What is nature's role in the economy?

Why have economists ignored nature for so long - and now they have discovered it, are they measuring it correctly?

This episode tackles the issue of incorporating nature into economic measurements. These include whether there is still a trade-off between economic growth and the environment, what is still missing from economic measures, and how to get academics and policymakers to work together. 

This episode is hosted by Rory Cellan-Jones, and features expert guests Dr Matthew Agarwala and Dr Cristina Peñasco from the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, and Nicolas Treich, from the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse.

Episode 2 transcript

For more information about the podcast and the work of the institutes, visit our websites at www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk and www.iast.fr/. 

Tweet us with your thoughts at @BennettInst and @IASToulouse.

Audio production by Steve Hankey.
Podcast editing by Annabel Manley

More about our guests:

Dr Matthew Agawala is an economist at the Bennett Institute, and project lead for their Wealth Economy project. He is interested in wealth-based approaches to measuring and delivering sustainability, wellbeing, and productivity. This is motivated by the belief that 21st century progress cannot be described by 20th century statistics.

Dr Cristina Peñasco is a University Lecturer in Public Policy at POLIS, a Centre Fellow at Centre for the Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG) hosted at the Department of Land Economy, and an associate researcher of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy. Her research brings together work in environmental economics, innovation policy and energy economics in green and energy efficiency technologies, with a focus on the policy instruments enabling the transition to low-carbon economy.

Nicolas Treich is a research associate at Toulouse School of Economics and INRAE (French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment). His work focuses on decision theory, environmental economics, and, more recently, on animal welfare.