Podcasts

Adam Cox is joined by Alexandra Badita, author of Write Your Way To Happiness, to discuss how the simple act of writing can help with mental health issues such as anxiety and depression – as well as even helping to process relationship breakdowns. Plus, can writing be an effective tool for becoming more successful in finance and in business?

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.

Steve Caplin, hotfoot from the FutureTech Now show, looks at VR cocktails, a VR gym trainer even HE would use, a VR game for those who are recuperating, as well as Microsoft, Xbox and Skype banning those using "offensive language" and an app that transcribes phone calls in real times in many languages.

Vicky Pryce, Chief Economic Adviser to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, examines the gender pay gap and what can be done about it, asks how dangerous the possible trade war between the US and China could be and looks at President Macron's attempts to reform working practises in France.

Helal Miah, Investment Research Analyst at The Share Centre, looks at recent numbers from Topps Tiles, BTG, Hammerson and ElectroComponents. And he looks forward to a bumper reporting session in the retail sector, with Tesco, ASOS, Dunelm, Mothercare and W H Smith all due to report.

James Cameron Wilson on Spielberg being kept from top place by an animated rabbit, reviewing Ready Player One, Isle of Dogs and Blockers. Yet again he's amazed by the performance of The Greatest Showman. And for home release, he looks at Call Me By Your Name and Score, a documentary about film composing.

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.