The Economics Show

US President Donald Trump has frozen all foreign aid payments, while Elon Musk is putting America’s biggest development agency, USAID, “through the woodchipper”. Meanwhile, the UK government has just announced it will slash its aid budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of GDP. So are the days of generous programmes to promote health and education in the poorest nations now over? And should we fear that rising authoritarian powers, most notably China, are stepping into the breach with their own funds and parallel institutions? In an interview recorded just before the UK’s announcement, Alan Beattie speaks to economist Minouche Shafik, who is a veteran of the international development scene. She has worked at the World Bank, IMF, and the UK’s Department for International Development. And she is not optimistic. Alan writes the Trade Secrets newsletter. You can sign up here [https://ep.ft.com/newsletters/subscribe?newsletterIds=593150d2dea7360004bce4db]. He is on Bluesky at @alanbeattie.bsky.social.  Subscribe on Apple [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-economics-show-with-soumaya-keynes/id1746352576], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/64rPqCkSSBkuSJpkMLRe9i?si=70c1cb4221e54c9a], Pocket Casts [https://pca.st/6ysdzw0j] or wherever you listen. Presented by Alan Beattie. Produced by Laurence Knight. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer. Audio mix and original music by Breen Turner. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.  Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com [https://www.ft.com/content/9b4b6683-aa98-45e5-9917-b605b855ae2c] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Donald Trump’s tariffs are a twentieth century tool that simply won’t work in the 21st century global trading system. That’s the view of today’s guest, Richard Baldwin, professor of international economics at the IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland. Speaking to the FT’s Martin Wolf, Baldwin explains how the shift towards global manufacturing supply chains since the 1990s, and the more recent explosion in digital services exports, mean that the impact of across-the-board import taxes such as the ones proposed by the new US administration will be counterproductive and much more limited than in the past. Nonetheless, should we still worry about the harm that Trump’s policies may be doing to the global trading system, and how should other countries respond? Martin Wolf is chief economics commentator at the Financial Times. You can find his column here [https://www.ft.com/martin-wolf] Subscribe to The Economics Show on Apple [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-economics-show-with-soumaya-keynes/id1746352576], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/64rPqCkSSBkuSJpkMLRe9i?si=70c1cb4221e54c9a], Pocket Casts [https://pca.st/6ysdzw0j] or wherever you listen. Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com [https://www.ft.com/content/1b83b8e0-4831-45c6-826d-34fcb18fb267] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Birth rates are falling fast and not just in highly developed countries. And as populations age, it’s becoming harder to fund pensions or raise labour productivity. But falling fertility could also be harming social cohesion and impeding the innovation needed to solve problems such as climate change. Today on the show, John Burn-Murdoch talks to Alice Evans, a senior lecturer at King’s College, London, and the author of the newsletter, The Great Gender Divergence. Together, they try to figure out why fewer people are choosing to have children, or even coupling up in the first place, and what should be done about it.  John Burn-Murdoch writes a column each week for the Financial Times. You can find it here [https://www.ft.com/john-burn-murdoch] Subscribe on Apple [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-economics-show-with-soumaya-keynes/id1746352576], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/64rPqCkSSBkuSJpkMLRe9i?si=70c1cb4221e54c9a], Pocket Casts [https://pca.st/6ysdzw0j] or wherever you listen. Presented by John Burn-Murdoch. Produced by Edith Rousselot. The editor is Bryant Urstadt. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer. Audio mix and original music by Breen Turner. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.  Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com [https://www.ft.com/content/cef1c8b4-b278-425a-88b4-99d37bd4439b] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The war in Ukraine is a humanitarian crisis. It is also an economic problem. Sanctions from the US and Europe are meant to make war too expensive for Russia to continue. President Vladimir Putin claims those sanctions have failed and his economy is strong. But what is propaganda and what is reality? Today on the show, host Martin Sandbu poses these questions to Sergei Guriev, dean of the London Business School, and an economic adviser to Russian opposition figures, as they try to figure out what is really going on in Russia’s economy.  Martin Sandbu is a columnist for the Financial Times, and writes the Free Lunch newsletter. You can find it here: https://www.ft.com/free-lunch [https://www.ft.com/free-lunch].   Subscribe to Soumaya's show on Apple [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-economics-show-with-soumaya-keynes/id1746352576], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/64rPqCkSSBkuSJpkMLRe9i?si=70c1cb4221e54c9a], Pocket Casts [https://pca.st/6ysdzw0j] or wherever you listen. Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com [https://www.ft.com/content/4de96c7c-4cc1-46ac-a0ad-355d6b21765b] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Productivity growth in the developed world has been on a downward trend since the 1960s. Meanwhile, gains in life expectancy have also slowed. And yet the number of dollars and researchers dedicated to R&D grows every year. In today’s episode, the FT’s Chief Data Reporter, John Burn-Murdoch, asks whether western culture has lost its previous focus on human progress and become too risk-averse, or whether the problem is simply that the low-hanging fruit of scientific research has already been plucked. He does so in conversation with innovation economist Matt Clancy, who is the author of the New Things Under the Sun blog, and a research fellow at Open Philanthropy, a non-profit foundation based in San Francisco that provides research grants. John Burn-Murdoch writes a column each week for the Financial Times. You can find it here [https://www.ft.com/john-burn-murdoch] Subscribe on Apple [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-economics-show-with-soumaya-keynes/id1746352576], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/64rPqCkSSBkuSJpkMLRe9i?si=70c1cb4221e54c9a], Pocket Casts [https://pca.st/6ysdzw0j] or wherever you listen. Presented by John Burn-Murdoch. Produced by Edith Rousselot. The editor is Bryant Urstadt. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer. Audio mix and original music by Breen Turner. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com [https://www.ft.com/content/f40e5cac-7f2d-40e3-b8b5-a9bfdccbfcad] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.