VoxTalks Economics

Kaushik Basu's time as World Bank chief economist inspired him to think radically about how to change the way the global economy works. He tells Tim Phillips about why public ownership and profit-sharing may be essential, and what we can still learn from Karl Marx.

A new ebook from the CEPR and the International Development Policy Journal discusses the threat to developing and emerging economies from the pandemic, and what we can do about it. Ugo Panizza is one of the editors, and he joins Tim Phillips to discuss capital flight, conflict, and what advanced economies and can do to help.Download Covid in Developing Economies - it's free.

Different countries and cities have different rates of Covid exposure, but what can explain the difference in incidence between neighbourhoods? New York residents Milena Almagro and Angelo Orane-Hutchinson tell Tim Phillips what made the difference in their city.Read their research in Covid Economics 13.

Thomas Philippon's new book argues that in the last 20 years the US has “given up” on free markets. As a result, he tells Tim Phillips, American families are each $5,000 a year poorer.

This week the CEPR launches a new research programme called STEG - Structural Transformation and Economic Growth. Ahead of the kick-off workshop on June 4 and 5, Joe Kaboski and Doug Gollin tell Tim Phillips what STEG hopes to achieve, and Rachel Glennerster explains why DFID is funding it.Register for the workshop or discover STEG here.

The mortality statistics of the Covid-19 outbreak suggest that your country's medical infrastructure has a big influence on how likely you are to survive. Nathan Sussman has examined the data and tells Tim Phillips why all countries should be urgently investing in their health services.Read "Time for Beds" in issue 11 of Covid Economics.

Should competition authorities intervene more often in tech mergers? Be careful, Luis Cabral tells Tim Phillips: they risk stifling innovation if they do. 

In every crisis, economists will tell us that it is time for helicopter money, and Covid-19 is no different. But the helicopters never seem to take off. Donato Maschiandaro tells Tim Phillips why not.Read about helicopter money in Issue 7 of Covid Economics.

Do we close our public spaces to protect our communities from Covid-19, or keep them open, as in Sweden? Dirk Krueger tells Tim Phillips that informing the public and then trusting individuals to make good choices might deliver a decline in infections, while minimising the Covid recession.Download Covid Economics 5, including Dirk's paper.Picture: Creative Commons/Vogler

On the 75 anniversary of the VE Day, David Edgerton tells Tim Phillips that Britain's belief in its go-it-alone scientific and inventive genius is “deluded”, and has stunted the nation's postwar growth.Download The Economics of the Second World War Seventy-Five Years On, featuring David's chapter.