Why you should watch: Stephen Roach is one of America's foremost economists. He is deeply pessimistic on chances of the US avoiding a 'double dip' recession, and is equally sceptical about the ability of the dollar to maintain its primacy in the face of the US's economic problems. On China, he is convinced that the Trump Administration is misguided - though he concedes that bashing Beijing has bipartisan support. 

Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) 

Stephen Roach is a Senior Fellow at Yale's Jackson Institute, where he has been for the last 11 years after a distinguished career on Wall St. He began (after a PhD at NYU) as a researcher at the Fed, moved to Morgan Guaranty and thence to Morgan Stanley, ending up as chief economist and Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia. He writes extensively for Project Syndicate. Among his books, the most recent is Unbalanced: The codependency of the US and China. 

Why you should watch: Last month, two of the UK's most senior lawyers, Dame Elizabeth Gloster and Guy Beringer, published a letter in the FT urging the government to provide the sort of support for the UK's dispute resolution system that it already does for, say, the film and fashion industries. After all, English law is crucial to the UK economy - and there is no doubt that it is under challenge from NY law, from Brexit and from the development of local alternatives not least in Asia. Liz and Guy explain what they want, and why. And Simon Gleeson adds his own contribution to a topic that will become increasingly important. 

Dame Elizabeth Gloster, currently a senior arbitrator, is a former Judge of the Appeals Court, head of the Commercial Court and Vice-president of the Civil Division. She was appointed to the Privy Council in 2013, and is currently preparing a report into the LCF affair. 

Guy Beringer QC is a former senior partner at Allen and Overy, a non-exec at HM Courts Services and a panel member of the Cooperation and Competition Panel. He is also chairman of the Legal Education Foundation and an Adjunct Professor at Imperial College Business School. 

Simon Gleeson is a partner at Clifford Chance, chairman of the Institute for International Finance's cross-border resolution committee, a Visiting Professor at Edinburgh and a Visiting Fellow at All Souls. 

Why you should watch: Just how unique are the problems facing the financial system as a result of the Covid pandemic? Is it truly existential? Or are there lessons which can be learned from previous crises - going back to May Day, Big Bang and the GFC? And to what extent should we be willing to put the crisis ahead of other priorities - from AI to climate change? A wide-ranging discussion with three senior figures whose experience goes back fifty years or more.

Sir David Scholey was Chairman of (inter alia)  SG Warburg, Warburg Becker, SBC Warburg, Mercury Securities, and Close Brothers. He is also a former Director of the London Symphony Orchestra and INSEAD, a former Governor of the BBC and NIESR, and a former Trustee of the Barbican, Glyndebourne and the National Portrait Gallery.

Christine Downton is a former Chief Executive of Natwest Investment Management, County Natwest and County Bank. She is also the founding partner of Pareto Partners, and Chair of the Learning Trust. In 1986, she achieved immortality (in Wired) by having her brain downloaded by Hughes Research Lab in California - one of the first AI ventures in the investment management space.

Brian Scott-Quinn is the Chairman of the ICMA (formerly ISMA) Centre at the University of Reading, which he set up after a City career that included spells as Finance Director at both Ross & Partners and Drexel Burnham Lambert. He has just completed a book on the finance industry's contribution to sustainability.

Modern Monetary Theory builds on something pretty obvious - that countries which print their own money and don't incur debts in foreign currencies don't go broke. It takes that truism and builds a different way of looking at government's role - and particularly at the constraints that governments face when making spending decisions. For MMT adherents, it makes sense for governments to go on spending productively until they hit a resource constraint - usually, until all 'surplus' labour is gainfully occupied, either in the private sector or through a public job creation scheme.. One of the leading exponents of MMT is Prof Randall Wray, from Bard College, and in this interview (with Andrew Hilton) he talks about MMT and the pandemic, its link to the Green New Deal, and how it is seeping into mainstream economics.

Prof Randall Wray is Professor of Economics at Bard College in NY State, and a Senior Scholar at the Levy Institute of Economics. He has a PhD from Washington University in St Louis, where he worked with Hyman Minsky, and taught for many years at the University of Missouri - Kansas City, where much of the academic work on MMT was first done. He is the author of a number of books, including Understanding Modern Money (1998), Modern Money Theory (2012), and A Great Leap Forward: Heterodox economic policy for the C21 (2020).

The International Financial Architecture: Fit for purpose?

Covid19 is a massive blow to the real economy - but how is the financial system coping? Better or worse than the GFC? And how are we going to unwind the massive increase in both public and private debt? Should banks and governments be thinking now about a coordinated approach (perhaps through the FSB) to what's going to happen when they find themselves equity owners of thousands of companies - both big and small - that have only been propped up by government largesse? An open-ended discussion with the former Deputy Comptroller of the Currency, and US representative on the Basel Committee.

Charles Taylor was Deputy Comptroller at the OCC from  2011 to 2016, during which time he also chaired the Basel Committee's Standards Implementation Group. He then became Executive Fellow at the US Treasury's Office of Financial Research and is now a Visiting Scholar at GW Law School in DC. Prior to joining the OCC, he headed the Pew Trust's Financial Reform Project, was Executive Director of the Group of 30, and worked with a number of major consultancies. He began his career at the World Bank. 

Exiting the Covid economy - babies and bathwater

Why you should watch:

On July 18, Prof Andrew Oswald published a letter in the FT, highlighting misplaced fears about the coronavirus, particularly fears among the under-50s for whom this really is not the existential health threat that the media tends to suggest. As he put it, 'fear kills economies' - and we are in danger of killing the economy (and the economic prospects of a younger generation) if we go on the way we are going. This interview with Professor Oswald and with Kevin Gardner focuses on the need for much better (and more transparent) information, and for much greater involvement by economists in any exit strategy; over-reliance on epidemiologists has inflicted greater pain than was really necessary.

Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)

Panellists:

Prof Andrew Oswald is Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at the University of Warwick, which he joined from LSE in 1996. He is a specialist in labour economics and in the 'economics of human well-being'. Recent work includes papers on the post-Covid recovery strategy, individual Covid fatality rates and the case for releasing the young from lockdown.

Kevin Gardner is Global Investment Strategist at Rothschild Wealth Management, which he joined in 2014. He previously held senior positions at Barclays and HSBC.

Libra, Novi and the future of global payments

Why you should watch:

This is a seriously high-powered discussion with three of the major figures behind the Libra initiative - and with a highly knowledgeable sceptic to ask the sort of tough questions that they will have to answer if, indeed, Libra is going to live up to its billing as a global game-changer. Worth a detour...

Moderator: Andrew Hilton (CSFI)

Panellists:

Dante Disparte is Vice-chair and Head of Policy and Communications at the Libra Association. He is also Founder and Chairman of the Risk Cooperative, Chair of the Business Council for American Security and a columnist at Forbes.  

Christian Catalini is chief economist at Libra, on secondment to the Libra Association. He is also the Theodore Miller Professor at MIT's Sloan School, and an Associate Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University, as well as a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER. He is the founder of MIT's Cryptoeconomics Lab.

Matthew Davie is Chief Strategy Officer at Kiva one of the world's leading micro-lenders, and a Board Member of the Libra Association. He is also an advisor to the Linux Foundation.

Tim Jones is Executive Director of Tata Ltd, representing the Tata Group in London.  He was the developer of two payment systems, Purseus and Tibado, and is a former Head of the retail bank at Natwest - where he was also responsible for the development of Mondex.

Insurance and the pandemic: what's the way forward?

Why you should watch:  

While much attention has been focused on the issues around business interruption insurance (and the damage that can do to the industry's reputation), insurers have actually done pretty well at maintaining payouts through a time of great stress. But this is (in many eyes) a 'systemic' problem, rather than a run-of-the-mill 'catastrophe' - and that inevitably means a bigger role for government. Should there be a Pandemic Re?  But maybe the next crisis will not be another pandemic; maybe it will be a massive cyber attack or terrorism.  How do we write policies going forward that are precise enough to satisfy the lawyers, but flexible enough to cover risks that are rapidly evolving? And what about the reinsurance industry; will it continue to follow the industry, or will it say 'no mas'? A fascinating discussion with five industry leaders.

Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)

Panellists:

Julian Enoizi is CEO of Pool Re, the government-back terrorism reinsurer. He is a former CEO of CNA Europe, Argo International and Prosight. He is a Board member of the OECD's  International Network on the Management of Catastrophes.

James Dalton is Director of General Insurance, and a member of the Executive Team,  at the ABI. He is also Director of the Insurance Fraud Bureau.

Cheng Li Yow is a Partner in the Financial Institutions Corporate Group at Clifford Chance, specialising in insurance regulation and environmental risk.

Shirley Beglinger is an advisory board member at Crescendo Advisors and a director at the Shires Partnership. She is a former Insurance Fellow at the CSFI.

Oliver Ralph is Insurance Correspondent at the Financial Times.  He is a former editor at the Investors Chronicle.

Sustainable Finance Review

Why you should watch: 

Our usual monthly wrap of what is going on in the sustainability space - with particular focus on climate change. Lots on the regulatory front - from the UK, Singapore, the US and Australia. And the BoE gets ahead of the pack by assessing its own bond portfolio - albeit not (yet) its gilts portfolio. Plus new warming metrics for commercial portfolios., and a lively discussion on funding coal projects.

Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI0

Panellists:

Ben Caldecott is founding director of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme and an associate professor at the Smith School. He is also a member of the UK Green Finance Taskforce, a co-chair of the Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment and an advisor on COP26.

Pippa Gawley is founder and director a Zero Carbon Capital, a CleanTech investor in the UK and US,. She is a member of several angel investor networks on both sides of the Atlantic.

Chris Faint is a Head of Division at the Bank of England, where he heads up the Climate Hub and coordinates the Bank's work on climate change.. He was previously private secretary to the Deputy Governor.

China and the UK: Geopolitics, Economics and Finance. A discussion with Nigel Inkster (ex-MI6), George Magnus (Oxford China Centre) and Matthew Rous (China-Britain Business Council)

Why you should watch:  

Three all-world experts discuss the key issue of the day: How to handle China - if we can. What does China want? Does it have the means to get what it wants? How vulnerable are we in the UK to a trade war with China? And what (if anything) can we expect from a change of Administration in Washington?

Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)

Panellists:

Nigel Inkster is a director at Enodo Consulting and a senior advisor at the IISS - of which he was latterly Director of Transnational Threats and Political Risk. He is a former Director of Operations and Intelligence for MI6, and the author of an important book on China's cyber power. His next book, 'The Great Decoupling', is due out at the end of this year.

George Magnus is currently a Senior Associate at Oxford's China Centre and at SOAS. He is a former chief economist at UBS and SG Warburg. His latest book is 'Red Flags: Why Xi's China is in Jeopardy'.

Matthew Rous is CEO of the China-Britain Business Council, which has 13 offices throughout China and which recently published an important report (with Cambridge Econometrics) on the benefits business with China brings to the UK. He is a former diplomate, whose last posting was as Consul-general in Guangzhou.