IMF Podcasts

Never underestimate the value of a good idea. Ideas are the starting point for innovation; few things fuel economic growth more than innovation. However, most of today’s innovators emerge from a narrow demographic group with specific backgrounds, which Xavier Jaravel says creates the phenomena of “Lost Einsteins” and “Lost Marie Curies". Jaravel is a professor of economics at the London School of Economics. In this podcast, he talks about the benefits of unleashing untapped talent and broadening the pool of innovators worldwide. Transcript: https://bit.ly/4j5jrTS Read the article at IMF.org/fandd

Economists have long surmised that people’s knowledge and skills contribute significantly to economic development, but to what degree can access to an education change lives? Amory Gethin has compiled data from surveys from more than 150 countries to measure what economists have never measured before: the correlation between education and individual incomes. Gethin is an economist in the World Bank Development Research Group working on growth and inequality and has sought to quantify the economic value of education as it relates to global poverty reduction. In this podcast, Gethin says investing in education advances those who pursue degrees and those who don’t. Transcript: https://bit.ly/4iFzYOl

While we like to think our financial decisions are based on logic, the truth is, they are largely driven by emotion. So when John Maynard Keynes looked for methods to measure economic fluctuations, animal spirits were a key ingredient. Karthik Sastry is a macroeconomist and assistant professor at Princeton University. In this podcast, he says personal instincts and primal urges are known to cause cycles of boom and bust, and one way to gauge those emotions is through economic narratives. Sastry is coauthor with Joel Flynn of How Animal Spirits Affect the Economy published in Finance and Development magazine. Transcript: https://bit.ly/43HkuoB Read the article at IMF.org/fandd

Modern economics was built on ideas spelled out by Adam Smith in his 18th-century The Wealth of Nations. But while he used the term only once in that economic treatise, Smith is most remembered for “the invisible hand,” a metaphor Oren Cass says has wrongly been associated with the idea that the pursuit of profit is always socially beneficial and that markets are somehow magically guided by that principal. Cass is the founder and chief economist at American Compass. In this podcast, he says the contortion of Smith’s idea led to a blind faith in markets, whereas “the invisible hand” was about ensuring the alignment between private profit and the public interest.  Transcript: https://bit.ly/3DdWizp Read the article in Finance and Development: IMF.org/FANDD

Driving Change: Women-Led Development Economics from the Ground Up The International Economic Association’s Women in Leadership in Economics Initiative (IEA-WE) connects women economists worldwide and helps showcase their important empirical research, especially in developing countries. IMF Podcasts has partnered with the IEA-WE to produce a special series featuring the economists behind the invaluable local research that informs policymakers in places often overlooked. This episode of Driving Change features Bangladeshi economist Rumana Huque, whose research into the real costs of tobacco consumption is prompting a rethink of the country’s tobacco tax system. Transcript: https://bit.ly/3QzmCqP Other episodes include Kenyan economist Rose Ngugi, whose indices help local counties design policies that work, Colombian economics Professor Marcela Eslava, whose research looks to fix Latin America’s dysfunctional social security network, and Ipek Illkaracan who makes the business case for investing in social care infrastructure. Special thanks to IEA editor Navika Mehta for this collaboration.  

The pandemic was a brutal reminder of how crucial public health systems are, yet health budgets in many countries are still underfunded. Developing economies generally do not allocate sufficient domestic resources to health and external financing is becoming increasingly difficult to secure. Sanjeev Gupta is a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development and coauthor with Victoria Fan of How to Heal Health Financing, published in Finance and Development magazine. In this podcast, Gupta says greater revenue collection and improved budget execution would strengthen health systems in low-income countries and reduce the need for foreign assistance. Transcript: https://bit.ly/4hRwZSP Read the article in Finance and Development: IMF.org/fandd

Countries with better institutions are more prosperous. A truism perhaps, but then why are they so hard to build and sustain? That is the question that Simon Johnson has sought to explain since the fall of communism and the basis for the research that won him the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Johnson, a former IMF chief economist, now a professor at MIT in the Sloan School of Management, shares the award with James Robinson and Daron Acemoglu, who’s also coauthor of his latest book Power and Progress, which challenges the assumption that technology equals progress. In this podcast, Johnson says when controlled by a select few, tech innovation can be self-serving and risk undermining the institutions that make it possible. Transcript: https://bit.ly/4b2V1aV

As urbanization continues to grow worldwide, affordable housing is a rare commodity in many cities. Sao Paolo­, South America’s biggest city, has gained over 2 million new residents in the past decade alone. Elizabeth Johnson heads Brazil research at TS Lombard and has been studying Sao Paolo’s latest attempt at strengthening its housing strategy. In this podcast, Johnson says the city looked to its largely abandoned downtown core to address its housing woes. Transcript: https://bit.ly/4fuFBNj Read the article in Finance and Development: IMF.org/fandd

While housing markets play a significant role in economies, new research shows houses across 40 countries are less affordable than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis. IMF economist Deniz Igan helped develop the Housing Affordability Index. In this podcast, she says the pandemic triggered an unusual sequence of events that housing markets around the world are still struggling to correct.  Transcript: https://bit.ly/49AeK0N Read the article in Finance and Development: IMF.org/fandd

Driving Change: Women-Led Development Economics from the Ground Up The International Economic Association’s Women in Leadership in Economics Initiative (IEA-WE) connects women economists worldwide and helps showcase their important empirical research, especially in developing countries. IMF Podcasts has partnered with the IEA-WE to produce a special series featuring the economists behind the invaluable local research that informs policymakers in places often overlooked. Driving Change kicks off this limited-run series from Turkey, with economist Ipek Ilkkaracan, who makes a strong business case for investing in social care infrastructure. Other episodes include Kenyan economist Rose Ngugi, whose indices help local counties design policies that work, and Colombian economics Professor Marcela Eslava, whose research looks to fix Latin America’s dysfunctional social security network. Transcript: https://bit.ly/3CQFQVq  Special thanks to IEA editor Navika Mehta for this collaboration.