VoxTalks Economics

Why are cities so keen to create their own technology clusters, and why is it so difficult? Bill Kerr of Harvard Business School tells Tim Phillips what economists know (and don't know) about where tech clusters come from.

An experiment in Haiti shows that people take more risks in the presence of religious images, even if there is less chance they will win. Emmanuelle Auriol tells Tim Phillips about the challenges that belief in a higher power presents for economic development.

When the industries that have sustained our cities decline, how can we regenerate urban areas? At the SUERF conference in Amsterdam, Tony Venables and Charles Goodhart tell Tim Phillips that redevelopment policies may have made regional inequality and social conflict worse.

In 2020, the UK and the EU will try to strike a post-Brexit deal in financial services. At the SUERF conference in Amsterdam, David Miles and Iain Begg explain to Tim Phillips what's at stake in the negotiations, and who would suffer most if there's no deal.

This year's Nobel prize celebrated the work of the economists who popularised randomised controlled trials, “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”. But is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Tim Phillips investigates. Picture © Nobel Media 2019. Illustration: Niklas Elmehed.

New research demonstrates what we all suspected: for decades, politicians have routinely used busy news days to bury unpopular announcements. Ruben Durante educates Tim Phillips in the politics of distraction.

Language skills for preschoolers help them achieve more when they get to school, but some parents are better than others at helping their kids to develop these skills. Denis Fougère and Carlo Barone tell Tim Phillips about a successful experiment in Paris to help less-educated parents spend time reading with their children.

Few countries tax their citizens' wealth annually, but Switzerland is one of them. Marius Brülhart tells Tim Phillips about a natural experiment in Switzerland's cantons that teaches us about how people would respond if more countries decided to tax wealth instead of income.

The mobile internet, promises to give us access to information anywhere, 24 hours a day. So how has it influenced trust in governments, politics, and politicians? Sergei Guriev tells Tim Phillips about how, all over the world, 3G has reduced trust in government and aided the rise of populism. 

We think about climate policies as moderating or interceding in markets.  But a new paper implies that when stock markets play a bigger part in the economy, polluting industries become cleaner. Tim Phillips asks Ralph De Haas of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development whether we already have a green finance initiative under our noses.