VoxTalks Economics
10
The economic consequences of living longer
<p>Recorded at the CEPR Annual Symposium in Paris. As we expect to live longer, what does this mean for the choices we make, and for the economy? What decisions will seniors be making about their later years, and do the opportunities given to them by society reflect their abilities, needs and ambitions? </p><p>In Paris Tim Phillips caught up with Martin Ellison of University of Oxford and Julian Ashwin of Maastricht University to talk about their work on the macroeconomic impact of longevity.</p>
How exchange rates responded to tariffs
<p>After Liberation Day, the dollar fell by 6%. We would usually expect tariffs to send exchange rates in the other direction. So what happened?</p><p>In another episode recorded at the CEPR Annual Symposium in Paris, Giancarlo Corsetti tells Tim Phillips about new research that shows how exchange rates are responding to US tariffs since 2018. When tariffs are expected and retaliation is swift, he argues, then market reactions reflect a repricing of long-run risk, rather than the text-book response we might expect.</p>
What's next for Trump’s tariffs?
<p>In 2025, the trade story was about tariffs. And that story isn’t over. Does anyone know what happens next? </p><p>Richard Baldwin of IMD Business School and CEPR was author of the chapter on tariffs in the CEPR Press book The Economic Consequences of The Second Trump Administration, and also of The Great Trade Hack, published by CEPR press in 2025. Gene Grossman of Princeton and CEPR analysed the legality of the Trump tariffs in a recent CEPR discussion paper.</p><p>So, at the CEPR Symposium in Paris, Tim Phillips asked both of them: What happens next?</p><p>D...
Is US debt sustainable?
<p>Another special episode recorded at the CEPR annual symposium in Paris.</p><p>When does the level of debt in the US become a problem for the economy, and for ordinary Americans? And when it does, what are the policy options to fix it?</p><p>That’s the topic of a Chapter in the CEPR book. The authors are Ugo Panizza of the Graduate Institute, Geneva and CEPR, and Antonio Fatás of INSEAD and CEPR. They talk to Tim Phillips about how recent policy – notably the One Big Beautiful Bill Act – is blowing up US debt and warn th...
Do stablecoins threaten financial stability?
<p>Stablecoins are digital tokens, pegged to a fiat currency. What could possibly go wrong?</p><p>For one type of stablecoin the answer is: plenty, according to Richard Portes. The founder and honorary president of CEPR is also co-chair of the European Systemic Risk Board Crypto Asset Task Force. In this role he has been investigating the risks of multi-issuer stablecoins in Europe. He tells Tim Phillips that, if one of these stablecoins hit trouble, US holders could use European regulation to recover their investment from the coin’s European reserves. And that, he argues, would be a threat to...
Can Europe defend itself?
<p>In another of our special episodes recorded at the CEPR annual Symposium, we ask: is it time for Europe to rearm?</p><p>The message from the US could not be clearer: it is time for European countries to take care of their own security. If Europe decides to rearm, it has the industrial base – but Moritz Schularick of the Kiel Institute and CEPR warns that it isn’t converting that capacity into credible deterrence. </p><p>Tim Phillips asks him what European rearmament could mean in practice: not just scaling up production but buying smarter and investing in next...
Has AI eaten the economics major?
<p>In another of our episodes recorded at the CEPR Paris Symposium, we ask: When Gen AI can do an undergraduate’s problem set in seconds, how should teaching, and the syllabus, respond? </p><p>Who better to answer this than Wendy Carlin of UCL and CEPR? Wendy – who has recently become Dame Wendy – was at the symposium to talk about her project to change economics teaching through the CORE Project, which more than 500 institutions use to teach introductory economics in a way that flips the standard textbook treatment on it head.</p><p>Recently Wendy and CORE have been working...
Trump, trade, and AI growth
<p>Another special episode recorded at the CEPR annual symposium in Paris. The Trump administration says it wants America to lead in AI, but what does that mean in practice for trade and productivity? Will AI make growth great again, or just inflate a short-term capital spending boom?</p><p>Gary Gensler of MIT and CEPR (also a former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission) unpacks the administration’s AI action plan, helps us work out what's happening to export controls, and untangles the deal-making geopolitics of AI hardware. </p>
The future of globalisation
At the CEPR annual Symposium in Paris we sat down with Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a distinguished fellow of CEPR, and a global authority on geopolitics and trade to discuss the profound changes in the multilateral order in 2025, how countries will adjust to this new normal – and whether the changes we have seen will ever be unwound.
A London economic consensus?
Who would be a policymaker right now? The list of economic problems that we need to solve ranges from “very difficult” to “existential”. An ambitious new book collects the ideas of many influential economists on how to approach these challenges. But can it avoid the mistakes of previous attempts to find an economic policy consensus?<br><br>Andrés Velasco and Tim Besley are two of the editors of The London Consensus. Tim Phillips joined them at The London School of Economics to ask why the book was created, how policymakers can use it, and whether we should be wary of econom...
