Pocket Economics: A Guide To Changing Lives

Robots v Covid-19: the future of work? Rate, review and download our podcast “Telecommuting”, “quaranteams”, “doomscrolling”, “upperwear” and curating one’s Zoom background have all become a part of our new remote working reality. If we were unnerved by the way digital technology was transforming our world before the pandemic, Covid-19 has only made the speed of change even faster, It is estimated that in the next five years close to 85 million jobs may be displaced by algorithms, artificial intelligence and robotics. According to the World Economic Forum Jobs Report 2020, “automation, in tandem with the COVID-19 recession, is creating a ‘double-disruption’ scenario for workers. Technological adoption by companies will transform tasks, jobs and skills by 2025. Time spent on current tasks at work by humans and machines will become equal.” The report also estimate that 97 million new roles may emerge as the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms emerges. Our presenters Jonathan

Rate, review and download our podcast With the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 26) scheduled for November, governments are under growing pressure to meet their national commitments to decarbonise. Green transition at scale will require a lot of collaboration and, in a global economy still in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic, finance will have a key role to play in ‘building back better’ and ‘building back greener’. For instance, one proposal as to how to fund a green recovery from Covid-19 is through carbon taxation. It can change the status quo by encouraging investments in innovation and climate friendly technologies. But without inclusive policies addressing existing inequalities it risks making the poor poorer. The Governor of the Banque de France, François Villeroy de Galhau, recently called for a decarbonisation of trillions of euros worth of corporate bonds. But how realistic it is for already struggling firms and industries to survive new heftier taxes? This and many

Rate, review and download our podcast On the 15 April 1991, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development opened its doors for business for the first time. It was conceived by its founders as ‘a new and unique structure of co‑operation’ for a continent still recovering from the shock of the collapse of communism. Its mission then, as now, was to further progress towards market-oriented economies and promote private and entrepreneurial initiative. So, at the age of 30, how is the EBRD doing? What are the challenges for its future? What has the EBRD taught some of its former staff? This special discussion brought together four EBRD Chief Economists, past and present, who shared their insights into the Bank and its influence on the countries where it works, global development and the world of international financial institutions. The inaugural Chief Economist of Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank, Erik Berglof, talked about the technical banking skills which are unique to the EBRD as wel

Rate, review and download our podcast The Multilateral development banks were set up after the Second World War to be the original impact investors, fighting poverty, inequality or more currently climate change. “To demonstrate our impact is crucial at a time where multilateralism is often challenged, when there is a tendency to think that, we are more effective when we work at a country level than at the global level. And I think that the ability to show that and acting in this mutual framework is helpful to deliver some impacts on values because we are building on a very good experience,” said EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso during the opening of the digital discussion. Now more than ever, the MDBs have a very important role to play. The Covid-19 recovery will not be easy. The climate emergency is here. Furthermore, the national governments are dealing with growing mountains of debt. How can we ensure that multilateral lending is effective to help the world emerge from this crisis? What is “iwashing

Rate, review and download our podcast Inequality is emerging as the “biggest policy challenge” during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, with the World Bank estimating that extreme global poverty is to rise for the first time in over 20 years. “The coronavirus pandemic is possibly the first so-called ‘global event’”, said Professor Branko Milanovic in the latest EBRD Economics Talk. Sir Angus Deaton, Nobel Prize laureate, also took part in the discussion on the nature of inequality and how it will be aggravated by the pandemic. EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik sounded the alarm about coronavirus’s impact on emerging markets across the EBRD regions. What’s next? How can our societies be made more equal? What are the roles of the state and the private sector in combatting inequality? Professor Angus Deaton is a Nobel Prize laureate in Economics and Senior Scholar at the School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.  His latest book “Deaths of Despair” is co-written with Anne Case and

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the key role of the state amidst managing public health and economic disaster. However, if the role of state is growing, is it actually a good thing? These are just a few of the questions discussed in this special live launch of 2020-21 Transition Report: The State Strike Back. EBRD's Anthony Williams was join by a great line up of guests: Mariana Mazzucato is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL) where she is Founding Director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP). Dani Rodrik is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. A special video message from Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, University Professor at Columbia University. EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik and the new EBRD president Odile Renaud-Basso. Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes or tweet us @EBRD #EBRDEconTalks

Rate, review and download our podcast It’s been almost a year since reports of a new strain of coronavirus first emerged. Even back then the IMF was sounding the alarm about the high and rising levels of debt in developing economies. Today, after lockdowns and severe economic contractions, debt is growing almost as fast as the coronavirus pandemic is spreading. “It’s not the moment to be timid on debt crisis resolution,’ says the World Bank’s Chief Economist, Carmen Reinhart. “Proposals need to be bold in terms of delivering debt reduction for the debtors. Because, if not, … risks of the lost decade are very big.” What’s next? How can we manage the debt crisis which appears to be fast approaching? Listen to Carmen Reinhart, Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times and Beata Javorcik, EBRD Chief Economist discussing the challenges ahead. The discussion was moderated by the EBRD’s Head of External Communications, Anthony Williams. Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes

Rate, review and download our podcast The coronavirus pandemic has broken supply chains, closed off borders and disrupted international trade routes. Trade, which in recent years accounted for 54% to 60% of global economic activity, is now set to have a drop in global trade flows by 13% to 32%, according to the World Trade Organisation. Trade is essential for saving lives and livelihoods in times of crisis, as seen with shortages of personal protective equipment, medical supplies and food... This crisis has exposed how vulnerable these connections really are. What lessons have we learned and how can we reenergise world trade in order to stimulate the wider economic recovery? What role does trade finance play in that? In this coronavirus special, EBRD Managing Director of Communications, Jonathan Charles and EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik were joined by: Marc Auboin is the Counsellor in the WTO’s Economic Research and Statistics Division and is responsible for the institution’s trade and finance age

Rate, review and download our podcast The full cost of the coronavirus pandemic is still unknown. But state spending has skyrocketed as governments try to protect whole sectors and industries which were put into induced comas this spring. How will we pay our debts incurred during this crisis? What will be the price of recovery? In this coronavirus special, EBRD Managing Director of Communications, Jonathan Charles and EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik were joined by: Willem H. Buiter, the former Citibank Chief Economist and Member of the Monetary Policy committee of the Bank of England (and former EBRD Chief Economist as well). He was awarded the CBE in 2000; Martin Wolf, Chief economics commentator at the Financial Times; Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes or tweet us @EBRD #EBRDEconTalks

The coronavirus pandemic has locked populations inside their houses and put millions under the spotlight of a new state-controlled panopticon, watching us and our movements in the name of public safety. Our Pocket Dilemma podcast presenters, Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law, were joined on Zoom by: Peter Pomerantsev- Senior Fellow, LSE. Author: This is Not Propaganda, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible Samuel Woolley- Professor, University of Texas at Austin, Founding Director, Digital Intelligence Lab and the author of “The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth” They discussed the ethical aspects of technology, including transparency, use of data and trust. Is fact-checking effective? What regulations are necessary to control private sector tech companies? Peter Pomerantsev stressed that importance lies in trust: “There is something bigger at stake here that relates to trust and transparency. We still live in the internet that is essentially we don’t really see how ma

Rate and review our Coronavirus and Capitalism special podcast episode Joseph Stiglitz, Economist and Professor, Columbia University, Beata Javorcik, EBRD Chief Economist, and Roger Cohen, the Athens Democracy Forum Host and Advisory Board member and New York Times Op-Ed columnist, discussed how and whether capitalism will survive the coronavirus pandemic. In only a few months, the coronavirus pandemic has seriously shifted the balance of power between the state and the private sector. How is this impacting our politics and economies? This Pocket Dilemmas podcast special on capitalism in the post-Covid-19 era was organised by the EBRD and the Athens Democracy Forum (in association with The New York Times). The speakers highlighted the challenges that the capitalist societies will have to address going forward. “We have greater inequalities, not only in income and wealth, but also huge inequalities in health. This virus is not an ‘equal opportunities’ virus; it goes after people with pre-existing condition

Rate, review and download our podcast Will the coronavirus pandemic change capitalism forever? Could such changes lead to economies and societies which are more cohesive, inclusive and fairer than those of the recent past? In this coronavirus special, EBRD Managing Director of Communications, Jonathan Charles and EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik were joined by: Sir Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and a Professorial Fellow of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. His latest book is “The Future of Capitalism: Facing The New Anxieties” (2018). Colin Mayer CBE, Peter Moores Professor of Management Studies at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. His latest book on the subject is “Prosperity: Better Business Makes the Greater Good”. EBRD President Sir Suma Chakrabarti also made a special appearance at the event ahead of the discussion. Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes or tweet us @EBRD #EBRDEconTalks

The recent 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer revealed a dramatic turnaround in levels of popular trust in governments, from their lowest to highest ever recorded levels. Indeed, government is now the institution most people trust, for the first time in the survey’s 20-year history. How brittle is this new found faith in those who govern us? Will it outlive the peak of the global coronavirus pandemic or will it decline as our societies return to relative normality? Could populism and distrust of ‘elites’ return with a vengeance later on? Our Pocket Dilemma presenters, Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law, were joined on Zoom by: Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science at UC Berkeley, California, US, author of The Populist Temptation: Economic Grievance and Political Reaction in the Modern Era; Sergei Guriev, our former Chief Economist, who teaches a course on populism at Sciences Po, Paris, France; He is a co-author of the recent survey “Political Economy

Rate and review our Coronavirus special podcast episode The coronavirus pandemic has already turned global politics and economics upside down. Are there lessons to be learnt from previous crises? What will happen to the nation state and how will Covid-19 impact the European project? What happens when millions of people are forced to stay at home and have time to imagine a world run differently than in the past? In this Coronavirus special live event join us for a preview of Ivan Krastev’s new book on the coronavirus pandemic and its implications for Europe. He was also joined by EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik, and Martin Sandbu, the Financial Times columnist and author of the FT’s “Free Lunch”. Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes or tweet us @EBRD #EBRDEconTalks

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas The coronavirus pandemic is changing our attitude to far more than just public health. The ways we work, socialise and travel may not be the same again for some time. But does the impact of Covid-19 affect men and women differently? Coronavirus seems to have a higher fatality rate in men. At the same time, women may suffer more from the economic fallout from the crisis, be vulnerable to domestic abuse and often have to provide the increased amount of childcare which comes with lockdowns. Our presenters Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law were joined on Zoom by Linda Midgley, PwC specialist in Sustainable Strategy and SDGs, Dawn Duhaney, Partnership Manager at Wellcome Trust UK and Sonya Barlow, co-founder of Like Minded Females, to discuss whether the pandemic exacerbates existing gender inequality. Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes, email us at dilemmas@ebrd.com, or tweet us @EBRD #EBRDdilemmas You can rate, review and subscribe to

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas For all the loss of human life and damage to the economy inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic, could the disease herald opportunities as well as threats? Could now be the time for socially responsible and impact investing to transform the global economy for the post-Covid-19 era? Our presenters, Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law, were joined on Zoom by the EBRD’s Alexia Latortue and Stuart Trow to discuss whether we can make investing for good the new norm. Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes, email us at dilemmas@ebrd.com, or tweet us @EBRD #EBRDdilemmas You can rate, review and subscribe to Pocket Dilemma on ITunes, Spotify and Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Rate and review EBRD/ LSE IGA joint podcast The economic and political impact of the coronavirus pandemic is growing more dramatic by the day. Millions of businesses and the jobs they support are under threat. Civil liberties in many countries are being drastically curtailed as governments fight to control the spread of Covid-19. How will all this change the world economy and what does it mean for globalisation as we know it? In this Coronavirus special live event, jointly produced with the Institute for Global Affairs at the LSE, our Pocket Dilemmas host, Jonathan Charles is joined by EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik, and three other leading economists. * Lord Stern, Professor of Economics and Government at the LSE * Erik Berglöf, the Director of the Institute of Global Affairs at LSE and Professor of Economics and *Sergei Guriev, Professor of Economics at Sciences Po All three are also former EBRD Chief Economists Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes or tweet us @EBRD @LSEIGA #EBR

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas More and more countries have responded to the coronavirus pandemic by closing themselves off from the rest of the world and shutting their borders, either partially or altogether. Even the European Union’s Schengen zone has reintroduced border checks. Our presenters, Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law, were joined on Zoom by our Principal Economist, Cevat Aksoy Giray, and the Associate Director of the Centre for Global Development, Helen Dempster, to discuss the future of open borders and freedom of movement across them. What happens when the pandemic dies down and, eventually, comes to an end? Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes, email us at dilemmas@ebrd.com, or tweet us @EBRD #EBRDdilemmas You can rate, review and subscribe to Pocket Dilemma on ITunes, Spotify and Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas We say goodbye to our former Chief Economist Sergei Guriev and look back at his 3 years at the EBRD. This special episode, recorded in August, focuses on the main themes of his time with us: reforms, democracy and economic growth. Join Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law in conversation with Sergei Guriev, now a Professor of Economics at Sciences Po in Paris, to find out what it’s really like to be the Chief Economist of a major multilateral development bank.

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas Does the uncontrolled growth of large cities endanger smart and sustainable living? From adaptive traffic lights to wooden skyscrapers, what is the future for our cities? Will they look more like an urban paradise or suburban sprawl stretching as far as the eye can see? Could algorithms help us adopt the right policies to control and manage the growth of our urban spaces? Join Jonathan Charles in conversation with Jacques Bughin, Director of the McKinsey Global Institute, and our own Tara Shirvani to discuss what key factors make cities fit for living, working and growing. Ivan Pazos, a Spanish architect and the lead author of an award-winning study predicting cities’ expansion, also joined us to explain how disruptive technologies can help make them grow in a sustainable way.