VoxTalks Economics

The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, attended by thousands of business and policy VIPs – is one of those events that pops up on the news every year, as we see photos of multinational CEOs shaking hands with world leaders and taking part in panel discussions on the future of the planet. But how valuable is it to the business people who pay hundreds of thousands of Swiss Francs...

The belief that women are in some way inferior to men has been around for centuries. And throughout that time, women have suffered the consequences. Economists have lately been trying to understand more about the origins of gender biased norms, to help create better policies to challenge them. Their work can build on insights from sociology, anthropology and gender studies, but also raises...

On 4 August, Paul Atkins, the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, launched “Project Crypto”. The SEC wants to make the US “the crypto capital of the world”. Crypto investors make a lot of noise, but who are they, and do they behave differently to other retail investors?A new CEPR discussion paper called “Do you even crypto, bro?” summarises what a representative sample of US...

How do criminals choose the weapons they carry, the number of accomplices, the types of business they target? Economists have long argued that decisions to commit economic crimes are strategic, based on a calculation of risk and reward. The Italian justice system changes the punishment for a crime depending on how it is committed, and so a new analysis of thieves and their crimes, based on data...

Recorded live at the PSE-CEPR Policy Forum 2025. The gender wage gap in advanced economies isn’t shrinking. What can firms do to eliminate the part of the wage gap that comes from discrimination? The OECD has analysed the data from countries with pay transparency legislation to discover how much of the gender pay gap arises from the different treatment of equally qualified men and women. Stéphane...

Recorded live at the PSE-CEPR Policy Forum 2025. One of the mysteries for economists and policymakers has been the reluctance of men to take paternity leave, no matter how generous the terms offered to them. In her presentation, Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago Booth School mentioned some new research from Japan that is helping to shine a light on this topic, in an innovative and...

From our series recorded live at the PSE-CEPR Policy Forum 2025. How much progress have we made in finding out the source of gender inequality at work?At the Forum, Barbara Petrongolo of the University of Oxford and CEPR gave the keynote lecture on “Questions and challenges for 21st century labour markets”. In conversations with Tim Phillips, she points out that there are still many unanswered...

Recorded live at the PSE-CEPR Policy Forum 2025. This week, we interview three of the next generation of economists. At the forum, a group of young researchers were presenting their work in the main theatre and at poster sessions during the breaks. Tim Phillips took the opportunity to talk to some of them about their research. Pelin Ozgul of the University of Maastricht has investigated whether...

Are global economic flows collapsing, or are they reorganising? That’s one of the intriguing questions asked by a new CEPR publication called The State of Globalisation. It brings together a series of essays on both the changes that are happening in the global economy, and the policies that can respond to these changes. So how should trade policy and industrial strategy adapt when globalization...

Recorded live at the PSE-CEPR Policy Forum 2025. Now that many of us work part or all our week at home, does that mean we want to move to a different area, or a larger house? And what is the effect on housing for those who cannot work from home? Morgane Richard of Stanford has researched how Londoners sought out new homes post-Covid to match their flexible work arrangements. She tells Tim...