S9 Ep34: Making defence spending pay
Defence spending is rising whether voters like it or not. The UK has committed to 2.5% of national income and aims for nearer 3.5% over the...
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VoxTalks
Learn about groundbreaking new research, commentary and policy ideas from the world's leading economists. Presented by Tim Phillips.
VoxTalks Podcast Guide
Listen to VoxTalks, a Science & Medicine podcast. Stream 461 episodes in English, follow new audio stories, and play episodes online on Radio and Podcast.
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S9 Ep33: Did the Sewing Machine Liberate Women?
In January 1860 the New York Times gave its blessing to a new machine: the sewing machine. These "iron needle-women", it wrote, were the onl...
S9 Ep32: The digital money supply
Every day, billions of transactions settle between strangers who have no idea which bank the other uses. That lack of friction is not automa...
S9 Ep31: How well does patent screening work?
Someone once held a patent on the swing. A piece of wood. Two ropes. The US Patent Office granted it. How often does that actually happen, a...
S9 Ep30: Redefining the monetary standard
The fiat money system has survived the Great Inflation, the global financial crisis, and a pandemic. But can it survive digital currencies?...
S9 Ep29: Guns and Butter
Europe's NATO members have pledged 3.5% of GDP to rearmament. The political argument is already about which social programmes will be sacrif...
S9 Ep28: Immigration and integration in Europe
More than one in eight people living in the EU today was born in another country. In fourteen of the bloc's largest economies, it is closer...
S9 Ep27: The right to choose to die
Content note: this episode discusses assisted dying, end-of-life choices, and suicide. Some listeners may find the content distressing. In A...
S9 Ep26: The public origins of American innovation
The standard story of American innovation features Silicon Valley, venture capital, and the heroic startup founder.When you trace the histor...
S9 Ep25: Rebalancing the Chinese economy
In 2003, Premier Wen Jiabao warned that China's growth model was unbalanced between supply and demand, over-reliant on investment and export...
S9 Ep24: Stablecoins and Global Imbalances
A radical macroeconomic experiment is under way at exactly the moment the US external position is showing signs of real stress. Gilles Moëc,...
S9 Ep23: Global imbalances redux
Three times since the 1970s, global imbalances have grown large. In the 1980s, the US trade deficit ballooned under Volcker's tight money an...
S9 Ep22: World War Trade
On 2 April 2025, the United States imposed tariffs on almost every country on earth. The next day, China responded with export controls on t...
S9 Ep21: The Bank of England's capital mistake?
"When you look at the world now, does it look more uncertain or less uncertain?" In December 2025, the Bank of England's Financial Policy Co...
S9 Ep20: What triggered January 6?
Two explanations circulated immediately after the March to Save America on January 6, 2021 turned into a riot: a mob manipulated by a demago...
S9 Ep19: Can blockchain decentralise money, contracts, and finance?
Every Bitcoin transaction needs to be verified on the blockchain. There is no central authority that does this, but Bitcoin's blockchain has...
S9 Ep18: Will AI transform economic growth?
Could AI transform our economies to produce explosive growth? Most economists are sceptical at best. Anton Korinek of the University of Virg...
S9 Ep17: Sanctions and financial repression
Financial repression forces banks and citizens to hold government debt on terms the market would never accept. Economists have called it dis...
S9 Ep16: What's next for Ukraine: The labour market
Ukraine has lost close to a quarter of its civilian workforce since the invasion. Three and a half million workers left government-controlle...
S9 Ep15: What's next for Ukraine: Reconstruction
Ukraine's cities were failing long before the Russian invasion began. Kyiv and Lviv ranked among the 40 most congested cities in the world,...