Rethinking Economic Policy & Decision Making

It’s nearly 14 years since that week in 2008 when the run on Lehman Brothers marked the public start of the financial crisiswhich would bring misery to millions and lead governments to fall.

The analysis from that period will continue to play out over charts and data sets for years to come. In real time, the crisis played out across dining tables and in anxious conversations over garden fences across the world, as even once prosperous families lost homes, jobs and savings.

As the UCL Policy Lab launches the fourth and final of our research themes Rethinking Economic Policy & Decision Making, we aim to reflect on today’s economic challenges, including inflation, wages, growth and productivity.  We ask too how good economic policy gets made and by whom. What should be the role of international organisations, national governments, local authorities and others? We aim to explore how these issues and the events of the last 14 years might lead us to rethink our economic model and policy models for delivery.

For many in politics, the failure of our economic system and its decision-makers to deliver on the promise of a ‘better tomorrow’ lies at the heart of their frustration and anger. From disfranchisement with democracy to rising inequality, individuals and communities are frustrated at a system which too often seems incapable of engaging with the realities of their lives and experiences of the economy.

Alongside our launch, we’re publishing a series of essays from researchers across UCL. These essays act as the starting point for a conversation we invite you to, an attempt to break down the barriers between our institutions, communities and disciplines, from the threat posed by inflation to job markets to how we can best design tests to prevent fraud and malfunctioning markets. We’ll bring together world-leading researchers from the Departments of Economics and Political Science to help set out the latest ideas to understand the economy.

To get the latest on our work and collaborations, you can join our mailing list or follow us on Twitter. We’ll be sharing opportunities to collaborate and come together. Our themes, including Rethinking Economic Policy & Decision Making, will be appointing Heads of Themes, and for those wishing to help lead these conversations, you can contact policylab@ucl.ac.uk.