The UK’s economy has waned in recent years - low growth and productivity have been coupled with rising inflation and poverty. In this event Richard Davies will be joined by Ricardo Hausmann, head of the Harvard Growth lab and a panel of senior journalists and policymakers to discuss how Britain’s economic model can be re-built to kickstart productivity and tackle the country’s challenges. 

Meet our speakers and chair

Camilla Cavendish is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster, and the author of Extra Time: Ten Lessons for an Ageing World, published by Harper Collins in 2019. She is a Research Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School and Contributing Editor at the Financial Times, where she writes a weekly OpEd column. Camilla was Head of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit under David Cameron. She has been a board member of the NHS regulator, advised the Department of Health in the 2020 pandemic, and has authored two independent public reviews into health and social care. At Harvard she researches the impacts of demographic change. Camilla started her career at McKinsey & Co and has degrees from Oxford and Harvard.

Ricardo Hausmann (@ricardo_hausman) is the founder and Director of Harvard’s Growth Lab and the Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School. Before joining Harvard University, he served as the first Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank (1994-2000), Minister of Planning of Venezuela (1992-1993) and as a member of the Board of the Central Bank of Venezuela. He also served as Chair of the IMF-World Bank Development Committee. 

Richard Davies (@RD_Economist) is an economist and author. He is Professor in Practice at the LSE School of Public Policy, serving as director of the Harvard-LSE Growth Co-Lab and the UK’s Economics Observatory. Before academia he worked in policy and journalism: he has been Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers at HM Treasury, an economist and speechwriter at the Bank of England, and economics editor of The Economist.

More about this event

This event is part of LSE Festival: Power and Politics running from Monday 10 to Saturday 15 June 2024, with a series of events exploring how power and politics shape our world. Booking for all Festival events will open on Monday 13 May.  

The LSE School of Public Policy (@LSEPublicPolicy) equips you with the skills and ideas to transform people and societies. It is an international community where ideas and practice meet. Their approach creates professionals with the ability to analyse, understand and resolve the challenges of contemporary governance.

Hashtag for this event: #LSEFestival