history. At least as many whites also migrated, taking their ideas with th

S5 Ep2: AI: software for autocrats?
January 14, 2022

The Chinese government isn't just a world leader in the use of AI for facial recognition, its orders are funding innovation in its domestic industry too. But what's good news for entrepreneurs may be bad news for political protest, Noam Yuchtman tells Tim

S5 Ep1: The gender gap: Nature or nurture?
January 07, 2022

Are the differences between what men and women like decided at birth, or do we learn to prefer different things? Klaus Desmet tells Tim Phillips about new research that investigates global patterns in 45,397 Facebook interests.

S4 Ep51: Europe's asylum lottery
December 17, 2021

Refugees from conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and many other countries travel thousands of miles seeking a new life in Europe. But how likely are these refugees to be recognised as asylum seekers, and does it matter in which country they apply? Tim Hatto

S4 Ep50: Germany's stalled social mobility
December 10, 2021

New research uses German census data to track the association between success for a child and the earnings of the parent at a much higher level of detail than was previously possible. Sebastian Findeisen and Paul Schüle tell Tim Phillips about the impact

S4 Ep49: Why natural experiments won the Nobel
December 03, 2021

Josh Angrist, David Card, and Guido Imbens shared the Nobel in 2021 for their pioneering work on natural experiments that, in the words of the committee, "revolutionised empirical research". Steve Pischke tells Tim Phillips about the history of natural ex

S4 Ep48: Coming out in America
November 26, 2021

Two new papers pinpoint the election of 1992 as a turning point in the attitudes of Americans to same-sex relationships, and ask, what has caused this change? Raquel Fernandez and Sahar Parsa of NYU tell Tim Phillips about the complex relationship between

S4 Ep47: Pensions and fertility in Namibia
November 19, 2021

Do we have children to provide for us in our old age? Pauline Rossi tells Tim Phillips about the impact on the size of families in Namibia after the government granted a state pension – research that might have important implications for economic developm

S4 Ep46: Tournaments: Playing to win
November 12, 2021

Tournaments are increasingly being used in business to solve non-routine problems. Florian Englmaier tells Tim Phillips about new research into what gives these teams the will to win. Do they respond to having a common sense of identity, do they want kudo

S4 Ep45: Creating a resilient society
November 05, 2021

Repeated environmental and economic crises in recent years are encouraging many people to ask, is this really the best way to run a planet? Markus Brunnermeier tells Tim Phillips how we can do a better job of coping with shocks.