Leading economists Mike Spence and Mohamed El-Erian talk about the “pretty complicated and disorienting environment” we face. In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward thinking podcast, co-host Michael Chui talks with A. Michael Spence, dean emeritus of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Mohamed El-Erian, president of Queens’ College Cambridge and chief economic advisor at Allianz. Together with former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, they have leveraged decades of experience to explore the question “Is the world in a state of permacrisis?” In this podcast, the guests touch on the following: • How the New Zealand central bank came up with 2 percent as an arbitrary inflation target, which was then adopted by the central banks of major economies around the world. • How the Queen of the United Kingdom asked a room full of economists why they hadn’t seen the Great Financial Crisis coming. • How finance hijacked growth strategies, leading to 20 lost years of thinking about how to promote productivity and high, durable, inclusive growth. See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
The UNDP’s Pedro Conceição talks about today’s global gridlock, uncertainty complex, and a pervasive sense of disempowerment.See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Leading economist Chad Syverson speculates about the ingredients in productivity’s secret sauce. In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush talks with Chad Syverson. Syverson is George C. Tiao Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His work focuses on the interactions between firm structure, market structure, and productivity. In this podcast, he covers topics including the following: Why productivity is important How the world economy is doing on productivity What major themes of our age, from the path to net zero to trade fragmentation and aging, could impact productivity The potential role of AI to change the game for productivity How productivity growth is diffused See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
A former US deputy chief technology officer talks about how digitization can be used to create a government that works for the people. Jennifer Pahlka is the founder of Code for America, served as the United States government’s deputy chief technology officer, and is author of the book Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better. Jenn joins us to share her personal reflections of her time in government and the path forward.See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Janet Bush talks with Ed Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics and the chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard University. His latest book, coauthored with health economist David Cutler, is Survival of the city: The future of urban life in an age of isolation, written to make sense of what might be the impact of the pandemic on cities. They covers topics including: • Has the pandemic changed cities temporarily or permanently?• What does the hybrid building look like? • Do developing world cities teach us something new? • How can homelessness be tackled? See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Janet Bush talks with Marco Buti. Buti holds the Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa Chair in European Economic and Monetary Integration at the European University Institute. They cover topics including the following: The evolution of European policy coordination European competitiveness Whether Europe’s business model is sustainable The need of more speed among European companies in frontier technologies The importance of Europe’s capital markets union See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Michael Chui talks with Nan Ransohoff. Ransohoff is the head of climate at Stripe and leads Frontier, an advanced market commitment for carbon removal. She answers questions including: Is carbon removal a get out of jail free card for emitters? What are the most promising carbon removal technologies? Is it possible to scale up effective technologies quick enough? How much do costs need to come down before scaling is possible? What is an advanced market commitment? See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Michael Chui talks with Andy McAfee. McAfee is a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-founder and co-director of MIT’s initiative on the digital economy, and the inaugural visiting fellow at the Technology in Society organization at Google. See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Janet Bush talks with Stephen King. King is a senior economic advisor to HSBC, having served as the bank’s group chief economist from 1998 to 2015. His latest book, very prescient in timing, is We Need to Talk About Inflation: 14 Urgent Lessons from the Last 2,000 Years. In this podcast, he covers topics including the following: The root causes of the current resurgence of inflation How long higher inflation may persist What history tells us about the management of inflation The main economic problem that lies ahead Why inflation matters See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Janet Bush talks with Homi Kharas. Kharas is a senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution and also cofounder of World Data Lab. He studies policies and trends influencing developing countries, the emergence of the world's middle class, and global governance. He's collaborated with the McKinsey Global Institute on research into consumers in emerging markets and economic empowerment, and his latest book is The Rise of the Global Middle Class: How the Search for the Good Life Can Change The World. In this podcast, he covers topics including the following: How the character of the world’s middle classes is changing How the middle classes shape our world What becoming middle class means for a household The role of the middle class in climate change How AI may affect the middle class See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Janet Bush talks with Ann Mettler. Mettler is Vice President, Europe, at Breakthrough Energy, working on cleantech innovation in pursuit of a net-zero-emissions future. Before her current role, she worked for many years in European public policy. She was head of the European Political Strategy Center, the in-house think tank of the European Commission, from 2014 to 2019. In this podcast, she covers topics including the following: Investing for climate impact The challenges in Europe’s clean energy technological ecosystem Useful innovation beyond new products The new priority of energy security accelerating the net-zero transition See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Janet Bush talks with Justin Yifu Lin. Lin is dean of the Institute of New Structural Economics, dean of the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development, and professor and honorary dean of the National School of Development at Peking University. He served as chief economist at the World Bank from 2008 to 2012, and he actually took up his World Bank position after serving for 15 years as professor and founding director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University. In this podcast, he covers topics including the following: What is new structural economics? How can emerging economies catch up? Is globalization going into reverse? Will the economies of China and Asia maintain momentum? See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Janet Bush talks with Andrew J. Scott. Scott is professor of economics at London Business School; his work focuses on the economics of longevity. He's co-founder of the Longevity Forum and a member of the World Economic Forum's Council on Healthy Aging and Longevity, topics that are very much the focus of the McKinsey Health Institute. His book The 100-Year Life has sold more than a million copies in 15 languages. In this podcast, he covers topics including the following: What benefits could greater longevity offer to economies? Redefining retirement What could be done to help people live healthier for longer See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Cohost Janet Bush talks with Carlos Lopes. He is a professor in the Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town. He’s also an affiliate professor at Sciences Po, Paris, an associate fellow in the Africa Program at Chatham House, and a member of the African Union reform team. Lopes was the policy director for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa. He serves as an advisor on MGI’s research on Africa, including our latest report, which discusses the continent’s human capital and natural resources and how they can help to accelerate productivity and reimagine Africa’s economic growth. His views are his own. In this podcast, he covers topics including the following: The factors constraining Africa’s potential The promise of AI for Africa The threat and opportunity of climate change for Africa See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Cohost Michael Chui talks with Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, both professors of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. They cover topics including the following: Subjective well-being How the labor market has evolved since the pandemic A decline in inequality The potential impact of AI Why write a new economics text book? See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Michael Chui talks with business professor Ethan Mollick. He is an associate professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Mollick covers topics including the following: What is generative AI? How substantial are the performance improvements workers can gain from using generative AI How to use human management skills to get better results from generative AI What generative AI means for the future of work and trust What he learned when he made the use of generative AI mandatory in his classes See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Michael Chui talks with economist Hans-Helmut Kotz who is a visiting professor of economics at Harvard University, a senior policy fellow at the Leibniz Institute for financial research at Goethe University, Frankfurt, and on the economics faculty of Freiburg University. Kotz covers topics including the following: Parallels between the 2007–09 global financial crisis and today’s financial turbulence. The balance that banking regulators need to strike to protect the economy but encourage innovation. Being prepared by taking eclectic perspectives. See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Janet Bush talks with economist Dany Bahar. He is an associate professor of practice of international and public affairs at Brown University’s Watson Institute and a senior fellow of the Growth Lab at the Harvard Center for International Development. He’s also a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Center for Global Development. Two themes stand out in his work: the diffusion of technology and knowledge, and migration. In this podcast, Bahar covers topics including the following: Why some countries are rich and some are poor The role of people on the move in spreading knowledge and raising productivity The opportunity of Ukraine’s refugee diaspora How companies can reap rewards by integrating migrants See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Michael Chui talks with Nouriel Roubini. Roubini is professor emeritus of economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University, and CEO of Roubini Macro Associates, a global macroeconomics consultancy. He covers topics including the following: The “mother of all” debt crises and what to do about it Likely future trends in the global balance sheet—the world’s economic health and wealth The trajectory of globalization Which “megathreat” worries him most See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Co-host Michael Chui talks with Justin Adams. Adams is the head of partnerships at Just Climate, a climate-led investment business. he answers questions, including: How does nature or the ecosystem provide services to the economy? How much needs to be invested in nature? What role can capitalism play in addressing issues around sustainability? What kind of innovations have real potential to mitigate carbon emissions? See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
Clare Tyler
I am just beginning retraining and have enrolled at university. I would love someone to tell me the top 3 subjects that I should study to future proof my employability...