John Llewellyn On The Challenge Of Returning To Pre-COVID Output, MMT And Climate Change

In this episode, I talk with John Llewellyn. John is the co-founder of Llewellyn Consulting – a leading independent economic advisory firm. Before setting up the firm in 2009, John had various research roles including being the Global Chief Economist at Lehman Brothers, Head of International Forecasting and Policy Analysis at the OECD and teaching at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Cambridge. In this podcast, we discuss:

1. Forget talks of V-, W-shaped recoveries, it will take years to return to pre-COVID output
2. COVID adds to challenges of adapting to Fourth Industrial Revolution
3. Why haven’t real wages risen?
4. Are we mismeasuring growth, investment and productivity?
5. Why inflation won’t rise meaningfully
6. The pros and cons of MMT
7. The surprisingly good EU budget/recovery fund
8. Germany’s U-turn on frugality
9. The transition challenges of Brexit
10. China’s pressure cooker and India’s steady release
11. Climate change – a 5-degree temperature increase changes everything