Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the
Speaker 1: global economy to you. And they used to say that
Speaker 1: economists are people who were good with numbers but didn't
Speaker 1: have the personality to be accountants. It sounds like a
Speaker 1: joke against accountants, but if you think about it, it's
Speaker 1: even ruder about economists. The dismal science they call it,
Speaker 1: and that's when they're being polite. Others would say it
Speaker 1: wasn't a science at all, just dismal. Maybe that's why
Speaker 1: historically you haven't seen so many women going into economics.
Speaker 1: Last year, less than twenty percent of economics undergraduates in
Speaker 1: the UK were women. The numbers for the US are similar,
Speaker 1: and they shrink as you proceed through academia. Only four
Speaker 1: percent of full economics professors in the US are women,
Speaker 1: and that is an all time high. But if you
Speaker 1: look outside the universities, women economists are starting to punch
Speaker 1: well above their weight. If you look around, several of
Speaker 1: the world's biggest banks now have female chief economists. We
Speaker 1: also have female chief economists at the International Monetary Fund,
Speaker 1: the World Bank, the Rich Country's Club, the o E
Speaker 1: c D, and the European Bank of reconstruction and development.
Speaker 1: We decided to celebrate the rising tide of women in
Speaker 1: economics this week at Bloomberg with a special invent in London,
Speaker 1: talking about everything that matters in the global economy with
Speaker 1: two women at the very top of the economics game,
Speaker 1: Janet Henry, the global Chief Economist for HSBC, and Claire Lombardelli,
Speaker 1: who is the Chief Economic Advisor to the Treasury and
Speaker 1: also runs the entire Economic service for the UK Government.
Speaker 1: We're going to play you most of that conversation in
Speaker 1: this week's podcast, but first I thought we should check
Speaker 1: in on events in CenTra, which is the royal, fancy
Speaker 1: hilltop resort that the European Central Bank brings everyone to
Speaker 1: every year to think about monetary policy and the global economy.
Speaker 1: And this one is special because not only is it
Speaker 1: the twenty year anniversary of the Euro, the single European currency,
Speaker 1: but it's going to be the last forum presided over
Speaker 1: by Mario Druggy, President of the European Central Bank, who'll
Speaker 1: be leaving office at the end of October. Paul Gordon
Speaker 1: runs our central Bank coverage in Europe out of our
Speaker 1: Frankfurt office and he's been at the center conference this week. Paul,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining me. I know there's lots going on,
Speaker 1: but what's what's the mood like at center. I know
Speaker 1: that you're an old hand at these things. Yes, I
Speaker 1: mean you have to remember it's an academic retreat and
Speaker 1: there's some quite interesting research papers and themes to deal with.
Speaker 1: But what everyone really wants to talk about is what
Speaker 1: is the ECB going to be doing in the near future.
Speaker 1: And Mario Dragging gave people plenty to talk about in
Speaker 1: his opening remarks on the first day of the conference,
Speaker 1: saying that if the economic outlook, particularly inflation, does not improve,
Speaker 1: additional mulus will be needed. Now that's quite a low bar,
Speaker 1: and he didn't say the economy has to deteriorate. He
Speaker 1: just has to say it doesn't improve, and that've got
Speaker 1: people thinking about what he's going to do. Dragging himself
Speaker 1: said everything is on the table, interest rate cuts, specifically
Speaker 1: a resumption of quantity of easing, and any other measures
Speaker 1: that might be needed. But the Governing Council members and
Speaker 1: the officials who we managed to speak to inside the
Speaker 1: room clearly gave us the sense that they're expecting if
Speaker 1: anything happens, it's going to be an interest rate cut.
Speaker 1: That would be the first step, and it could come
Speaker 1: quite soon. I'm reminding people that that's a cut from
Speaker 1: an already negative rate, which we had previously not We
Speaker 1: had sort of thought it couldn't go much lower. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean the rate, the deposit rate, which is the
Speaker 1: key rate. There's minus zero point four percent. Now nobody
Speaker 1: thinks that's there's the lower bound what used to be
Speaker 1: called zero lower bound. But we've broken through that. Of
Speaker 1: course in Switzerland, for example, you're a minus zero point seven.
Speaker 1: But there's probably not that much room to cut before
Speaker 1: banks start complaining so much about their squeezed profitability that
Speaker 1: they stopped lending to the real economy, to companies and households. Now,
Speaker 1: there is a fudge around that, and it's one that
Speaker 1: Mary Draggie has also mentioned. That is supposedly known as tearing.
Speaker 1: But what it is is effectively exempting banks from some
Speaker 1: of the charge on their deposits. That's a contentious point
Speaker 1: within the Governing Council. Some people think it's not necessary,
Speaker 1: but it is generally accepted. It would allow the ECB
Speaker 1: to keep rates lower for longer, but again not necessarily
Speaker 1: much lower. It's possible we will lose some of our
Speaker 1: audience if we go further into the tearing analysis. But
Speaker 1: I think if we sort of stepped back and just
Speaker 1: think about the sort of big picture on this. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got married Druggie who at least is credited with
Speaker 1: saving the euro He got the European Central Bank to
Speaker 1: create instruments that didn't exist before, for responding to the
Speaker 1: sovereign debt crisis, and he's consistently had to drag other
Speaker 1: people on the Governing Council along when he's wanted to
Speaker 1: do more to help the Eurozone economy. Was this him
Speaker 1: in his speech this this year? Was he trying once
Speaker 1: again to push the Governing Council in a way that
Speaker 1: they didn't necessarily want to go and maybe even lock
Speaker 1: in his successor because technically he's not in charge for
Speaker 1: very much longer. He might not be around for most
Speaker 1: of this loosening that he's talking about. Yes, he's definitely
Speaker 1: constrained as successor, whoever that may turn out to be.
Speaker 1: That was already the case because the Governing Council has
Speaker 1: pledged to keep interest rates at current levels at least
Speaker 1: until the second half of next year. But he may
Speaker 1: well have locked his successor into lower rates for a
Speaker 1: longer time as well. It's entirely feasible that his successor
Speaker 1: is part of that decision, of course, that already sits
Speaker 1: on the Governing Council. That decision will be taken eventually
Speaker 1: by the European Union leaders sometime over the coming weeks,
Speaker 1: possibly even over the coming months. But this is potentially
Speaker 1: something of a last hurrah. You're right for Mario dragging
Speaker 1: he will never raise in trust rates. He will be
Speaker 1: the first ECB president never to have raised interest rates
Speaker 1: and as president and that is something that no doubt
Speaker 1: is weighing on him well. Although funny enough, of course,
Speaker 1: the first thing he did when he came in as
Speaker 1: president was reverse the recent increase of his predecessor, Jean
Speaker 1: clude Twitche. So I guess you never can completely lock
Speaker 1: your successor into anything. I wonder if it will be
Speaker 1: the last Trump tweet he gets, because very soon after
Speaker 1: the speech, we had a couple of tweets from the
Speaker 1: American President talking about the markets responding to unfair comments
Speaker 1: by Mario Dragi and that this was part of a
Speaker 1: continual policy of other countries talking down their currencies making
Speaker 1: them more competitive. Against US producers. Did that come as
Speaker 1: a how do people respond to that? That tweet? CenTra,
Speaker 1: It's circulated quite quickly within the room. It is certainly
Speaker 1: raised some eyebrows here at the ECB. There was no
Speaker 1: initial official reactions that at all, although we did speak
Speaker 1: to the former chief economist Peter Prett on TV who
Speaker 1: said that this is the kind of thing, this is misguided.
Speaker 1: I forget his exact words, but he was saying, this
Speaker 1: is not what this was about. This is not about
Speaker 1: lowering the euro, weakening the euro. This is the TV
Speaker 1: doing what it has to do for its own economy,
Speaker 1: and that's perfectly reasonable. Well, if nothing else, President Trump
Speaker 1: is getting global exchange rate policy back into the headlines.
Speaker 1: I guess as economists we should be pleased. Paul Gordon,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us. Enjoys intro. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Had a similar event for International Women's Day in New York,
Speaker 1: thinking about the rising tide of women in economics, but
Speaker 1: also just talking about what matters in the global economy
Speaker 1: with senior women economists, and it's one of the most
Speaker 1: kind of fun conversations I've had this year. So I'm
Speaker 1: looking looking forward to this one. If I think back then,
Speaker 1: I think Christine Legarde, the head the International muchI Fund,
Speaker 1: had just described the situation in the global economy as precarious.
Speaker 1: We were talking about the so called pivot or you turn,
Speaker 1: depending on how you look at it, by the US
Speaker 1: Central Bank and thinking about what that might mean in
Speaker 1: terms of not having further rate rises. Things have moved
Speaker 1: on a long way since March. We've had a complete
Speaker 1: change in expectations around FED policy. We've had today big
Speaker 1: shift or a signal of a big shift in European
Speaker 1: central bank policy. Janet, would you say the risks of
Speaker 1: a recession have materially increased in the last few months
Speaker 1: or have we just talked ourselves into a much gloomier place. Um,
Speaker 1: It's it's certainly been dramatic. I mean last September, I
Speaker 1: think the markets were pricing in three more FED increases
Speaker 1: and now their book to basically pricing in three break
Speaker 1: cuts by early twenties. So the move has been very,
Speaker 1: very swift. But we are now in this world and
Speaker 1: I think it's probably best summed up by Buduacure from
Speaker 1: BCB Board thinks yesterday or the day before, he made
Speaker 1: the comment on the yield curve, and it's clearly the
Speaker 1: financial markets see something that we don't. You don't ignore
Speaker 1: a signal like that, but nor do you blindly follow it.
Speaker 1: And that's why, you know, I think the message from
Speaker 1: the ECB today was, Yeah, let's talk about the instruments.
Speaker 1: Let's persuade everyone. We've got a whole raft of measures
Speaker 1: we can deliver if necessary, but we we will be
Speaker 1: ready to act if we need to. But there is
Speaker 1: this disconnect between what's in the data um and the
Speaker 1: actual available in the markets, and what's in the actual
Speaker 1: data at the moment, which is still consistent with the
Speaker 1: general slowdown compared with two thousands and seventeen and then
Speaker 1: two thousand and eighteen, but is not quite in recessionary
Speaker 1: territory yet, Employments still growing even in the ural area.
Speaker 1: Wage growkers that are ten year high, hay rolls are
Speaker 1: still rowing in the US. So yeah, the risk is
Speaker 1: that it becomes self fulfilling. We've seen brief periods of
Speaker 1: in versus Yokov over the last six months or so,
Speaker 1: and let's always triggered this this conversation. I like the
Speaker 1: way John Author's put it actually in a in a
Speaker 1: column this week, said we shouldn't be trying to sort
Speaker 1: of explain this way. You know, the bond markets might
Speaker 1: be may be behaving as if they're bracing themselves with
Speaker 1: something terrible to happen, because traders are indeed scared that
Speaker 1: something terrible is going to happen. And if you look
Speaker 1: at some of those kind of leading indicators that people
Speaker 1: talk about in the US, I think it's you know,
Speaker 1: trucking or the Empire State Manufacturing Survey. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know what's your what's your favorite leading indicator of
Speaker 1: recession and which way is it pointing? Well, I think
Speaker 1: what we've got at the moment is a very clear
Speaker 1: industrial recession. You know, we've had it really in different
Speaker 1: parts of the words. It's the middle of two thousand
Speaker 1: and eighteen. You know, it was led by Europe and
Speaker 1: led by Germany. You had all sorts of factors in
Speaker 1: the industrial sector related to the autosector, in particular change
Speaker 1: in vehicle licensing. You know, Italy was in recession and
Speaker 1: the second half of last year Germany avoided recession by
Speaker 1: the narrowest of margins. Then it looked like things were
Speaker 1: stabilizing to some degree. But the z W which is
Speaker 1: a survey of financial analysts came out this morning. It
Speaker 1: was shockingly bad. The Empire Survey New York State, not
Speaker 1: really representative of the Holy United States, but at these
Speaker 1: kind of levels. But remember, in most economies, particularly someone
Speaker 1: like the United States, the economy is consumer spending. So
Speaker 1: you can have a disconnect between this extreme weakness in
Speaker 1: the industrial sector, which is pretty much in recession from
Speaker 1: services for a while. But the more that industry remains
Speaker 1: in a recession, if that starts to impact the labor market,
Speaker 1: then if construction gets hit by the labor market, that
Speaker 1: impacts on consumer spending, and then the slowdown and consumer
Speaker 1: spending actually starts to follow. So yeah, industry, there is
Speaker 1: no question, there's very little side of turnaround. But for now,
Speaker 1: the consumer side is okay. And I think, as you say,
Speaker 1: when where market are scared, they're scared that you know,
Speaker 1: the rest of the economy will follow. We know that
Speaker 1: your investment is not going to pick up in a
Speaker 1: world where we've got these trade tensions persistently influencing on
Speaker 1: the outlook for the global economy in a negative way. Now, Claire,
Speaker 1: you're very kind to come along today because it is
Speaker 1: a week when the Minetary Policy Committee for the UK
Speaker 1: is meeting and in our great kind of British colonial phrase,
Speaker 1: that means you're in perda, so you can't talk about
Speaker 1: the sort of short run issues around monetary policy. But
Speaker 1: if you look at the UK, even independent of Brexit,
Speaker 1: I was struck by one of our UK Economy is
Speaker 1: saying that the case for for holding policy and just
Speaker 1: generally the case for concern around the economy has increased
Speaker 1: independent of what's going on Brexit and the last few months.
Speaker 1: I mean that that the material risk of the UK
Speaker 1: economy have gone up in the last few months. You
Speaker 1: think that's right, Well, I think it's I mean, it's
Speaker 1: very hard to distinguish or to separate hour what's going
Speaker 1: on in the UK economy from Brexit, but I mean
Speaker 1: I do think the impact of these global uh the
Speaker 1: global movements that we've seen on the UK or also
Speaker 1: having a having an effect, and you can't separate that.
Speaker 1: I mean, we are an open and small economy, we
Speaker 1: are very exposed to that, so to an extent that
Speaker 1: is an additional risk. That is definitely the case that
Speaker 1: the concern globally will translate into one in the UK
Speaker 1: and Stan it said. I mean again, consumption PA is
Speaker 1: an important well in the UK as it doesn't in
Speaker 1: the US, and that has continued to hold up reasonably well.
Speaker 1: But the recent data that we saw we were actually
Speaker 1: the data and Q one was was strong. But when
Speaker 1: you look at that, a lot of that was around
Speaker 1: inventories and lot of things we might think to be
Speaker 1: short terms. So I think again, in the same way
Speaker 1: as in the global position for the UK, the position
Speaker 1: is quite subdued. And when you're thinking about it, I
Speaker 1: mean looking at it an economists, but also when you
Speaker 1: have to be you know, thinking about the fiscal outlook
Speaker 1: for the UK, what the planning framework is going to
Speaker 1: be for the next few years. A year or so,
Speaker 1: we might have said we still had quite a long
Speaker 1: way to run in this economic cycle. Do we do
Speaker 1: we conclude from the last year that actually there's a
Speaker 1: good chance that this is that we've got less time
Speaker 1: than we thought, or is this just more feels more
Speaker 1: like a sort of temporary slowdown. We shouldn't change our
Speaker 1: fundamental view of the recovery. I mean, if you look
Speaker 1: at the actually the fiscal numbers, you wouldn't necessarily I
Speaker 1: mean the large change that as people know our forecasting
Speaker 1: has done sort of quite an independent body, the Office
Speaker 1: of BUDGECT responsibility. And actually the large change they made
Speaker 1: on the fiscal forecast was towards the end that was
Speaker 1: last year, in the budget last year, and actually they
Speaker 1: recognized that sort of systematically um our fiscal reouslys have
Speaker 1: been coming in higher than they previously thought, and so
Speaker 1: that was the point at which they made a large adjustment.
Speaker 1: So in a sense quite separate from these trends that
Speaker 1: we're talking about. Only part that was basically just looking
Speaker 1: at the backward data and what had actually happened and
Speaker 1: seeing that the forecast that they've been running toward them
Speaker 1: were not actually in line with with the outturns of
Speaker 1: what we or um So then I feel they've moved
Speaker 1: to a more central post, which is actually particular fiscal side,
Speaker 1: the position to continue to be recently strong. Have you,
Speaker 1: I mean, have you changed your view of the of
Speaker 1: the cycle or where we might be in it as
Speaker 1: on the basis of the last few months. Uh no, no,
Speaker 1: we haven't. We know from that that we're absolutely brilliant
Speaker 1: at forecasting, so well we are. But actually in July,
Speaker 1: this US expansion becomes the longest in the post war period.
Speaker 1: It goes just over ten years, which was the previous
Speaker 1: longest throughout the nineteen nineties. And you know, we had
Speaker 1: always expected a slowdown in growth, and we've longed for
Speaker 1: as long as we've been forecasting, we've had interest rate
Speaker 1: cuts in our profile. It's just that, yeah, in the
Speaker 1: course of the last couple of months, we've become the
Speaker 1: hawks in the room because suddenly everyone's forecasting a rate
Speaker 1: cut in July. So I think it's just the balance
Speaker 1: of risks has materially shifted, and it's already impacting on
Speaker 1: sentiment and on some of the Now some of the
Speaker 1: industrial indicators, it looks like maybe the auto sector isn't
Speaker 1: even worth shape, the tech sector, the semiconductor still looks
Speaker 1: a bit weak, and as I say, any evidence of
Speaker 1: any investment pick up is more likely to continue to
Speaker 1: be constrained. So it's more about, no, we haven't changed
Speaker 1: our central profile, but the risks around it a have
Speaker 1: certainly become much more skew to the downside. You know,
Speaker 1: we've seen obviously populism dominating a lot of the political
Speaker 1: debate in the US, across Europe and clearly in the UK. Um.
Speaker 1: I sometimes wonder whether there could there will be risks
Speaker 1: in if we have a similar response to the next crisis,
Speaker 1: which is fundamentally driven by quantitive easing, as well as
Speaker 1: maybe some fiscal polar see does that then so the
Speaker 1: seeds for another populous backlash because people do associate, rightly
Speaker 1: or wrongly. People think the printing of money to push
Speaker 1: up asset prices is helping people who own assets, which
Speaker 1: is wealthy people, at the expense of, or at least
Speaker 1: expense of increasing inequality. Do you think central banks should
Speaker 1: be wary of that sort of the political impact of
Speaker 1: those kind of tools. I think the difficulty with central
Speaker 1: banks in the last down swing was clearly that they
Speaker 1: were overburdened. You know, we could sometimes be forgiven for
Speaker 1: thinking that the only thing that causes growth is monetary policy,
Speaker 1: cutting interest rates and buying assets, which arguably there's rise
Speaker 1: and asset prices contributed to income and equality. Were wealth
Speaker 1: inequality not so much income inequality. So I think, you know,
Speaker 1: we need to think about what actually generates breath. And
Speaker 1: I think this is again part of the message that
Speaker 1: we were getting from Mario Dragging in his in his
Speaker 1: central speech, it was yes, we've We've got this a
Speaker 1: of instruments we can deliver. We can do more quantitative easing,
Speaker 1: we can cut interest rates more negative. But we still
Speaker 1: need to see the political integration. We still need to
Speaker 1: see a fiscal union. We still need to see a
Speaker 1: banking union and a capital markets union. And perhaps if
Speaker 1: governments didn't overburden central banks to the same degree, then
Speaker 1: we could get something that's more supportive for for growth
Speaker 1: longer term. But I think central banks will protect UM
Speaker 1: as much as their independence and their political neutrality as
Speaker 1: they possibly can. You should see who the next banking
Speaker 1: and governor is. Who whether you have strongly Defenser, I mean, Claire,
Speaker 1: you're in a really interesting position because we were sort
Speaker 1: of used to, you know, out of Bloomberg, sort of
Speaker 1: market economists with no offense to Janet Henry, who is
Speaker 1: at the top of this tree. But you know, we
Speaker 1: have a lot of people who were talking about how
Speaker 1: macro relates to markets UM. But the economists who worked
Speaker 1: for you are actually shaping the way policymakers think about
Speaker 1: economics and the sort of models they have in their
Speaker 1: heads when they're thinking about policy. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: criticism since the crisis of the models that people used
Speaker 1: being faulty and leading us a straight How much do
Speaker 1: you think we've fixed that right on on the ground level.
Speaker 1: How much are you working to kind of broaden people's minds.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, it's very fashionable I think these days
Speaker 1: to blame economists for all sorts of things, and some
Speaker 1: of the criticisms of the economics professional are fair, and
Speaker 1: an awful lot of them, I think are are misplaced,
Speaker 1: and it's important sort of distinguished between the two. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are things we can and should do better. I
Speaker 1: mean one of the things you sort of alluded to there,
Speaker 1: I think is around the diversity of the profession. And
Speaker 1: it's certainly the case that we are not a profession
Speaker 1: that's as diverse as we should be. You know, if
Speaker 1: you if you look at economists and you think about
Speaker 1: what people think of when they think of economists, they
Speaker 1: don't generally turn to the of a representative group across society.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is important that we have a more
Speaker 1: diverse bunch of people doing this this discipline party because
Speaker 1: it has quite a big impact on people that I mean,
Speaker 1: economics has a disproportionate impact and economists have a disproportionate
Speaker 1: impact on on outcomes for people. And there's quite a
Speaker 1: lot of evidence that we all know that diversity correlates
Speaker 1: to performance. I mean, we just saw that in the
Speaker 1: in the charts that you, um you showed. I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the things you've got to think about if
Speaker 1: you're trying to address this. And I know this is
Speaker 1: sort of badged as a sort of rising tide of
Speaker 1: women in economics, though we need to be clear economics
Speaker 1: is not very diverse on any other factors either. You
Speaker 1: area terrible outcomes in terms of the number of black
Speaker 1: and Asian I think, minority of people in their profession.
Speaker 1: You know, we also a very terrible if you look
Speaker 1: at the sort of socioeconomic background, you look at where
Speaker 1: we're all based. I mean most economists work in London,
Speaker 1: live in London, the Southeast, or in some other globalized city.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not surprising then that people load the
Speaker 1: charge at us that we're a bit out of touch
Speaker 1: with what's going on. And put it's particularly important I
Speaker 1: think for the government Economic Service because the work that
Speaker 1: we do, like you say, some of it is you know,
Speaker 1: sort of macroeconomic issues. We've talked about today, some of
Speaker 1: it actually is doing things like looking at how individual
Speaker 1: health programs affect people on the ground in certain regions
Speaker 1: and things like So, actually it's really really important. I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the worrying things. You've got to look at
Speaker 1: those what is the pipeline. So it's very good that
Speaker 1: there's been lots of high profile appointments of senior women
Speaker 1: to high profile economics jobs, you know, chief economists here
Speaker 1: there and all over. But actually when you look at
Speaker 1: who is studying economics, those numbers are not moving at all.
Speaker 1: About a third of economic students undergrads are women. I
Speaker 1: mean actually over the last ten years, that's not increased. Infact,
Speaker 1: it's actually going down slightly at the moment. And that
Speaker 1: suggests actually quite a worrying trend in terms of the
Speaker 1: pipeline of where this is going. You know, if you
Speaker 1: look at that, then throughout the academic spectrum you again
Speaker 1: have it progressing up. I mean, it's interesting when you
Speaker 1: look at why so some people would argue that what
Speaker 1: it's about maths women don't study at or math puts
Speaker 1: them off whatever, and somehow that's a barrier. I mean,
Speaker 1: leaving aside the slightly offensive suggestion that women can't can't
Speaker 1: do that, or choose not to. It's quite interesting if
Speaker 1: you control for that. If you look at the people
Speaker 1: who study A level maths, fewer women that study A
Speaker 1: level must then go on to do economics. They're farm
Speaker 1: will like you to go on to do medicine, for example,
Speaker 1: than than their male counterparts. Um, it's interesting if you
Speaker 1: look at the proportion of subjects that women study, Economics
Speaker 1: has the third lowest proportion of women who are more
Speaker 1: women as a proportion studying maths, but are more women
Speaker 1: as a study as a proportion study in physics, but
Speaker 1: still economics comes out really badly, and you have to
Speaker 1: sort of think, well, what what do we need to
Speaker 1: do about that? I mean, personally, I think we have
Speaker 1: an image problem as economists. I think we talk in
Speaker 1: a language that is really exclusive, that enables people to
Speaker 1: sort of switch off and be bored. You know, we
Speaker 1: use terminology that you know, we think we're being precise
Speaker 1: and accurate, and that is of course really really important.
Speaker 1: It's also very hard to get your message across if
Speaker 1: you do that. We don't tend to focus on the
Speaker 1: things and talk about the thing these people care about.
Speaker 1: If you look at the top universities in the UK.
Speaker 1: If you look at the top journals in the economics
Speaker 1: and what people are publishing on, it's not necessarily those
Speaker 1: issues that are the really exciting things we work on.
Speaker 1: Climate change, income distribution, health outcomes, development, those are the
Speaker 1: things that really affect people's lives. If you actually look
Speaker 1: at what a lot of climes are studying, it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily that what economists are talking about, it's not necessarily that.
Speaker 1: So I think there's quite a lot we need to
Speaker 1: do to make us make it more diverse, and to
Speaker 1: go out and sort of make clear to people that
Speaker 1: actually there is a place for them and econo it's
Speaker 1: even when you look at us as a profession now
Speaker 1: you may not see people that look like you, but
Speaker 1: actually there is a place people. You have to go
Speaker 1: out and drag people in. One of the things we're
Speaker 1: doing in the government for the first time in September,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, it's it's new, it's different as
Speaker 1: we're taking apprentices apprentices in economics for the first time,
Speaker 1: so people will be coming without any economics training before
Speaker 1: and studying and working at the same time. It's very interesting.
Speaker 1: We're taking seventy five people in September. We've advertised this
Speaker 1: in a completely different way than ever before. So it's
Speaker 1: all been done on social media. We don't awful lot
Speaker 1: about checking the language we're using. We've got a completely
Speaker 1: different cohort of people coming. Nearly half the people coming
Speaker 1: and women over a third are you know, not white.
Speaker 1: It's quite different to what we've seen before. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a bit of an experiment. We'll see. But I
Speaker 1: do think it's incumbent on all of us in the
Speaker 1: profession to try and reach out a bit and try
Speaker 1: and change this perception that somehow economics is about talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, with all due respect, money and stock markets
Speaker 1: and all of that. I mean, it is about that,
Speaker 1: but it's also about talking about the things that really
Speaker 1: affect people in your health, outcomes, welfare, regional bounces, all
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. Well, and it's interesting, I mean
Speaker 1: it's because we do we have been saying how wonderful
Speaker 1: that the Global Economists, which is BC as a woman,
Speaker 1: and several other international major banks currently have a female
Speaker 1: chief economist, and the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, all
Speaker 1: of these things. But I mean, now globate we think
Speaker 1: that that's a bad thing. Because it's further emphasizing that
Speaker 1: we've now got these role models who were all talking
Speaker 1: about the sort of the high pollution. Where you don't
Speaker 1: have the role models is actually a university that's whereas
Speaker 1: the worst instance with it. I mean, actually of my
Speaker 1: global economics team at h b C were about a
Speaker 1: third women, and in London we're half and half. But
Speaker 1: in public sector that now a lot more women economists,
Speaker 1: but in academia it's less than ten percent. Now, I
Speaker 1: was fortunate my undergraduate we had a very impressive female economist.
Speaker 1: And yeah, if you don't see people that look and
Speaker 1: sound like you and speak a language that you speak,
Speaker 1: why would you want to be interested by that? And
Speaker 1: I was I was looking at the numbers in the US.
Speaker 1: The it's four percent of full economics professors in the
Speaker 1: American universities are women, and that's actually an all time high.
Speaker 1: And there's quite a lot of concern because of the
Speaker 1: way the pipeline has changed with people fewer PhDs, that
Speaker 1: that's going to be an all time high for quite
Speaker 1: a long time, because it's going to go down from
Speaker 1: from here. But I also I like Clar's point about
Speaker 1: measuring things, measuring the things that people care about. I
Speaker 1: was very struck when I was working on the Inclusive
Speaker 1: Growth Commission with cities that they often had they just
Speaker 1: didn't have data for even measuring whether they were producing
Speaker 1: the right kind of jobs in their region or their
Speaker 1: city that they wanted to or that they thought they were,
Speaker 1: And you wouldn't. You didn't guess a lot of the
Speaker 1: relevant data in the form that they could use at
Speaker 1: the time that they could use it. So I guess
Speaker 1: that comes down to it as well. It does seem
Speaker 1: to me that in a way that gender inequality is
Speaker 1: an easier is an easier thing to address than the
Speaker 1: social diversity, because the social diversity, you're also dealing with
Speaker 1: the consequences of a very uneven education system in every country,
Speaker 1: and we can often I feel like the diversity agenda,
Speaker 1: when it's only focused on women, means that you're desperately
Speaker 1: competing to get a small number of women who have
Speaker 1: all had this fantastic who who may in fact be
Speaker 1: very privileged and have had a very similar social background
Speaker 1: and the people they're joining, and they may not be
Speaker 1: offering the diversity. So how I mean, you talked about
Speaker 1: the apprenticeships, but how else can we address it. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, I agree it's a real challenge. But I
Speaker 1: think some of this that is actually about talking to
Speaker 1: people in a language they understand. You know, when I
Speaker 1: go to schools and you actually talk about economics and
Speaker 1: what you do, people are more excited about the content
Speaker 1: of the subject than pretty much any other subject, right
Speaker 1: because people are understandably passionate about the big issues that
Speaker 1: face society and wanting to change them. And actually, that's
Speaker 1: what economists do. We just need to explain that's what
Speaker 1: we do, rather than always talk in a way that
Speaker 1: makes it sound like we're doing something that's from a
Speaker 1: different planet. So I think there's an element of that.
Speaker 1: There's an element of um thinking about the sort of
Speaker 1: the way in which we advertise jobs and we recruit,
Speaker 1: and there's quite a lot of frankly bias, unconscious, some
Speaker 1: unconscious in that. You know, we've moved away in the
Speaker 1: civil service. We used to used to be very focused
Speaker 1: on going and having an interview with some you know,
Speaker 1: very articulate, highly educated person. Now some people feel more
Speaker 1: comfortable in that environment than others. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are twenty one do not feel confident
Speaker 1: going into a room where they're asked to sort of
Speaker 1: debate like some kind of Oxford debating club with someone
Speaker 1: who's you know, four or five years older than them.
Speaker 1: And actually things like that are barriers that we just
Speaker 1: it wasn't intentional. We just hadn't really thought about it
Speaker 1: that way. And it's only when we looked at it
Speaker 1: and some people came and said, have you thought about
Speaker 1: what this feels like if you're twenty one and applying
Speaker 1: and you don't know anyone who's applied. You know, you
Speaker 1: might not have in your family or extended network, you
Speaker 1: might not know many people in these sorts of jobs.
Speaker 1: So a lot of things like that, but also you've
Speaker 1: just got to go out there and sort of actively
Speaker 1: try and pull people in. I mean, you know, who
Speaker 1: knows where we'll get to with our apprenticeship scheme. But
Speaker 1: that's been one way. Like I said, we've done it
Speaker 1: all through Snapchat. I mean, I have done it. I
Speaker 1: don't really understand snaptat, you know what it is, But
Speaker 1: we're not everybody here could teach perhaps, but you know,
Speaker 1: we've had other other people. We basically sort of outsourced
Speaker 1: it to a set of people who understand how to
Speaker 1: do this better than than than we did, and it's
Speaker 1: had some good results, but it's a small step and
Speaker 1: I think it's incumbent on us in the profession, Frank
Speaker 1: you to go out and do that, because the only
Speaker 1: way we're going to get any better at this. And
Speaker 1: I think unless we do, there is a legitimacy that
Speaker 1: we are missing out on, really, because how can we
Speaker 1: really justify going around and having this big influence on people,
Speaker 1: public policy and all of that when actually not representative
Speaker 1: at all. So I do think you have to do
Speaker 1: quite practical things like that, think about, actually, you know,
Speaker 1: what is the offer you're making and how does it
Speaker 1: sound to the people you're trying to convince. Well, I
Speaker 1: can say the good news is since the results of
Speaker 1: the Conservative Leadership second round of have come through that,
Speaker 1: however undiverse economics is, it's still a great deal more
Speaker 1: diverse than the remaining five candidates, only one of whom
Speaker 1: was state at school educated, four of whom went to Oxford,
Speaker 1: and I think two actually we're at the same college
Speaker 1: and indeed both at Eton, so we won't be looking
Speaker 1: for diversity. And if you probably you don't want to
Speaker 1: be leader of the Conservative Party. But I wouldn't recommend
Speaker 1: it from diversity. UM, thank you very much for both
Speaker 1: of you. I think we have managed to cover up
Speaker 1: quite a lot of ground in thought provoking way, and
Speaker 1: I look forward to having more conversations like this. But
Speaker 1: thank you to everybody for coming, Thanks for listening to Stephanomics.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with more on the ground
Speaker 1: insight into the global economy. In the meantime, you can
Speaker 1: find us on the Bloomberg Terminal website at or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast. We'd love it if you took
Speaker 1: the time to rate and review our show so it
Speaker 1: can reach more listeners. And for more news and analysis
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Economics, follow at Economics on Twitter. Is that simple.
Speaker 1: You can also find me on at my Stephanomics. This
Speaker 1: episode was produced by Magnus Hendrickson with assistance from David BC,
Speaker 1: Mike Simpson and Agatha Cantrill and the Women in Economics.
Speaker 1: Event would not have happened without Matt Winkler, Sasha Grap
Speaker 1: and Tammy Dyke. Our executive producer is Scott Laman special
Speaker 1: thanks to Janet Henry, Claire Lombardelli and Paul Gordon. Francesco
Speaker 1: Levy is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts,