Economics and Society

Rajiv Prabhakar, author of 'Financial Inclusion', outlines some of the reasons for the tensions between academics and policy makers, and calls for a better understanding of how these groups can help each other, whether in the field of financial inclusion or COVID-19 public health policy.…Read more

Following the publication of ‘The Age of Low Tech’, Philippe Bihouix explains the concept of shifting baselines and argues that we need the absolute decoupling of economic growth and resource consumption.…Read more

Farhang Morady, author of ‘Contemporary Iran: Politics, Economy, Religion’, outlines the cumulative economic effects of sanctions, COVID-19 and government mismanagement on an already shattered economy, but draws hope from the imminent US elections and from regime change in Iran.…Read more

Gordon Pearson, author of 'Remaking the Real Economy', explains how political economic decisions need to be based on real knowledge and understanding of how the three different layers of the economy work, to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.…Read more

Stewart Lansley, co-editor of 'It's Basic Income: The Global Debate', explains that it's time to end benefits sanctions and review the balance of rights and duties across society.…Read more

Malcolm Torry, author of 'Why We Need a Citizen’s Basic Income', discusses how the coronavirus crisis has exacerbated already existing employment and income insecurity and how this has led to the increasing interest in a Citizen’s Basic Income: an unconditional income for every individual. …Read more

Michiel Van Oudheusden, Fabien Medvecky and Stevienna de Saille, co-authors of 'Responsibility Beyond Growth', discuss people's hopes for durable change after lockdown and why it's important to bring political and economic realities into debates about our ‘post-COVID’ future.…Read more

Leigh Gardner and Tirthankar Roy, authors of 'The Economic History of Colonialism', examine the relationship between colonialism and economic development, and challenge the assumption that the way colonial governments worked, and the effects that they left behind, had more to do with the aims and capacities of European states than with the regions they ruled over.…Read more

John Morrissey, Associate Director of the Moore Institute for Humanities at the National University of Ireland, Galway, explores the flimsy construction of neoliberalism and argues that now is the time to take stock of what an economy is actually for.…Read more

Jess Miles speaks with Erik Andersson, author of 'Reconstructing the Global Political Economy', about the impact of COVID-19 and how we interpret it, having hope, what we value, avoiding more austerity and what lessons we should be learning.…Read more