VoxTalk Vaults

John Van Reenen interviewed by Romesh Vaitilingam, 05 March 2010

How important are management practices in driving the performance of firms and the productivity of nations across Asia, Europe and North America? John Van Reenen, director of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the London School of Economics, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about CEP’s research programme on the economics of management and productivity. The interview was recorded in London in February 2010.

Tim Besley interviewed by Romesh Vaitilingam, 26 February 2010

Tim Besley of the London School of Economics – and a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) – talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the idea of creating a politically neutral, expert body to ensure the proper long-term scrutiny of a country’s public finances – by analogy with the UK’s MPC, a Fiscal Policy Committee. The interview was recorded in London in February 2010.

Paul Seabright interviewed by Viv Davies, 19 February 2010

Paul Seabright of the Toulouse School of Economics talks to Viv Davies about a new CEPR report, Bailing out the Banks, which analyses state-supported schemes for financial institutions in the current crisis and the need to reconcile the potentially conflicting policy goals of financial stability and competition in the banking industry. The interview was recorded in London in February 2010.

Josh Lerner interviewed by Romesh Vaitilingam, 12 February 2010

Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School talks to Vox about sovereign wealth funds, which are the focus of a chapter in his new book, Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed – and What to Do About It. The interview was recorded in London in January 2010.

Joel Mokyr interviewed by Romesh Vaitilingam, 05 February 2010

Joel Mokyr of Northwestern University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his book, The Enlightened Economy, which argues that we cannot understand the Industrial Revolution without recognising the importance of the intellectual sea changes of Britain’s Age of Enlightenment. They discuss the importance of cultural beliefs for the pursuit of economic growth in today’s developing countries. The interview was recorded in San Francisco in January 2009.

Joel Waldfogel interviewed by Romesh Vaitilingam, 29 January 2010

Joel Waldfogel of the University of Minnesota talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the economics of digital media, including: music file sharing (both illegal and legal) and the impact on artists and record labels; the threat that intellectual property piracy poses to the movie business; and the future of books and newspapers in the digital age. The interview was recorded in London in December 2009.

Mike Young interviewed by Romesh Vaitilingam, 22 January 2010

Mike Young, executive director of the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about how Australia has responded to the big shock to its water supply – through new regulations, through technological solutions, through public education and through the introduction of market mechanisms. The interview was recorded at the Global Economic Symposium in Schleswig-Holstein in September 2009.

Anne Murphy interviewed by Romesh Vaitilingam, 15 January 2010

Anne Murphy, lecturer in history at the University of Hertfordshire and associate director of the Centre for Financial History at Newnham College, Cambridge, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about her new book ‘The Origins of English Financial Markets: Investment and Speculation before the South Sea Bubble’. The interview was recorded in London in January 2010.

Pablo Guidotti interviewed by Romesh Vaitilingam, 08 January 2010

Pablo Guidotti, Director of the School of Government at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella and former deputy minister of finance in Argentina, talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the challenges facing monetary and fiscal policy-makers as they plan their exit strategies from the extraordinary measures taken to deal with the global crisis. The interview was recorded at the Global Economic Symposium in Schleswig-Holstein in September 2009.

Jonathan Morduch interviewed by Romesh Vaitilingam, 18 December 2009

Jonathan Morduch of New York University talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his new book, Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day – co-authored with Daryl Collins, Stuart Rutherford and Orlanda Ruthven – which reports on the yearlong ‘financial diaries’ of villagers and slum dwellers in Bangladesh, India, and South Africa. The interview was recorded in New York in August 2009.