Economics in business

In this podcast, we discuss the potential impact of drones on the UK economy, drawing on findings from PwC's "Skies without limits" report. We discuss the benefits and the risks of increasing drone uptake across industries, and how governments and businesses can best utilise drones to increase productivity and realise net cost savings of a potential £16bn to the UK by 2030.

In April of this year PwC published a groundbreaking report, commissioned by Microsoft, which estimated the potential economic and environmental benefits of using AI technology to address climate change and promote sustainability. The report found that using AI applications across four sectors (agriculture, water, energy and transport) could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 4% in 2030 and contribute up to $5.2 trillion to the global economy. In this episode we are joined by two of the economists behind this analysis, Saloni Goel and Edmond Lee, to discuss these results in more detail and the implications they have for businesses and policymakers globally. Follow the link below see the full report and explore the data further using Microsoft’s Power BI dashboard: https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/sustainability-climate-change/insights/how-ai-future-can-enable-sustainable-future.html

UK employment levels are at record highs, but is there more that we can do to encourage further participation in the workforce and what are the potential gains to be made? In this episode we talk to John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC, about the UK's current labour market performance and what lessons we can learn from other OECD countries about harnessing the potential of three key demographic groups - women, under 25s and over 55s. The analysis discussed in this episode comes from article 4 of the July edition of PwC's UK Economic Outlook Report, which can be found here: https://www.pwc.co.uk/economic-services/ukeo/ukeo-july2019.pdf

We discuss the benefits for emerging capital markets becoming "Euroclearable" and the resulting economic impacts. If you'd like to read more, our full report is available at https://www.euroclear.com/newsandinsights/en/press/2019/2019_mr-04-PWCWhitepaper.html

Our economists discuss the key themes emerging for the year ahead and their impact on the global economy - including a slowdown in global economic growth, workers and wages, and trade conflicts.

What's ahead for the future of the UK economy? Looking in particular at GDP and debt, we consider historical and current trends to take a long-term view on the outlook for the UK economy.

After the financial crisis, banks were subjected to a global overhaul of the entire regulatory system. 10 years down the line, Nick Forrest, head of our Financial Economics team explains how this has actually affected banks, and the banking sector as a whole. Read more in our report with AFME.

Labour markets in most advanced economies have (almost) never been better - but wages haven't really picked up. Our Senior Economist, Barret Kupelian, explains what's driving this disparity and what it could mean for businesses.

Organisations are increasingly using Behavioural Economics (BE) to improve the way they interact with customers by better understanding their behaviour. Suresh Natarajan, who leads our BE practice joins Laura to share his experiences of using BE to help clients, and his views on where the field may be headed.

In an era of geopolitical transformation, what do financial markets tell us about country risk premia? The answer may surprise you. Economist Rob Vaughan shares the latest trends from PwC's country risk premium model, and how this insight can help companies manage country risk.

Economist James Loughridge joins our host Laura Gatz to explain what our latest research can tell us about what's happening to the frequency and cost of natural disasters, and how this impacts an economy

Nick Forrest, our Head of Financial Services in Economic Consulting, discusses with new host Laura Gatz-Schulz how he and his team used economic principles and methods to help The CityUK develop a strategy for the Financial Services Sector.

John Hawksworth, Chief Economist at PwC UK, talks about our recent research analysing the impact of automation on jobs in the UK and other OECD countries. We explore which industries and types of workers are likely to be most affected, but also consider the potential job and productivity gains from technological progress.

With inflation rapidly on the rise and the US Federal Reserve continuing to raise rates, could we see an increase in UK interest rates this year? We put this question to Andrew Sentance, Senior Economic Adviser at PwC, and discuss the wider outlook for monetary policy in the UK in this economics podcast.

We're joined by economists Jing Teow and Shivangi Jain to explore which OECD countries have made the greatest progress in closing their gender pay gaps and discuss what governments and businesses can do to speed up this progress.