Schedule
9.45am – 10.15am REGISTRATION
10.15am – 10.30am Welcome and Introduction – Christiana Stewart-Lockhart and Mark Littlewood
10.30am – 11am Tim Harford – What Made the Modern Economy: Why History Should Emphasise Ideas and Innovations
Tim Harford is one of the best known and most effective popularisers of economic ideas and insights. He will talk about the arguments made in his most recent book, Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy and look at some of the amazing ways in which ideas and innovations have transformed our lives in profound ways for the better.
11am – 11.20am BREAK
Book signing with Tim Harford
11.20am – 11.50am Roger Bootle – A Positive View of Post-Brexit Britain
Roger Bootle is one of Britain’s most high profile economic analysts and commentators. He will talk about his book Making a success of Brexit And Reforming the EU, explaining why we should be much more relaxed about the prospects for Brexit. He argues that clearer economic analysis will show claims that Brexit has doomed Britain economically are misguided.
11.50am – 12.20pm Dr Linda Yueh – Globalisation and The Rise of China
Leading economist and broadcaster, Linda Yueh, will be speaking on her new book, The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today. Dr Yueh will focus on two chapters: Can China Grow Rich? And The Future of Globalisation. She will draw on the insights of the Great Economists to help address these two current economic challenges.
12.20pm – 1pm LUNCH
Book signings with Linda Yueh and Roger Bootle
1pm – 1.30pm Kate Andrews – How Pay Gaps Gripped the Developed World
2018 marks the 100-year anniversary since most women gained the right to vote. Yet the occasion seems to have drawn more attention to issues like the gender pay gap, than it has to the historical and contemporary successes of women. Do men and women have access to the same opportunities in 2018? How concerned should we be about workplace discrimination and the gender pay gap? Will the government’s newly-implemented pay gap reporting measures take us a step closer to gender equality, or lead us further astray?
1.30pm – 2.10pm Raj Chande of The Behavioural Insights Team in Conversation with Christopher Snowdon
Nudge theory and the applications of insights from behavioural economics have become a major feature of public policy in recent years. Some see this as a case of overbearing paternalism, others as a way to encourage people to make better decisions. Raj Chande of the government’s Behavioural Insights Team will discuss these issues with the IEA’s Christopher Snowdon.
2.10pm – 2.30pm BREAK
2.30pm – 3pm Dambisa Moyo – The Edge of Chaos
Dambisa Moyo became one of the world’s best-known development economists and critics of the aid system with the publication of her book Dead Aid in 2011. She will speak about the arguments of her new book Edge of Chaos, looking at the rise of populism and the growing challenges to democracy and how we need to reform it to meet them. (Please note, due to unforeseen circumstances, this talk will now take place via Skype).
3pm – 3.30pm Tom Standage – The Economics of Self-Driving Cars
Tom Standage is Deputy Editor of The Economist. He will speak about the far-reaching implications and likely effects of autonomous vehicles – they will enable us to correctly price vehicle externalities for the first time for example, but they may also greatly increase the state’s capacity for control and surveillance.
3.30pm – 3.50pm BREAK
Book signing with Tom Standage
3.50pm – 4.30pm Dr Vernon Smith, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist, in Conversation with Dr Philip Booth
Vernon Smith is one of the world’s most widely decorated economists. A long-time friend of the IEA, he won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002. Professor Smith will be interviewed by IEA Senior Academic Fellow Professor Philip Booth, on important and topical aspects of economics. His work includes experimental economics, which tests economic theory against the actual decisions that real people take, and behavioural economics. Vernon Smith has recently become a severe critic of Donald Trump’s protectionist policies, just as he was a critic of George Bush’s steel tariffs 16 years ago.
4.30pm – 5pm Dr Jamie Whyte – The Economics of Oxfam and Inequality
Inequality is widening. That’s what we are always told. But is it really? This talk examines the way inequality is measured and how those measures can be misleading. It argues that inequality, properly understood, has actually declined dramatically over the past 40 years.
5pm – 5.20pm BREAK
5.20pm – 6pm Closing Keynote with Dr Steve Davies – Dissecting Corbynomics and Theresa May’s Economy
If you are a historian you soon become convinced that there is nothing new under the sun. Today all sorts of bad arguments and policies are being revived and presented as novel and exciting – from all parts of the political debate. Why were these bad ideas before and why is it that they are still so today?
6pm – 8pm DRINKS RECEPTION
Please note: at 7pm there will be a special session hosted by the IEA and Volteface on ‘High time to Legalise Cannabis?’ The event is free to attend but requires seperate registration here.
VIEW LAST YEAR'S CONFERENCE BROCHURE HERE.