Tim Phillips Talk Normal

Award-winning producer and podcast host @ Talk Normal Productions: VoxTalks Economics, VoxDev Talks, Trade Links, & more. Business/econ writer and editor too.

[STICERD @STICERD_LSE]

How Well Does Patent Screening Work?

Listen to Mark Schankerman's interview with @timsvengali for the @cepr_org Vox Podcast

https://t.co/QN1XsovHAz

[Tim Phillips Talk Normal @timsvengali]

@farmerline In this week's VoxDev Talk, @Monica_Lambon tells @timsvengali why timing loans turns out to matter as much as access to credit: "Digital credit is not a silver bullet. Complementarities definitely matter," she says: https://t.co/SlMIO874Vn

[Tim Phillips Talk Normal @timsvengali]

An RCT used a service called @farmerline around 900 farmers input loans through a phone app, scored on farm and sales data. Input spending rises 11%. But did bigger profits follow?

[Tim Phillips Talk Normal @timsvengali]

The market is under $300bn but absorbs roughly a fifth of net US T-bill issuance already. "Let's make sure we know what's going on there, what the amounts at play are, and who supervises what. This is what is missing at the moment." Gilles tells @timsvengali. https://t.co/Sk5XKLzVOE

[Tim Phillips Talk Normal @timsvengali]

Listen to @MoecGilles not he risks and rewards of stablecoins in the second of our two episodes of VoxTalks Economics today to mark to launch of the fourth @cepr_org/Bruegel Paris Report, titled "The New Global Imbalances". Investors buy the token, the platform keeps the interest. The US government gets cheap global funding; holders get zero yield.

[Tim Phillips Talk Normal @timsvengali]

@MauriceObstfeld Will there be the fiscal policy report the deficit needs? "There's just no appetite to have that discussion," @MauriceObstfeld tells @timsvengali. Hear what happened when we made bad choices, in the past, and whether we will do better this time. https://t.co/gKdDVOiHzf

[Tim Phillips Talk Normal @timsvengali]

No, says @MauriceObstfeld, in the first of our two episodes of VoxTalks Economics today to mark to launch of the fourth @cepr_org/Bruegel Paris Report, titled "The New Global Imbalances". The US current account deficit is mainly driven by low domestic saving — starting with the federal government's own deficit. The deficit is a spending problem, not a trade policy problem.

[Tim Phillips Talk Normal @timsvengali]

For example, cash transfers don't reliably improve health. Whether the money helps depends on how long it lasts, whether it's conditional, and what people expect in their future. Sudden windfalls also can be good and bad -- some people spend unexpected tax refunds on things that will be bad for their health. Listen here: https://t.co/Ih5tbn60Oa

[Tim Phillips Talk Normal @timsvengali]

@UCLA That's because poverty is bad for health everywhere. Rich people live longer than poor people. In the US today, the gap between the richest and poorest 1% is more than ten years of life. What can policymakers do about it? The evidence is more complicated than you'd expect.

[Tim Phillips Talk Normal @timsvengali]

@BaldwinRE @IMD_Bschool @voxeu "The architect burned down the cathedral. Something else is being built in its place." Richard Baldwin told me. We discussed how that post-war rebuilding works — and why it might hold. https://t.co/gKdDVOiHzf

[Tim Phillips Talk Normal @timsvengali]

@BaldwinRE @IMD_Bschool @voxeu The good news: trade actually grew in 2025! Every country's exports rose except the US, which recorded its largest trade deficit ever. This implies that the rest of the world is already building a new order ... without Washington.