Podcasts related to Economics

Good news. Chances are you just got a tax cut. Well an income tax cut at least, problem is your council tax is likely to be rising and if you are an investor the Government is after more of your dividends, or if you’re a landlord it wants your rental income. So who are the winners and losers of the new tax year that rolled round on 6 April? And what are the candidates for dumbest bits of Britain’s tax code. In this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Rachel Rickard Straus and George Frost take a look at who is getting the biggest tax cut and who is being hit.

The deadline for large companies to report their gender pay gaps has now passed. We are left with a huge influx of data, most of which fails to give us any meaningful comparison between men and women in like-for-like circumstances. What is the best way to calculate a gender pay gap? Today we’re joined by the IEA’s former Head of Tech, now policy analyst at the CATO Institute, Diego Zuluaga to analyse the case of ride-sharing app Uber, and what its data can teach us about the gender pay gap. Interviewed by the IEA’s Digital Officer Madeline Grant, the pair look at the issue of the gender pay gap more broadly: where does it originate, what does it mean for women, and has public policy been successful throughout the world in addressing pay gaps?

Universal basic income is now one of the most fashionable concepts in progressive politics. With automation increasing and wages stagnating, the theory is that giving everyone a set amount of money each year will liberate them to do what they want with their lives – and keep them out of poverty. But some people think universal basic income is an utopian impossibility. Others think it’s dangerous. So there’s a proposal for another solution: universal basic services. Instead of giving people money, why not guarantee all of the public services they need to live a full life? Ayeisha Thomas-Smith explores the two ideas with Barb Jacobson, Co-ordinator of Basic Income UK, and Anna Coote, New Economics Foundation Principal Fellow.

Building up a pension was once relatively simple, for each year you worked for a company it promised to pay you some money in retirement. The death of the final salary scheme put paid to that and now most people must invest into a pension instead - with their work helping out. But while it is tempting to put off a pension and think you have more pressing financial matters to deal with, that's a mistake. The earlier you start and the more you pay in, the greater your chance of having a richer retirement. On this week's podcast, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost talk pensions.

In the first of this new series, Policy Matters, Franz Buscha and Matt Dickson discuss social mobility – what does it mean, how do we measure it, what is it like in the UK and why is it an important issue? From Tony Blair to Theresa May, incoming prime ministers have talked boldly about the socially mobile Britain that their government will create, and social mobility has become a much-discussed topic in academia and public policy debates. But what would it mean to have a more socially mobile Britain, how could it be achieved, and what barriers stand in the way? Taking a broad overview of the topic, Franz and Matt consider their own personal mobility and why it is so difficult for the political rhetoric to be translated into effective policy.

Exactly one year from today, Britain will officially quit the EU. But what do we know so far, and what happens next? Today joined by Julian Jessop, Head of the IEA’s Brexit Unit, and Shanker Singham, Director of the IEA’s new International Trade and Competition Unit. Interviewed by Digital Officer Madeline Grant, the pair answer some of the most pressing questions about Brexit – including what, if anything, we’ve managed to negotiate so far, how our economy has fared until now, the future of the Irish border, and whether there is any chance of Brexit being overturned.

Want to keep up with the latest earnings updates from the States? Well join Chris Hill and the Motley Fool Radio Show team here on Share Radio, direct from Washington DC, for news, views and analysis of the US stocks that matter. In this week's show: Chris talks with Jed Rothstein, director of the The China Hustle, about his latest documentary; and best-selling author, Daniel Levitin, shares his top tips on how to organise busy minds from his new book The Organised Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload.

It’s one of the biggest contradictions in British politics. Across the country, baby boomers who own a house cheer as the value of their property rises. Meanwhile their millennial children watch on in horror, as owning their own home increasingly falls out of their reach. Politicians talk about building more homes but very few of them talk about directly reducing house prices. If house prices are too high for people to be able to buy houses, how can we bring them down? And can we do it without upsetting homeowners and crashing the economy? Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Joe Beswick, who leads on housing for the New Economics Foundation, and housing campaigner Beth Stratford, a PhD researcher at the University of Leeds.

It’s not long before the door slams shut on your chance to use this year’s Isa allowance. It’s always best not to leave Isa saving or investing until the last month of the tax year, but many of us will do so. So, here is our special Isa podcast – with a comfortable three weeks to spare before the 5 April tax year end. In it, Simon Lambert, Rachel Rickard Straus and Georgie Frost dive into everything you need to know about Isas, from cash, to stocks and shares, and Innovative to Lifetime. It also looks at why investing is the best way to get inflation-beating returns over the long term, how savers can eke some precious extra interest from accounts, and why an Isa is worth having.

Want to keep up with the latest earnings updates from the States? Well join Chris Hill and the Motley Fool Radio Show team here on Share Radio, direct from Washington DC, for news, views and analysis of the US stocks that matter. In this week's show: Adobe hits a new all-time high; Toys R Us calls it quits; Ulta Beauty wows; And Snap stumbles. Our analysts discuss those stories. Plus, CNBC media and entertainment reporter Julia Boorstin talks South by Southwest, media disruption, VR, and Disney.