Does the fact that, on any given day, a significant proportion of the U.K.’s housing stock remains unoccupied mean that the housing market is not working?
Are the reasons for productivity differences between firms in the same country helpful for understanding productivity differences between countries?
Does the return of inflation in the advanced industrial countries show that the lessons of the 1970s have not been learned?
Is central bank independence an emperor with no clothes?
Does turbulence in international energy markets in 2022 make the fight against climate change easier or more difficult?
Has behavioral economics done more to show that human beings are not self- interested or to show that they are not rational?
Should public policy do more to ensure that international supply chains take account of the risks of disruption?
Does incorporating heterogeneity between types of economic agent improve the predictive power of macroeconomic models?
Are we any closer to understanding how much of the gender or racial differences in economic outcomes is due to discrimination?
Are “developing countries” too heterogeneous a group to be a useful category for devising economic policy?
“Labour should be treated as a resource, not as a cost”. Discuss.
Are hypotheses about the long-run economic consequences of historical events impossible to test?
What, if anything, should be done about the increased debt-to-GDP ratios caused by the COVID-19 pandemic?
Is inefficiency in economic outcomes due more to the mismatch of economic agents to tasks or to inadequate incentives to perform the tasks they have?
Does the internet facilitate price discrimination, and does it matter?
Should competition policy treat platforms differently from other firms?
“Measurement problems are...rife in estimating the stock of many kinds of natural capital..but it is far better to work with rough and ready figures than to ignore whole swathes of capital goods by pretending they do not exist” (PARTHA DASGUPTA). Discuss.
Is intellectual property a more important obstacle to the production of vaccines by poor countries than lack of know-how in manufacturing and distribution?
Is venture capital more important than equity and debt markets for financing innovation?
“Real people live in transitions, but economists focus on equilibrium states”. Discuss.
“Politicians use economics as drunks use lampposts - for support rather than illumination”. Discuss.
Can international climate agreements be designed so that it is in the interest of all individual countries to abide by them?
‘Deaths from drugs, suicide, and alcohol pose the greatest risk to less-educated Americans, and almost all of the increase in these deaths since the mid-1990s is among people without a four-year college degree.’ (ANNE CASE and ANGUS DEATON). Has the rise of ‘deaths of despair’ proven the failure of capitalism?
Is it the policy of profit-maximising developers, not planning policy, that has resulted in so few houses being built in the UK?
Would corporate governance be improved by shareholders determining executive pay?
Does the availability of ‘big data’ reduce the role of economic theory?
Is General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) hurting innovation as much as it is protecting privacy?
Surveys indicate that, despite having much higher incomes than 50 years ago, people are on average no happier. What implications do these findings have for economic policy?
Should privately-provided insurance policies cover state-sponsored cyber attacks on firms?
Is economics of any help in understanding the persistence of the gender pay gap?
Is economics helpful for understanding what happens inside firms?
Twenty percent of the world population will be 65 or older in the next decade. What are the economic implications?
What should determine the inflation target?
In light of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the ensuing financial panic, could one still argue that banks are just the ‘veil’ of the real economy?
Does cutting corporate tax rates stimulate innovation?
The total capitalisation on the London Stock Exchange has lately fallen as a proportion of total world stock market capitalisation. Does this matter for the UK?
Aggregate economic productivity is nothing but a ‘measure of our ignorance’ (M. ABRAMOVITZ). Discuss.
Should central banks engage with climate change risk mitigation?
Have Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models been useful?
Do crypto currencies have any role beyond speculation and aiding crime?
Have Gen Zers been treated badly by the economic system relative to baby boomers?
Are democratic states destined to be richer than autocratic states?
Do we get more economic insights from randomized controlled trials or from structural modeling?
What determines whether industrial policy succeeds or fails?
Is it possible to estimate the contribution of the slave trade to the UK’s economic development?
Who should have property rights over the data collected by large technology companies?
In 1939, Lionel Robbins enquired ‘to what extent war can be regarded as being due to economic causes.’ What do you think?
Is the era of low interest rates over?
Are levels of public debt a cause for concern?
What makes auctions work well?
Who will benefit from fragmentation of the global economy?
Should advanced economies impose barriers to imports of Chinese electric vehicles?
Is devolving power to local governments desirable from an economic perspective?
Will the transition to net zero have implications for the gender pay gap?
Will the rise of AI lead to a rise in unemployment?
Can one separate the economic effects of Brexit from those of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Does flying business class lead to more CO2 emissions than flying economy?
Why have advanced economies managed to avoid a hard landing?
Will the dollar cease to be the dominant international currency any time soon?
‘Measuring firm-level productivity continues to be elusive.’ Discuss.
What is the economic rationale for supporting small and medium-sized companies?