VoxTalks Economics VoxTalks

If the climate crosses any of a number of tipping points, what are the implications for climate finance? Tipping points are large, probably irreversible, changes in nature that may occur as a result of the increase in global temperature. Worse, crossing one tipping point may cause a cascade of others. Alissa and Tim’s talk to Tim Lenton, one of the authors of the Global Tipping Points Report, and Patrick Bolton to discuss how Climate Finance struggles to price the risk of tipping points.

The #MeToo movement inspired many professions, and the men who work in those professions, to reflect on whether female colleagues were treated fairly. Economics had its own highly visible, and sometimes controversial, #MeToo moment. What has been the impact of #MeToo on patterns of co-authorship? Noriko Amano-Patino, Elisa Faraglia and Chryssi Giannitsarou deliver good and bad news to Tim Phillips. 

Which firms are infiltrated by organised crime, and why? We know that organised crime has links to some firms in the legal economy. But how big is this infiltration, and what do they gain from it? Rocco Macchiavello tells Tim Phillips about which firms are infiltrated, how this occurs – and what the crime families have to gain.

Next week, there will be EU elections across Europe. Later this year, there is a closely fought election in the US. As traditional political right-left allegiances break down, what is influencing the way we vote? Andrés Rodríguez-Pose tells Tim Phillips how economic stagnation combined with increased interpersonal and regional inequality has been driving the populist vote.

We are increasingly aware of the number of people who secretly suffer from depression. Many sufferers are reluctant to seek help because they fear that others will assume they are weak or lazy. If depressed people discover that most of their peers feel sympathy rather than contempt for them, will they be empowered to seek help? Egon Tripodi and his colleagues tested that assumption. He tells Tim Phillips what they discovered.

Fake news threatens our electoral process and our social structure. Fabrice Collard tells Tim Phillips that it threatens economic stability too, and that the impact of the of the fake news epidemic can be detected as a rise in uncertainty that transmits to core economic statistics.