Vaccines have had a transformative impact on global public health. Despite many decades of progress, however, there remain important challenges associated with immunisation. Determining whether a vaccine will be successful involves resolving important questions regarding vaccine effectiveness, distribution and uptake. There are currently at least seven COVID-19 vaccine candidates at the phase-three stage, which involves… Continue Reading
How safe is our data?
In 2017, The Economist famously highlighted an oft-cited metaphor of Data as the New Oil to describe the growing centrality of data to the global economy (others assert it is not). More recently, The Economist have re-evaluated and asked whether data is more like oil or sunlight. Whatever the appropriate metaphor, there is little doubt… Continue Reading
The Role of Institutions in Shaping Economic and Climate Outcomes
This month, the International Monetary Fund released its revised World Economic Outlook for 2020. It is worth taking a look through their current release, which although describing a dire forecast for 2020 is actually significantly improved on its expectations from just a few months earlier. In Europe, the hardest-hit countries were Spain (-12.8%), Italy (-10.6%),… Continue Reading
Regulating Big Tech
Christos sent along a recent blog post he recently wrote with other leading European economists on the Google-Fitbit deal as the topic for this week’s discussion since we will be covering competition policy in both TP1 and TP2 (and will return to in TP6 in Easter term). What is particularly worrisome they point out is… Continue Reading
From Scientific Evidence to Information Warfare
Do facts and scientific evidence matter in policymaking? For those of us with a strong belief in the scientific process, the answer seems like it should self-evidently be ‘yes’. But the situation is not always so clear — there are many areas where the science is or has been contested — smoking, dioxins, MMR vaccines,… Continue Reading
Do Prizes Work?
On Thursday (8 October), Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, and Sir David Attenborough launched a £50m “Earthshot Prize”, which, they claim to be “the biggest environmental award ever”, and which, they hope, will become the equivalent of a “Nobel Prize for environmentalism”. The initial commitment is for five £1m prizes every year for 10… Continue Reading
What should a modern Industrial Policy look like?
Chrisos has suggested this week’s topic: Do we need an “Industrial policy” in the 21st century and if so, what are the instrument that should be employed? Back in 2004, Dani Rodrik starts his excellent piece on the need for industrial policy in the 21st century with a ‘plague on both your houses’ sentiment: “Once… Continue Reading
Ethics and Technology
Famously, Google’s unofficial motto was ‘Don’t Be Evil’ (sometimes misdescribed as ‘Do no evil’) but any such corporate claim will inevitably lead to tensions since corporations, especially those that span the globe with a professed interest in having an impact on a wide range of end uses, will need to make difficult decisions about where… Continue Reading
Return to 1950: Nationalisation in the UK and beyond
Today the Labour Party issued its latest policy announcement #BroadbandForAll – i.e., spend £15.9bn to improve superfast broadband (on top of the £5bn already earmarked by government) and nationalise BT Openreach (worth c£15bn). This comes on the heels of previous announcements proposing nationalisations of the energy, rail, and water sectors as well as Royal Mail. … Continue Reading
Triple Helix: Are all helices creates equal?
The notion of the triple helix of Etzkowitz et al echoes some of our earlier discussions and interposes universities between business and government nominally replacing the military in what Eisenhower warned of as the ‘military-industrial complex‘ into a seemingly more benign but still mutually reinforcing arrangement. Clearly, not all technologies are created equal though and… Continue Reading