The Compass

Without the most basic resources – water, food and energy – the global economy could not function. Much of the world has grown used the ready supply of all three. But that might be changing. Demographics and climate change are likely to transform how we value and use essential resources. In this edition of Economic Tectonics, Joanna Haigh – a professor at London’s Grantham Institute at Imperial College – explores how, in her view, such changes could have profound consequences for the future economy.

Producer: Sandra Kanthal

(Image: Map made of food, Credit: Shutterstock)

Trillions of dollars flow through the global economic system every day and intermediaries in the finance sector take a cut on every dollar, euro and yen. But financial technology – “fintech” – is fast-changing how the system works. Philip Coggan of The Economist explores how the coming technical revolution in finance will create new winners and losers – and perhaps a rebalancing of global financial power.

Producer: Ben Carter

(Photo: Tech Globe on hand. Credit: Shutterstock)

Who we are, how many of us there are and where we live will change the economies of the future. Africa’s population will boom spectacularly, creating a huge new workforce in countries like Nigeria. That’s a great opportunity, but one with serious risks attached. Europe will shrink. Asia is ageing. In this edition of Economic Tectonics, Ruth Alexander looks at the near future – a future we can already see, thanks to accurate statistical modelling – to find out how economic power will shift as the world’s population changes.

Producer: Ben Carter

(Image: People gathered as an arrow, Credit: Arthimedes/Shutterstock)

Ten years ago a Harvard economist suggested that it might not be possible to combine democracy, national sovereignty and economic integration forever. Something would have to give. 2016 might just have proved him right. In this edition of Economic Tectonics, Martin Sandbu from The Financial Times explores how –in his view – today’s fractious politics might change the global economy of the future.

(Image: Child at Protest holding placard, Credit: Shutterstock)

Shanghai aims to become a global capital of finance and technology by 2020, but it’s also becoming a city of culture - a cosmopolitan draw for young people seeking a lifestyle mixing the ideas of East and West.

The newly-regenerated waterfront area is now lined with art galleries and boutique shops and Shanghai millennials hang out in the former colonial French Concession, which bustles with hip cocktail bars and fancy bakeries. Adrenalin sports such as ‘free jumping’ are among the global pursuits which attract young people to live here.

But will China’s political system allow this huge city to rival other urban centres of the and can it secure its place as a city of the world?

Image: Three people pose for a selfie in front of Shanghai's waterfront, Credit: Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images

Haining Liu explores the pressure on China's one-child generation to marry and start a family. At the ‘marriage market’ in central Shanghai she meets the anxious parents desperate to find a suitable match for their single offspring and drops in on a speed dating event in the city where young men and women are hoping to find a life partner.

But young people are increasingly also choosing a career or the single life over the traditional family, and despite the stigma of being unmarried over 30, Haining explores a new trend for women to freeze their eggs so they can delay marriage and motherhood.

(Photo: Visitors participate in speed dating at the Shanghai Marriage Expo 2012. Credit: Peter Parks/AFP)

Haining Liu visits Shanghai to discover its growing allure for young people. Home to over 25 million people Shanghai is China's most populous city. Haining Liu discovers what draws those in their 20s and 30s to live, work and study in the city, and asks whether the cosmopolitan lifestyle is enough to keep them here in the face of rising property prices.

China’s leaders have big ambitions to make Shanghai a major global capital by 2020, hoping it will rival the likes of New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo and London in finance, culture and business. Glass sky scrapers, including the world's second tallest building, the Shanghai Tower, now make up the city’s iconic financial skyline, while its historic waterfront is being regenerated as a bustling cultural hub. But life can be tough in this crowded metropolis. High property prices, pollution and the pressure to juggle a career and family life are real challenges for young people.

Haining meets the Chinese entrepreneurs who have returned from America's Silicon Valley to grow their technology company, and she visits a shared living community for young people hoping to tackle high rent prices.

(Photo: A group of young Chinese walk past a billboard showing the Pudong financial district in Shanghai. Credit: Mark Falston/AFP/Getty Images)

Fi Glover, Martha Lane Fox and Henrietta Moore are on the hunt for solutions to the world’s problems. Their aim is to create the perfect country made up of the best global policies that actually work. In this episode, the panel hear the voices, opinions and criticisms of the World Service audience. Together, they debate how the perfect country is shaping up.

Today, smoking is the leading cause of preventable death. It leads to around six million deaths per year, and trends show that will rise to more than eight million by 2030.

Australians are ditching cigarettes at record levels, and it is down to the fact that they have some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking laws. Each year they clamp down further on smoking in public places. They now target the tiny corners that other nations might overlook – from playgrounds to railway platforms to taxi ranks. They also have some of the world’s most expensive cigarette prices, strict laws on plain packaging and a heavily curated, million dollar media campaign. Most recently, the government have invested in a digital mobile phone app that acts as a personal support buddy on a smoker’s journey to quitting.

However, these laws are under fire from critics who question the right of governments to control behaviours. They are seen as infringements on rights to freedom and privacy – and lead smokers to feel marginalised from society. This criticism reached a climax when recent attempts to ban smoking in prisons led to some of the worst riots in recent history.

Drawing evidence from experts and the smokers across Sydney who are affected by these policies, Martha Lane Fox and Henrietta Moore – together with Sara Hitchman of the International Tobacco Control Project - debate whether Australia have cracked the solution to curb smoking.

(Photo: Tar figures placed in the CBD, Sydney, to raise awareness of the damage smoking causes to the body, 2011. Credit: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)

In Shanghai, students are better at maths than anywhere else in the world. According to the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment, Shanghai maths students are three years ahead of the PISA average. That means a 15-year-old in Shanghai is better at maths than most 18-year-olds in the UK. And, 55% of students are considered ‘top performers’.

Behind these impressive results is the Shanghai ‘mastery’ approach to teaching maths, which assumes every pupil can be a maths master. There is no streaming according to ability, the highly trained, specialist teacher moves slowly through topics and does not move on until every single pupil gets it. And, so the foundations are laid for a rock solid mathematical understanding.

But with criticisms levelled at the high-pressure Asian schooling system, where success is often underpinned by hours of homework and extra tuition, is the mastery maths method an approach our imagined perfect country should adopt?

Based on the testimonies of teachers, parents and pupils recorded in Shanghai, as well as in a UK school that has adopted the Shanghai mastery maths method, the team discuss the pros and cons with the help of Anne Watson, emeritus professor of Mathematics Education at Oxford University.

(Photo: Schoolboys solving a math problem in class at the Shanghai Number Eight High School. Credit: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images)