VoxTalks Economics

In the French presidential election the parties of right and left collapsed, beaten by political newcomer Emmanuel Macron and the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. Daniel Cohen of the Paris School of Economics tells Tim Phillips about research that explains why millions of French voters are no longer responding to traditional political messages.Read more about populism on VoxEU.

The north of England and Wales lag the south in output per person, educational attainment, and even life expectancy. Neil Cummins of the London School of Economics tells Tim Phillips that this can be explained entirely by a 200-year "Big Sort": the migration south of talented people, replaced by less-able southerners who move north.Read about his research on VoxEU.

New drugs mean that many types of cancer are no longer a death sentence. But new medical treatments may have a catastrophic financial cost for patients. Tim Phillips talks to Ralph Koijen about how life insurance, not medical insurance, might finance the war on cancer.Read more about this, and other groundbreaking research, at VoxEU.org.

In 1997 Germany was called "the sick man of Europe". So what is behind its exceptional recovery? Tim Phillips talks to Dalia Marin, the editor of a new VoxEU ebook that explains what Germany did, and what other countries can learn from it.Read about the ebook, and download it for free from VoxEU.

It's routine for the rich to dodge tax by hiding it offshore. But how much of their wealth are they hiding illegally? Tim Phillips talks to Annette Alstadsæter of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences about how she and her colleagues used whistleblower data to discover the extent of tax evasion by the ultra-rich.Read about their research on VoxEU.

If the robots are coming for our jobs, how many of us will they actually replace? Tim Phillips talks to MIT's Daron Acemoglu who argues that the robot apocalypse isn't going to happen just yet.If you want to know more detail about the research, read this VoxEU column.

Economists have long been sceptical of the potential of cryptocurrencies and other electronic forms of money. But are central banks coming round to the idea? Tim Phillips asks Beatrice Weder di Mauro whether central banks might start issuing their own cryptocurrencies.Read more on VoxEU about crypto's challenge to central banks.

When President Trump recently spoke of his hope for "a great bilateral trade agreement” with the UK after Brexit, what did he really mean? Tim Phillips interviews Dennis Novy of the University of Warwick. Dennis describes what these political good intentions may look like in reality, the problems that both sides will have to solve to agree a UK-US deal, and the factors that might derail any agreement.Read about Dennis's research on what caused the Brexit vote, and its effect on living standards, on VoxEU.

We all know how films and television tell the story of the Mafia, but what can economics tell us about its origins? Tim Phillips talks to Giuseppe De Feo about a new paper that tells the story of how the drought of 1893 has had social and economic effects that are still being felt today.Read about this research on VoxEU.

For the families of millions of migrant workers around the world, remittances can literally be a life-saver. But the cost of sending money home remains puzzlingly high. So why aren't remittances getting cheaper? Tim Phillips talks to Stephen Cecchetti of Brandeis University and Kim Schoenholtz of the Stern School at NYU.Read Steve and Kim's column on the subject at VoxEU.

For most of the 20th century, inequality between Europe's regions declined. But what has happened in the last 40 years? New historical data gives us the answer. Tim Phillips talks to Joan Rosés of the London School of Economics and Nikolaus Wolf of Humboldt University, Berlin.Find out more by reading the authors' VoxEU column.

Blockchain technology has the potential to be a catalyst for change in the financial sector. But can it overcome its technical limitations and governance problems? Tim Phillips talks to Simon Johnson, Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Sloan School of Management, MIT, and one of the authors of the latest Geneva Report on the World Economy, which looks at blockchain's applications and challenges.Read about the report, and download it for free from VoxEU.