Economics

The consultation industry, argue authors Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington, has made its way to the heart of our economies and governments, resulting in everything from getting in the way of our attempts to halt climate change to muddying political accountability. In The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies, they debunk the myth that consultancies always add value to the economy with original research and recommendations for how to make sure the role of consultants works for economies and governments that are fit for purpose.

A world-leading economist, in Edible Economics Ha-Joon Chang makes challenging economic ideas more palatable by plating them alongside stories about food from around the world. He uses histories behind familiar food items – where they come from, how they are cooked and consumed, what they mean to different cultures – to explore economic theory. In this thought-provoking event Chang will show that getting to grips with the economy is like learning a recipe: if we understand it, we can change it – and, with it, the world. He talks to Polly Russell, food historian and curator at the British Library.

Experts Paul Johnson and Simon Johnson talk to economist Faiza Shaheen about holding government to account, why elites often benefit from our financial and technological systems, and how we can ensure a fairer world for all. Paul Johnson is director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the author of Follow the Money: How Much Does Britain Cost?, an examination of the way the state raises and spends £1 trillion of our money every year. Simon Johnson is the Ronald A. Kurtz professor of entrepreneurship in the Sloan School at MIT and was previously chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. He is the co-author, with Daron Acemoglu, of Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity.

Philosopher and economist Daniel Chandler and activist and economist Faiza Shaheen speak to writer and translator Daniel Hahn about the pressing issue of class inequality, its devastating effects in today’s United Kingdom, and how we can build a fairer society. Chandler’s book Free and Equal offers a vision of a better world for us all. Shaheen’s Know Your Place: How Society Sets us up to Fail is part memoir, part polemic, taking a personal and statistical look at how society is built and who it leaves behind.