VoxTalks Economics

This weekend marks 100 years since the end of World War 1. But is the history of the war that we learn at school the whole story? The 20 essays in a new VoxEU ebook on the economic history of the war challenge the conventional wisdom about how the war started, why it was won and lost, and its consequences. Tim Phillips talks to Mark Harrison of the University of Warwick, one of the book’s editors. Download The Economics of the Great War for free from VoxEU.org.

Firms are becoming more unequal in every country and sector. Is the rise of a few superstar firms good or bad the economy, and should we do anything about it? Tim Phillips asks John Van Reenen of MIT to be policymaker for a day.More coverage of superstar firms from voxeu.org here, here and here.

We know that increasing the school leaving age cuts crime, but why? Is it because kids who are most likely to commit crimes are learning things that make them more employable, or is just because they're off the streets? Tim Phillips talks to Steve Machin of the LSE about new research into the importance of these effects.Read about the research at VoxEU.org.

What accounts for London's explosive growth in the 19th and early 20th centuries? Tim Phillips talks to Stephen Redding of Princeton University about new research that shows how important the railways have been, and continue to be, in creating the modern metropolis.Read about the research on VoxEU.org

In the US, unemployment is at its lowest point for two decades. Wage growth is rising, the economy is growing. Tim Phillips asks Jeffrey Frankel of Harvard University why he worries about the depth of the next recession.Read Jeffrey's blog on VoxEU.org.

It's no secret that women have been under-represented in the boardroom in general, and central bank boards are no different. We also know that firms in which women are decision-makers tend to behave differently. Tim Phillips talks to Paola Profeta, one of the authors of a new paper that finds that female central bankers have a measurable effect on monetary policy.Find out more about her research at VoxEU.org.

The FRAME Project was set up to find out the impact of innovation on macroeconomic outcomes such as productivity, job creation, and unemployment. Diego Comin of Dartmouth College is one of the leaders of the project, and he talks to Tim Phillips about what he and his colleagues have learned.CEPR is a partner of the FRAME Project, which is co-ordinated by ZEW. The CEPR team is led by Diego Comin, a Research Fellow in its Macroeconomics and Growth Programme. The FRAME project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the grant agreement No #727073.Find out more about FRAME's work on VoxEU.

Every year multinational companies reduce their tax bills by about $200 billion simply by shifting profits, legally, to tax havens. Governments criticise tax loopholes and promise to close them. But at the same time they also use them to attract these paper profits to their jurisdiction. Thomas Tørsløv and Ludvig Weir talk to Tim Phillips about where the missing profits of nations go, the effect of the missing billions on government policies, and how to create a fairer system of taxation for multinationals.Read more about missing profits on VoxEU.

English is the most widely-spoken language in Europe, but after Brexit it will cease to be an official language of the EU. Tim Phillips speaks to Shlomo Weber about which languages will become more important as a result, and the long-term implications for the English language — and the people who speak it. Read more about the fate of English in Europe in the column on VoxEU.

Two decades ago the four authors of the CEPR's first Geneva Report on the World Economy examined the future of the IMF. This year, for the 20th report, they returned to see what progress has been made. Tim Phillips talks to Barry Eichengreen, Charles Wyplosz, José De Gregorio, and Takatoshi Ito about how the IMF has evolved, and the threats both to the IMF and the entire multilateral financial system.