Forward Thinking

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

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

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

A leading market maker for investment in carbon removal believes that tackling climate change has to be done quickly, but that the problem is tractable. Doom-laden thinking has gone too far.

“We need to talk about inflation. It’s unfair. It’s not democratic, It’s a terrible thing to unleash on society. And I think many of us have forgotten what damage it can do,” says a leading British economist.

A leader on funding Europe’s energy transition talks about the three Ss that are necessary: speed, scale, and simplicity.

A British economist talks about longevity and how we can adapt to living for longer.

Two University of Michigan professors talk about their highly relevant—joyous—take on economics.

In this episode of Forward Thinking, economist Hans-Helmut Kotz discusses parallels between the global financial crisis and today’s financial turbulence.

Economist Nouriel Roubini joins the podcast to talk about global megathreats, including economic, geopolitical, and globalization-related risks.

In this podcast, economist Alan Taylor covers how history can provide a lens into trends in globalization and wealth and the long-term impact of pandemics.

“This is certainly the most exciting, contentious, uncertain time when it when it comes to trade policy, certainly in my lifetime,” says a leading trade economist.

Many people think that hunger and climate change happen to poor people in faraway countries and won’t affect them, says a leading food systems expert. “But that is a naïve perception of the world.”