Top of the Agenda

Women in Economics - Breaking the Bias

This year, International Women’s Day calls for us to ‘Break the Bias’. We have used economics to identify and define bias, as well as to find solutions to combat it. Dr Antara Dutta, Amazon’s In-House Economist, and two of our own economists—Principal, Katie-Lee English and Consultant, Lola Damstra—joined us in this discussion in our most recent podcast. 

The Economics of Climate Change

The UN Climate Conference, COP26, provides the perfect backdrop for our latest episode of the Agenda podcast. Many countries around the world are signing up to targets aimed at achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions, while the world is also in the grip of an energy crisis

On this podcast, we discuss how economics can help to address the trade-offs between the long- and short-term objectives that are facing policymakers and businesses.

Joining Russell Goldsmith on the podcast is Sir Philip Lowe, an Oxera Partner based in Brussels, alongside Dr Luis Correia da Silva, Partner in Corporate Purpose and Finance, and Sahar Shamsi and Jostein Kristensen, who jointly head Oxera’s Climate Economics practice.

Women in Economics

‘An equal world is an enabled world’

 In honour of International Women’s Day 2020, which takes place on 8 March, this month’s Agenda  podcast is dedicated to women in economics.

The podcast explores the role of women in economics and what can be done to encourage young women to study and work in the field. We welcome back Oxera Managing Partner Dr Helen Jenkins, who is joined by Consultants Andreea Antuca and Enza Seminara. For this special edition of the podcast, we’re also delighted to welcome Mary Starks, Executive Director and expert in regulation and policy design at Ofgem, the energy regulator for Great Britain.

In February, before this podcast was recorded, we launched a survey of female economists worldwide, collecting a large number of responses and collating the insights here. We carried out the survey to get a better understanding of what drives our industry and the women who work in it. We received fascinating responses about the challenges that women economists face, who inspires them in the field, and what advice they would give to young women interested in joining the profession.

The survey results made for an animated conversation between our panel—gender equality, behavioural biases and even The Wolf of Wall Street were all mentioned.

 

economics is a field associated with real power, there is a number of really powerful people amongst senior economists and I think it’s really important we get a gender balance in this field right.
Mary Starks

 

One of the things that is harder for women is letting yourself take the space, and taking that step, taking that space, can be a very scary thing to do—but I think it’s a very important to encourage women to take those risks.
Dr Helen Jenkins

Listen and subscribe to the whole podcast series on Spotify, Apple or Google.

Join the conversation on LinkedIn and Twitter. If you would like to get in touch with Oxera about Agenda or contact any of the people who took part in this podcast, email agenda@oxera.com.

What is the role of the consumer in purpose-led business?

In our third Agenda Podcast, we discuss the roles that consumers play in purpose-led business.

Dr Helen Jenkins, Oxera's Managing Partner and a leading expert in competition and litigation, discusses her belief that it's essential for consumers to be at the heart of strategic business questions. Consumers genuinely care about how firms do business, and they make choices based on the firms’ choices about investment. Helen goes on to explain how true consumer engagement can give a business competitive advantage in the market.

Helen is joined by Pascale Déchamps, Partner and Head of Oxera in France, and Dr Luis Correia da Silva, an Oxera Partner who focuses on business sustainability.

Pascale disagrees with the idea that all consumer activity is driven by big ideals, but she also disagrees that consumers are completely passive and only concerned by price. She notes that businesses have a decision to make as to whether they facilitate or hinder consumers shifting towards more sustainable consumption. Luis expands on the discussion by the position of the consumer within the five-capital framework, before exploring the different techniques businesses might use to engage

Do investors hold the key to changing the purpose of business?

Tim Jenkinson, Professor of Finance and Director of the Private Equity Institute at Saïd Business School, Oxford University, and Partner at Oxera, says that the decisions of asset managers are being driven by asset owners, and asks if those owners are prepared to make the kinds of trade-off required to fundamentally change the purpose of a business. Investors continue to be comfortable with the idea of making short-run versus long-run trade-offs by investing in companies that have long-term sustainable business, but the difficulty arises when there are potential trade-offs in profitability.

Tim is Joined by Luis Correia da Silva, Partner at Oxera, who suggests that there has been a gradual shift in boardrooms as the corporate world tries to articulate a purpose that goes beyond financial objectives. However, Luis continues to challenge how well these ideas are embedded within an organisation in the pursuit of real change.

What is the purpose of business?

Luis Correia da Silva, Partner at Oxera, says that businesses have been put under severe pressure over the last few years, not just to focus on profits but also to consider the outcomes they deliver for society and what impact they have on communities. Around the globe, investors, governments and regulators are all exercising enormous pressure on boards of directors of companies to take a much more holistic view of the purpose of business. Equally, society is now playing an active role in shaping the future of business.

Luis is joined by David Jevons, Partner and Head of Oxera’s Digital practice, Katie-Lee English, a Senior Consultant focusing on public policy issues, and Tim Hogg, a Senior Consultant who specialises in financial services and behavioural economics.