Other

BBC World Service East Asia

The Compass v2 Podcast

The Compass

Documentaries

Factual: Life Stories

With ideas too big for a single episode, The Compass presents mini-series about society

Surprising stories from unusual places. With ideas too big for a single episode, The Compass presents mini-series about the environment and politics, culture and society.

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

The Compass: After the Crash: After the Crash: Rethinking Economics

Factual

Rethinking Economics

17/10/2018 GMT

After the Crash: Rethinking Economics

After the Crash

BBC World Service - The Compass, After the Crash, After the Crash: Rethinking Economics

How should economists rethink their ideas to better spot financial dangers in the future?

As the world dealt with the fallout of the 2008 financial crash the hunt began for someone to blame. One group of people was suddenly thrust into the spotlight - economists. If they could not see such a catastrophe coming, had the world’s economists been asleep on the job, inept, or just blind to the crucial warning signs? 

As an economist himself, professor Ian Goldin thinks economists deserve a share of the blame. He looks at the ways the financial crash led to a crisis in his own profession, and to huge changes in the way economics is thought about and taught. Why should we care? Remember these are the people who steer the financial systems on which we all depend. If they give bad advice, it can wreck your economy. Ian argues that economics needs to get away from some of its old ideas about treating human behaviour as a rational, rather macho science, and open itself up to ideas from across the whole world. But in the end, should we all try harder to be economically literate and better able to spot dangers on the horizon? 
               
Guests include the head of the IMF Christine Lagarde, Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane, former World Bank managing director and finance minister of Nigeria Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, author of Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? Katrine Marçal, and Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

(Photo: Business man with his head in his hands. Credit: Getty Images)

The Compass: After the Crash

Ian Goldin examines how the 2008 financial crisis has changed the world.

Ten years ago the world financial system had a heart attack. Gripped by panic, banks stopped lending, cash ran out and the world came to the edge of a financial precipice.

The impact was immediate. As millions of people lost their jobs and as the shock that started in Wall Street reverberated around the world, the crisis led to a collapse of the Greek, Spanish, Icelandic and other economies. 

Professor Ian Goldin has spent his career working in all five continents on finance and development. After serving as an economic advisor to President Mandela and CEO of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, he moved to Washington to be the head of policy and vice president at the World Bank in the run up to the crisis. In 2006, he was appointed as the founding Director of the Oxford Martin School and Professor of Globalisation and Development at Oxford University.

In this five part series he examines how the 2008 financial crisis has changed the world.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Compass

After the Crash

After the Crash: Rethinking Economics

Genres

Formats

Brand

Series

BBC World Service East Asia

About BBC World Service