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Two hundred and fifty years after the publication of The Wealth of Nations, Jeffrey D Sachs returns to one of Adam Smith's most striking claims: that "the discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind." Drawing on new geospatial datasets, Professor Sachs argues that Smith's observation captures deep truths about long-term global economic change — truths that remain profoundly relevant for our own age.

Join us to celebrate Hilde Himmelweit as part of LSE’s 130th anniversary programme, honouring the life and legacy of Hilde Himmelweit (1918–1989), a pioneering refugee scholar and one of the very few women to hold a professorship at the School in its early history.

So much of the recent focus of artificial intelligence (AI) has been on the quest to use massive data to build a single autonomous machine or agent that mimics and augments the human mind. And we only tend to think about AI on that one level – AI as single machine or agent.

Greece has travelled a remarkable path over the past decade, moving from deep economic crisis to a period of renewed stability and recovery. But what comes next? As geopolitical tensions intensify and the global economy becomes increasingly fragmented, the country once again finds itself navigating a shifting and uncertain landscape.

Join us for this talk and discussion with Andrea Lorenzo Capussela as he discusses his book, The Republic of Innovation.

In this public lecture, Rory Stewart explores how economic interdependence, technological networks and global supply chains have become instruments of geopolitical power.

One year on from receiving the 2025 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Philippe Aghion joins us at LSE to mark the official launch of the Huth Initiative for a New Political Economy.

The dialogue will bring together researchers from LSE's Department of International Development and practitioners from Amnesty International, International Secretariat (IS) & UK Section (AIUK) to share knowledge on putting policy into practice while centring the human experience in development.

Join us this Black History Month for a thought-provoking conversation between acclaimed author and broadcaster Reni Eddo-Lodge and LSE President Larry Kramer.

In this special event, the 2026 winner of the Coller Dolittle Prize Julie Elie, will present her work on decoding the language of zebra finches.

This public event celebrates Every Last Girl: A Journey to Educate India's Forgotten Daughters, a book by Safeena Husain. In conversation with Stephan Chambers, she will discuss the journey of Educate Girls and its mission to find and empower every girl in India.

The old socialist calculation debate asked whether markets or planners could allocate resources more rationally. But neoliberalism long ago shifted the terrain from calculation to creativity, experimentation and worldmaking — and AI now radicalises that shift by enclosing the infrastructures of knowledge, culture, judgment and imagination.

We are witnessing something unique in history. The most powerful and technologically advanced nation in the world is tearing down the very international order that it constructed eighty years ago.

Many people use social media simply because everyone else does. While these platforms help us stay connected, some argue that society would be better off if social media use were significantly reduced or even eliminated. This event explores why people continue to use products they may believe are ultimately harmful.

Join us for a conversation between Ricardo Reis, A. W. Phillips Professor of Economics at LSE, and Alberto Musalem, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, where they will talk about monetary policy and recent economic trends.

As the world looks ahead to COP32 in Addis Ababa, Africa has a unique opportunity to shape the direction of global climate negotiations. At a pivotal moment for international climate policy, the continent is setting the agenda on how climate action can support sustainable and resilient economic development.

How, when, and why did women in the US obtain legal rights equal to men’s regarding the workplace, marriage, family, Social Security, criminal justice, credit markets, and other parts of the economy and society, decades after they gained the right to vote?

In this conversation with Nobel Prize-winner and LSE alumnus Daron Acemoglu he will be talking about his new book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy?

This podcast was originally published in November 2024 and is being republished as part of our Summer archive series of LSE's Public Lectures and Events.

Lazard CEO and Chairman Peter Orszag sees a new supply-side era taking shape, in which supply shocks that are increasingly geopolitical in origin and rooted in the physical world have displaced demand as the dominant source of macroeconomic variance.