The RES 2021 Annual Conference included 130 sessions drawing speakers and delegates from across the world. Sessions covered the breadth of the discipline including key contemporary economic issues such as the post-Covid recovery, the impact of changes to the retirement age on women and the lack of diversity in the field.
On 12 April, former Governor of the Bank of England, Lord Mervyn King’s comments on the possibility of rising inflation as the economy recovers were covered in The Guardian. The piece notes the risk of central banks ‘becoming hooked on stimulus’ as we come out of the COVID-19 recession.
The Daily Telegraph noted Lord King’s comments that heavily-indebted ‘zombie’ companies should be allowed to fail to help usher in stronger economic growth in the UK’s post-Covid economy.
Research presented by Ludovico Carrino of King’s College London also garnered coverage in multiple newspapers. The Daily Mail reported the paper’s warning of greater pressures on care for the elderly as a consequence of the increase to the State Pension Age for women. The Daily Telegraph also noted that the study of “more than 7,000 women aged 55 to 65 finds longer working hours mean less informal care for elderly parents”.
The Daily Mail also published a story discussing findings from a paper on faith and faith schools impact on life chances by Andrew McKendrick of Lancaster University. The paper suggests that children with religious beliefs go on to do better at GSCE and A-Level and have a higher chance of securing a place at a Russell Group university. The research suggests faith schools ‘in themselves’ do not perform better in terms of educational outcomes than other schools, though they perform better across a range of other measures.
