Professor Jeff Sachs discusses his new book 'The Ages of Globalization' with Professor Ian Goldin. We are justified to say that we are living through a new age of globalisation, which Professor Jeff Sachs calls the Digital Age. The hugely disruptive changes were already with us before Covid-19, but now we’ve been hurled head-first into the new age. It is marked by enormous geopolitical, technological, and environmental disruptions, posing great risks as well as opportunities. To understand the Digital Age better, it is enormously valuable to gain a historical perspective. Professor Jeff Sachs' new book The Ages of Globalization and this talk, explores the interactions of technology, geography, and institutions throughout human history, describing seven ages of globalisation and the nature of societal change from one age to the next.

Christophe Fraser of Oxford’s Big Data Institute, who advises the UK’s NHS COVID-19 Tracing app, and Prof Oliver Pybus discuss the opportunities and challenges of successfully applying new technologies to pandemics past, present, and future. The COVID-19 pandemic has become a defining event of the 21st century. New technologies such as ubiquitous smartphones and virus genome sequencing offer powerful new ways to understand virus transmission and to tackle the problem of epidemic spread. But can those new tools be deployed fast enough to make a real difference to public health? And can we balance the need for privacy with the life-saving benefits of understanding how transmission occurs?

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented disruptions to urban mobility systems across the globe yet also presented unique opportunities for people to drive less, walk/cycle more and reduce carbon emissions. Join Professor Tim Schwanen (Director of the Transport Studies Unit and Lead Researcher on the Oxford Martin Programme on Informal Cities), Dr Jennie Middleton (Senior Research Fellow in Mobilities and Human Geography in the Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford) and Professor Jim Hall (Professor of Climate and Environmental Risk, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford) as they discuss post-pandemic mobility futures in relation to the re-imagining of transport systems across different geographical scales and contexts.

Professor Ian Goldin, Professor of Globalisation and Development at Oxford University, discusses his new book 'Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years' Expert in globalisation and development, Professor Ian Goldin uses state-of-the-art maps to show humanity’s impact on the planet and demonstrate how we can save it and thrive as a species. He has traced the paths of peoples, cities, wars, climates and technologies on a global scale in his new book Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years, which he co-authored with Robert Muggah. In this book talk he will demonstrate the impact of climate change and rises in sea level on cities around the world, the truth about immigration, the future of population growth, trends in health and education, and the realities of inequality and how to end it.

Dr Julia Giese, Bank of England, discusses the impact of Covid-19 on the financial system and how banks can play their part in economic recovery. Date 14 October 2020, 12:30pm - 1:30pm Location Online Event Recording: COVID-19 has caused a global collapse in activity and loss of jobs that is probably unprecedented in its scale and speed. Small and large businesses across every country in the world have had to close their doors to customers and employees. The sharp accompanying decrease in firms’ revenues and households’ incomes will result in the first global recession since 2009. It will also present the global financial system with its largest stress event since at least the global financial crisis. Dr Julia Giese, Bank of England, and Professor Cameron Hepburn, INET Oxford, will discuss that banks are now part of the solution, rather than part of the problem, thanks to regulatory and institutional reforms over the past decade. Heeding the lessons from the Global Financial Crisis has paid dividends. They will outline some early lessons from the COVID-19 crisis for the financial system going forward. This talk is in conjunction with The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford and the Oxford Review of Economic Policy.

Professor Sarah Smith, Professor Almudena Sevilla and Professor Cameron Hepburn discuss the gender division of childcare during the covid-19 pandemic, and the impact of this on welfare and employment. The nature and scale of the shocks to the demand for, and the supply of, home childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic provide a unique opportunity to increase our understanding of the division of home labour and the determinants of specialisation within the household. Real-time data was collected on daily lives to document the impact of measures to control COVID-19 on UK families with children under the age of 12. This documented that these families have been doing the equivalent of a working week in childcare, with mothers bearing most of the burden. The additional hours of childcare done by women are less sensitive to their employment than they are for men, leaving many women juggling work and (a lot more) childcare, with likely adverse effects on their mental health and future careers. However, some households, those in which men have not been working, have taken greater steps towards an equal allocation, offering the prospect of sharing the burden of childcare more equally in the future. Join Professor Sarah Smith, Professor of Economics from the University of Bristol, Professor Almudena Sevilla, Professor in Economics and Public Policy at UCL, and Professor Cameron Hepburn where they will discuss the implications of these findings and what the future will hold. This talk is in conjunction with The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford and the Oxford Review of Economic Policy.

Carissa Véliz discusses her new book 'Privacy is Power', focusing on the importance of understanding how our data is used and how we can protect our privacy. Have you ever been denied insurance, a loan, or a job? Have you had your credit card number stolen? Do you have to wait too long when you call customer service? You might have the data economy to thank for all that and more. Digital technology is stealing our personal data and with it our power to make free choices. To reclaim that power, and our democracy, we must take back control of our personal data. Surveillance is undermining equality. We are being treated differently on the basis of our data. But what can we do? Join the author of Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data, Carissa Véliz and Professor Rasmus Nielsen, Lead Researcher on the Oxford Martin Programme on Misinformation, Science and Media, as they discuss the need to understand the power of data better, how we can start protecting our privacy and how we need regulation. It is time to pull the plug on the surveillance economy.

Professor E.J. Milner-Gulland and Professor Sir Charles Godfray discuss our relationship with nature, how it relates to the Covid-19 pandemic, and what we need to do differently in the future. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected both wildlife and our relationship to it. This includes calls to ban the wildlife trade, highlighting the relationship between conservation and public health, and what became of the “2020 biodiversity super-year”. Join Professor E.J. Milner-Gulland, Lead Researcher of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Illegal Wildlife Trade and Professor Sir Charles Godfray, Director of the Oxford Martin School as they discuss how wider economic shocks have affected the wildlife trade, particularly in Africa, and how to fulfil the bold targets for nature recovery (in the UK and globally). And how can Oxford contribute, both practically through its operations and through research and educational activities.

In this recorded talk, Professor Doyne Farmer and Maria del Rio-Chanona talk about their new paper on supply and demand shocks, and the impacts on society, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic is having an unprecedented impact on societies around the world. As governments mandate social distancing practices and instruct non-essential businesses to close to slow the spread of the outbreak, there is significant uncertainty about the effect such measures will have on lives and livelihoods. While demand for specific sectors such as healthcare has skyrocketed in recent months, other sectors such as air transportation and tourism have seen demand for their services evaporate. At the same time, many sectors are experiencing issues on the supply-side, as governments curtail the activities of non-essential industries. Which industries will suffer most from demand-side or supply-side shocks resulting from the pandemic? Which workers are most of risk of unemployment or reduced wage income? Who will be the winners and losers? Professor Doyne Farmer and Maria del Rio-Chanona will talk about their recent paper which estimated these shocks would threaten around 22% of the US economy's GDP, jeopardise 24% of jobs and reduce total wage income by 17% - while the potential impacts are a multiple of what was experienced during the global financial crisis, and perhaps comparable to the Great Depression. Aggressive fiscal and monetary policies are needed to minimise the impact of these shocks but the avoidance of endangering public health must be the priority. This talk is in conjunction with The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford and the Oxford Review of Economic Policy.

In this talk, Professor Chris Adam, Professor of Development Economics looks beyond the public health aspects of the pandemic to examine the medium-term macroeconomic adjustment challenge confronting domestic policy-makers and international donors. When the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, most of sub‑Saharan Africa went into lockdown. What happens next for the pandemic across Africa remains uncertain, but the combination of domestic lockdowns and the spill-over from the global recession means immediate and severe economic hardship. Prof Chris Adam will discuss epidemiological and macroeconomic models to calibrate the scale of the combined shock to a representative low-income African economy and to show how alternative policy options for slowing transmission of Covid-19 impact on public revenue, and on GDP in the short run, and hence shape the path to recovery. Noting that the first lockdown, however costly, does not by itself eliminate the likelihood of a re-emergence of the epidemic, he will then lay out the agenda for key macroeconomic and public finance policies to sustain recovery, growth, and poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa. This talk is in partnership with The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford and the Oxford Review of Economic Policy.