Fearonomics

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What are the lessons to be learnt from Chernobyl? How does one decommission a power plant which has been the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident and manage its legacy?

The EBRD has been working on making the Chernobyl nuclear power plant safe for over 25 years, as explained in the latest episode of the Pocket Dilemmas podcast. Taking part are:

• Simon Evans of the EBRD’s Nuclear Safety team
• Irina Velichko, a lead engineer at the site who joins us live from the site  

As usual, the hosts of the Pocket Dilemmas podcast are Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law

Like what you hear? Be sure to click the ‘like’ button and rate us on iTunes

Episode notes:

US Nuclear Energy Institute released a fact sheet

Chernobyl podcast

EBRD YouTube Chernobyl

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas

 Earlier this year Bill Gates tweeted an infographic showing ‘how much life has improved over the last two centuries,’ particularly as measured by an apparent decline in extreme poverty. The graph provoked fierce debate amongst economists across the globe.

In this episode of Pocket Dilemmas our presenters, Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law, were joined by our Chief Economist, Sergei Guriev and the Chief Economist of the UK Department for International Development, Rachel Glennerster to discuss the past, present and future of poverty.

Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes, email us at dilemmas@ebrd.com, or tweet us @EBRD #EBRDdilemmas

You can rate, review and subscribe to Pocket Dilemma on ITunes, Spotify and Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

 How does sexual orientation affect the pay gap? While we often hear of the gender pay gap, we set about exploring how sexual preferences impact salaries and rights in the workplace and elsewhere. 

On this week’s episode of Pocket Dilemmas we speak to Kitt Carpenter Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt University, and Cevat Aksoy, one of our economists, on the LGBTQI pay gap and were surprised by some of the findings from the research.

For example, on average gay men in the United States earn 11 percent less than heterosexual men, while lesbians earn 9 percent more than heterosexual women.

As usual, the hosts of the Pocket Dilemmas podcast are Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law.

Like what you hear? Be sure to click the ‘like’ button and rate us on iTunes.

You can rate, review and subscribe to Pocket Dilemma on ITunes, Spotify and Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow us on Twitter @EBRD #EBRDdilemmas and email us via dilemmas@ebrd.com.

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas

 We recorded the most recent episode of Pocket Dilemmas in front of a live audience in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital Sarajevo, host of last week’s 2019 Annual Meeting and Business Forum.

Our presenters, Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law, led a discussion of the most pressing challenges of our time - climate change, technology, urbanisation, resource scarcity and global power shifts- inside the country’s Parliament Building. There was also a Q&A session with the audience.

The line up of guest for this episode included:

• Alexia Latortue, EBRD Managing Director, Corporate Strategy
• Sergei Guriev, EBRD Chief Economist,
• Neil Buckley, Financial Times, Chief Leader writer
• Tim Judah, Economist Correspondent for the Western Balkans, and Fellow at IWM - Institute for Human Sciences
• Hemant Kanoria, Chairman and Managing Director of India’s SREI Group

 

Also taking part were Leo Johnson, host of BBC Radio 4’s FutureProofing, Petre Shilegov, Mayor of Skopje, and Erion Veliaj, Mayor of Tirana.

Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes, email us at dilemmas@ebrd.com, or tweet us @EBRD #EBRDdilemmas

You can rate, review and subscribe to Pocket Dilemma on ITunes, Spotify and Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Taking the cryptic out of cryptocurrencies

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast, Pocket Dilemmas

 

What is the future of money? Are cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin a modern-day miracle or a mirage? We invited our very own Stuart Trow and Zeynep Gurguc from Imperial College London to help us resolve this week’s dilemma on our podcast Pocket Dilemmas.

We also talked to Jelena Madir, Chief Counsel and our main blockchain expert, and Urmas Peiker, the founder of Funderbeam, the world's first primary and secondary marketplace for earlystage investments, secured by the blockchain.

As usual, the hosts of the Pocket Dilemmas podcast are Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law

Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes, email us at dilemmas@ebrd.com, or tweet us @EBRD #EBRDdilemmas

You can rate, review and subscribe to Pocket Dilemma on ITunes, Spotify and Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

 

-        #AskDraghi: “A euro today is a euro tomorrow” – can the same be said for #bitcoin?

• Liberland : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland
• Discussing IBM’s foray into blockchain – based payment systems -- https://www.cnbc.com/bitcoin/
• Funderbeam clip
• Gox faced questions long before crisis: Sources – https://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/30/mtgox-faced-questions-long-before-crisis-sources.html
• The US dollar to reign supreme for decades to come -- https://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/24/future-of-money-what-currencies-will-look-like-in-25-years.html

Rate, review and subscribe to our podcast Pocket Dilemmas

What is the future of work? How will technology, automation and AI change our jobs and will we and our children actually have jobs the way we do now? Will, in fact, the future be a battle between us and the machines?

This week we have Jason Furman from Harvard Kennedy School and our Chief Economist Sergei Guriev as our guests to help us resolve this dilemma on our podcast Pocket Dilemmas.

As usual, the hosts of the Pocket Dilemmas podcast are Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law

Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes, email us at dilemmas@ebrd.com, or tweet us @EBRD #EBRDdilemmas

You can rate, review and subscribe to Pocket Dilemma on ITunes, Spotify and Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Show notes:

• War of the Worlds (The Eve of the War) – Jeff Wayne (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eCAphdQPck)
• AI isn’t taking our jobs – but it is changing how we recruit – Brian Peccarelli (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/ai-is-changing-the-way-we-recruit)
• Will a robot take your job? – BBC news (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34066941)
• Our soft skills can keep robots in their place – Ed Conway (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/our-soft-skills-can-keep-robots-in-their-place-hzzp609hl)
• Global unemployment hits lowest point for 4 decades – Steve Johnson (https://www.ft.com/content/1e8f4cf4-f257-11e8-ae55-df4bf40f9d0d)
• 5 things I’m telling my kids to prepare for in the future – Stephane Kasriel (https://www.fastcompany.com/90247298/5-things-im-telling-my-kids-to-prepare-them-for-the-future)
• Work in transition – EBRD Transition Report 2018-2019 ( https://www.ebrd.com/transition-report-201819)
• Are we living in a time of unprecedented migration? Hein de Haas (https://sharingperspectivesfoundation.com/video-lecture/video-1/)

 

Should algorithms rule the world? Maybe they do so already and we just never noticed. Will they in fact do a better job than mere humans?

How do governments use them to create legislation? What are the ethical implications of the algorithm use for policy-makers?

We invited Jonnie Penn, Google Technology Policy fellow, and Dawn Duhaney, Partnerships Manager at UK Wellcome Trust to be our guests and help us resolve this dilemma on our podcast Pocket Dilemmas.

As usual, the hosts of the Pocket Dilemmas podcast are Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law

Like what you hear? Review our podcast on iTunes, email us at dilemmas@ebrd.com, or tweet us @EBRD #EBRDdilemmas

You can rate, review and subscribe to Pocket Dilemma on ITunes, Spotify and Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

• Measuring the new economy – 2014 OECD report (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/341889/725159/OECD+Manual+Measuring+the+Digital+Economy/6418c566-4074-4461-9186-9ad509bc4a4d)
• Kirk Bansak, the Immigration Policy Lab (IPL) at Stanford University, https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-01/su-i-aaf011218.php
• What is an algorithm? https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/articles/z3whpv4

Episode One, dedicated to the origins of Brexit and its impact on the EBRD regions ( over 30 economies inside and outside the EU), was recorded in front of a live audience at our headquarters at the heart of the City of London on 3rd April and you can now listen to it here.
Are there winners and losers? What do people outside the EU think about Brexit? We have all the answers here.

The Pocket Dilemma hosts, Jonathan Charles and Kerrie Law, welcomed a great line up of guests, including:

Sergei Guriev, EBRD Chief Economist
Elina Ribakova, Deputy Chief Economist, IIF, Visiting Fellow, Bruegel
Michael Kitson, Senior Lecturer in International Macroeconomics, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge

Tweet: @EBRD #EBRDdilemma
Email us your dilemma: dilemmas@ebrd.com

Notes:
Mythbusters EU:

blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/

The rise of word Brexit:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37896977

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is launching our new podcast, Pocket Dilemmas, with a live event at our London HQ on the origins of Brexit and its impact on EBRD countries.

Pocket Dilemmas is presented by a broadcasting legend Jonathan Charles and an amazing Kerrie Law.

They explore the burning issues of today- from algorithms to cryptocurrencies with a great selection of guests.

 

Join them! Coming soon and subscribe!