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Why you should watch: Chile is writing a new Constitution; Colombia and Brazil face deeply polarizing elections. Peru's new(ish) government has seen three cabinets and four finance ministers in six months... And then there's Venezuela and Nicaragua, two essentially failed states. And Argentina - though it got a break from the IMF. And what about Bukele's Bitcoin experiment in El Salvador. Oh, don't forget Mexico... Latin America matters - and it faces a tough year as it recovers from a bad dose of Covid at a time of rising interest rates and supply chain disruption. Two former finance ministers discuss the outlook.Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)Andrés Velasco is currently dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics. He is a former Professor of International Finance at the Kennedy School, who served as Finance Minister in Chile from 2006 to 2010, and was a Presidential candidate in 2013. He subsequently spent four years as a Professor of Practise at Columbia, before coming to London.Manuel Hinds enjoyed two terms as Finance Minister in El Salvador, winning the Manhattan Institute's Hayek Prize in 2010. In the 1980s, he was a Division Chief at the World Bank in Washington, and was subsequently a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has consulted extensively for the Bank and Fund, and is the author of many books, most recently 'In Defense of Liberal Democracy'.

Why you should watch: The world is changing; societies are changing. But is capitalism changing? And, if it is changing, is it changing in a way that meshes with the broader economic and social changes? This book argues that we are at a tipping point, in which 'financialized capitalism' (in which shareholder value and financial returns rule the roost) is morphing into what the author calls 'political capitalism' - a form of capitalism that reflects the fact that, in the modern world, every corporate decision is a political decision. Some companies get it right; others don't. Those that do will thrive; those that don't will find themselves increasingly out of step with their 'citizen consumers'.Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)Joe Zammit-Lucia is a man of many parts. Originally a gastro-enterologist (trained at the Royal Free), he has been an 'entrepreneur, an investor, a leadership adviser and a commentator' - also an author of several business books. He has (he says) 'lived and worked in the UK, Germany, France, the US, Spain, the Netherlands and Malta'. He also set up RADIX, a think-tank of the 'radical center', which is based in Amsterdam with many great and good from the UK economic establishment on its various boards. This book, published by Bloomsbury, is out this week.

Explainer: Argentine debt - back to the 80s? With Prof Danny Leipziger (GWU)Why you should watch: For economists of a certain age, Argentina is the gift that goes on giving. For the IMF, it is a recurring nightmare. And for investment bankers (who actually bought into Argentina's 100-year bond issue in 2017), it ought to be a lesson that they are not as smart as they think they are. Come March, Buenos Aires is supposed to repay US$45 billion to the IMF. It won't happen - not least because the country's total reserves are only around US$35 billion. But will Argentina risk arrears with the Fund? Or will the Fund blink? This brief Explainer explores the options - another currency board, dollarisation, a technocratic administration? Or just more of the same old same old muddling through?Danny Leipziger is Professor of Practice in International Business at George Washington University in DC, and MD of the University's Growth Dialogue. He is a former V-P at the World Bank, where he headed the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network, having previously been chief economist for the Southern Cone region. He was educated at CCNY and at Brown, from which he has a PhD in economics. He is the author of around a dozen books, and many articles on debt and development.

Explainer: What's going on with El Salvador's Bitcoin experiment? With Ramiro Blazquez (BancTrust)Why you should watch: On June 9 last year, President Nayib Bukele announced that Bitcoin will be legal tender in El Salvador - a country which had abandoned its own currency a few years before, in favour of the US dollar. El Salvador is not exactly an economic powerhouse - nor is it a model of fiscal probity. Indeed, with a debt ratio of around 90%, its finances were already under stress. So, what has happened - and what chance does Bukele have of raising the billion dollar BTC bond that a little-known consultancy, Blockstream, is promoting on his behalf? And how do the IMF and the Biden Administration view developments in a country that, after all, is the source of a significant proportion of the Central American migrants who have become such a potent political issue in the US?Ramiro Blazquez is head of research and strategy at BancTrust & Co in Buenos Aires. He previously worked with the IMF in Argentina, and was a Chevening Scholar in the UK before spending ten years with HSBC as an Andean economist and as a Senior Economist on Latin America. He is associated with Canning House in London and with Torcuato Di Tella University in BA.

Web 3.0: An Explainer, with Martin Walker, Center for Evidence Based ManagementWhy you should watch: Web 3 (or Web 3.0) is as powerful a buzzword these days as DeFi - and it is just as hard to pin down. What does it mean? How does it differ from Web 2.0 or Web 1.0 - or the Internet as we know and love it?  Martin Walker tries to explain the history of the term, which he sees primarily as a marketing ploy, and how it is closely related to promotion of the Ethereum blockchain. Andrew Hilton rolls his eyes - but persists in the belief that there must be something there, if only he was smart enough to understand it.Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)Martin Walker is currently head of product management for securities finance and collateral management at Broadridge Financial Solutions. He was formerly involved with product development at the R3 Consortium and a strategy adviser to HSBC. Before that, he worked in the City with Dresdner Kleinwort, and RBS. He has an MSc from Imperial in computer science.

'The Future of Money: How the digital revolution is transforming currencies and finance'. An interview with the author of this important new book, Eswar Prasad.Why you should watch: This new book (published by Harvard UP) tackles four big issues: What impact the rapid growth of FinTech is having (and where it is likely to be most successful); whether Bitcoin and blockchain will ever live up to the hype; why central banks, large and small, are placing their bets on CBDCs; and what all of this means for the global financial system - and for the dollar's hegemony. Prof. Prased is strongly supportive of FinTech, particularly in the EM space. He is also strongly supportive of blockchain's potential - albeit more than a bit sceptical about Bitcoin itself. As for CBDCs, he sees them as pretty much inevitable. That said, the combination is still unlikely to overturn a global financial system that is based on the institutions and rule of law that underpin the US dollar. For anyone who really wants to understand FinTech, DeFi, the world of cryptos and CBDCs, this is the place to start.Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)Eswar Prasad is the Tolani Senior Professor of Economics at Cornell in Ithaca, NY and a senior fellow at Brookings in Washington, DC. He is a former chief of financial studies and chief of the China division at the IMF. Originally educated in Madras (now Chennai), he also studied at Brown University, and received his PhD from the University of Chicago.

'Cogs and Monsters: What economics is and what it should be'. An interview with the author, Prof. Diane CoyleWhy you should watch: Diane Coyle has spent the last 25 years (since publication of her first book, The Weightless World) re-thinking economics - what it is as a discipline, where its limitations are, how we should use its insights, and how it could be brought more into line with the world as we actually know it. She has been a major force behind key changes in the academic curriculum, and has been at the forefront of efforts to broaden the interdisciplinary nature of economic policy-making. As someone who has been actively involved in UK competition policy, she has also had the opportunity to see first-hand just how difficult it is to change an institutional mindset. Her latest book is both a checklist of progress made and of the problems that still remain, and a powerful plea for a wholesale re-engineering of the discipline to bring it into line with the fundamental changes that digitalisation has wrought.Diane Coyle is the Bennett Professor of Public Policy at Cambridge, a post she took on in 2018 having previously been Professor of Economics at Manchester. She was educated at Oxford and Harvard, from which she received her PhD. After a spell in HMTreasury, she joined the private sector, eventually moving into journalism, with the Investors Chronicle and the Independent. She is a former member of the Competition Commission and a Vice-chair of the BBC Trust, as well as a senior independent member of the ESRC Council. She is also the MD of an independent consultancy, Enlightenment Economics.

Why you should watch: Coinbase made US$1.6 billion in the second quarter, up from US$32 million year-on-year. Binance and FTX (which has just moved its HQ from Hong Kong to the Bahamas) are on track for a billion bucks - and FTX alone is now valued at US$25 billion. Madness? Or is there something solid behind these mega-numbers? And what do regulators think? The FT's currency guru gives her thoughts.Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)Panelist:Eva Szalay - Hungarian by birth - is the currency correspondent at the FT, which she joined three years ago. She was previously Editor of FX Week, and before that was a reporter at Dow Jones. She was educated at Queen Mary, University of London.

CSFI Video Template 'Trillions: How a band of Wall St renegades invented the index fund...' A discussion with the author of this new book, Robin Wigglesworth, and with Charlotte Ransom and Elroy Dimson. Why you should watch: The FT's global finance correspondent, Robin Wigglesworth, has just published an important book on the origins of index investing, passive investing, ETFs - call it what you will - and on the way it has revolutionised personal finance in the US and globally. It is not 'ETFs for dummies'; it is a narrative with heroes and villains - from academia, from second tier brokerages, and from the equivalent of the family garage. Wigglesworth is not starry-eyed; there are problems - including the new power of the raters, the proliferation of niche/themed ETFs, the special issues around bond ETFs and the sheer size of the market. But there is no doubt that the savings to customers from the shift from active to passive investment strategies have been massive - and that is likely to continue. Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Leighton Hughes (FinTech Lead, CSFI) Panellists: Robin Wigglesworth is the FT's global finance correspondent, based in Oslo, and its US markets editor. He is a former capital markets correspondent and Gulf correspondent for the FT, as well as a former Nordic correspondent for Bloomberg. Charlotte Ransom has been the CEO of Netwealth Investments since she co-founded it seven years ago. She was previously a partner at Goldman Sachs, having begun her career at JP Morgan. Netwealth's pitch is simple: 'Meeting your investment needs at a fraction of the industry cost.' Elroy Dimson is chairman of the Centre for Endowment Asset Management at Cambridge's Judge School, as well as a member of the Gonville & Caius investment committee. He is also Chairman of the Advisory Board at FTSE Russell and an Emeritus Professor at LBS, where he spent much of his distinguished academic career.

Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice ScamThe author, Vivek Ramaswamy, talks to the CSFI’s Jane Fuller Why you should watch: Ramaswamy’s critique of the “Woke industrial complex” covers the self-serving do-goodery of big business, its unholy alliance with government and the need to separate capitalism from democracy. He takes a convincing swipe at “The Silicon Leviathan” and suggests some remedies – other than break-up. He believes that Wokeness is like a religion and should be treated as such, including protecting heretics. He ends his combative contribution to free speech with a plea for Americans to respect each other’s views – e pluribus unum.Vivek Ramaswamy is chairman and founder of Roivant Sciences, a biotech business. He has also co-founded a technology company and been a partner at an investment firm. He grew up in Ohio and is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School.

'The Great Covid Panic: What happened, why and what to do next?' An interview with the co-author of this new book, Prof Paul FrijtersWhy you should watch: Paul Frijters is one of a small but important band of wellbeing economists who are deeply sceptical of the global response to the Covid pandemic - and deeply concerned that we lack the institutional (and psychological) infrastructure to take a more rational approach when the next pandemic emerges. His work focuses on the damage that lockdowns did - not just to the global economy (and particularly to the poorest amongst us), but to everyone's psychological and social well-being. The evidence for lockdowns was, in his view, always shaky - and, indeed, 'the science' had been adamant right up until after the pandemic struck that lockdowns were not the way to go. But then something happened; governments lost their nerve, the scientific establishment split - and the line of least resistance was a policy of comprehensive lockdown that (in the authors' view) did massive damage. This book - published by the Brownstone Institute, and co-written with Prof Gigi Foster and Michael Baker - is a seriously argued corrective to the conventional narrative that masks, social distancing, isolation and vaccines are the way forward, and that the inevitable economic pain is worth it.Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)Paul Frijters is Professor of Wellbeing Economics at LSE. From 2016 to 2019, he was associated with the Centre for Economic Performance; he is now a member of the Department of Social Policy. Prior to joining the faculty at LSE, he taught at the University of Queensland, the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University. His PhD is from the University of Amsterdam. He is also a research fellow at the IZA Institute of Labour Economics in Germany.

10-minute Explainer: What the insurance industry can do for climate change, with Ekhosuehi Iyahen (Insurance Development Forum)Why you should watch: The IDF is a public/private partnership, involving the UN, the World Bank and private insurers, with a mandate to 'build greater resilience against disasters and to help achieve the UN Global 2030 Agenda'. There is a bit of fluff in there, but it is clearly doing good work with the most vulnerable countries (the so-called V20) on both catastrophe insurance for sudden disasters (hurricanes etc) and for 'slow onset' problems like drought in the Sahel. It is also in the vanguard of building ex ante resilience, not least through better data collection and through Covid-induced 'risk literacy'. It is part of the UN's Net Zero Insurance Alliance, which has pledged to bring insurance and reinsurance portfolios in line with net-zero GHG emissions by 2050.Ekhosuehi Iyahen was appointed Secretary-general of the Insurance Development Forum in 2018, having previously worked with the African Risk Capacity Agency in Jo'burg and with the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility. She was educated at the University of the West Indies, LSE and the Kennedy School at Harvard, and was a Rockefeller Fellow at Bellagio.

Why you should watch: Janine Hirt took over from Charlotte Crosswell as CEO of Innovate Finance a couple of months ago, having previously been COO - a role she took on in 2017. It will be a tough act to follow. IF is the umbrella body representing the UK FinTech sector - but it also sees itself as 'the voice of global FinTech'. It represents companies like 10X, Seedrs and Zopa. But it also represents Barclays and Santander - as well as Citi and PayPal. That said, its key focus has to be the UK - attracting finance into the FinTech space, promoting the UK as a FinTech hub, liaising with regulators and government, and doing what it can to help UK FinTech 'scale'. IF was the co-secretariat for the Kalifa Report, and much of its work is currently based on the Report's recommendations - as well as those of the parallel review of UK listing requirements.   Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Leighton Hughes (FinTech Lead, CSFI)   Janine Hirt is an American, British, Swiss and German national, who speaks English, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish. Phew... She was educated at Boston College and LSE, and joined IF in 2015, becoming COO in 2017 and succeeding Charlotte Crosswell as CEO earlier this year. Before coming to the UK, she worked with the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce in NY, moving to London to be Acting Head of Corporate Relations at Chatham House. Her website says she is 'passionate' about 'a more democratic, transparent and financial services sector for all' - and this interview makes clear that she means it.

Why you should watch: Barney Reynolds's latest review focuses on the Treasury's strategy paper on MIFID2, the proposed review of the prospectus regime (post-Hill Review) and the latest Treasury paper on Solvency2 - plus a discussion of how/whether the UK should open up more to cryptos in the wake of the crackdown on Binance, and thoughts on what we could/should do to reinvigorate securitization. While the panel didn't agree on everything, there was a sense (a) that the City was 'getting back to normal' (and starting to find ways around some of the post-Brexit problems); and (b) that, just maybe, we could risk a more radical approach to regulatory reform. Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)  Panellists: Barney Reynolds is global head of the financial services industry group at Shearman & Sterling. He has written extensively on Brexit. and on the post-Brexit regulatory regime - including, in February, a paper on Restoring UK Law: Freeing the UK's global financial market. Michael Wainwright is a partner in Dentons's London-based financial services practise, specialising in retail financial services law. He was previously a partner at Eversheds. James Sproule has been chief economist at Handelsbanken since May 2020. Before that, he spent a year in Downing St as senior adviser to the PM. Previously, he was a senior fellow at the Legatum Institute and chief economist at the Institute of Directors. Before he went into the City, he spent several years in the Navy.

Whither Europe? Interviewing author David Harley on his recent book Matters of RecordWhy you should watch: David Harley was, for many years, at the heart of the European bureaucracy - the face in the photo right behind the Prime Minister or the President of the day, who had to make sure that the machinery of the EU worked. He has now published his diaries - Matters of Record: Inside European Politics. They make fascinating reading; a view of EU politics from an angle that one doesn't normally see. Retired now, David is still close to the 'beating heart' of Europe, and offers thoughts on Britain's evolving relationship and on the continuing points of friction. Denis MacShane (a former Europe Minister) shares his commitment to Europe (he has now taken Irish citizenship), and offers his own thoughts.Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Jane Fuller (Co-director, CSFI)David Harley was deputy Secretary-general at the European Parliament for a decade. He is (in his own words) 'a well-travelled, observant and seasoned European public servant'. In a long Brussels career, David (who is a Brit, currently living in London) was also Secretary-general of the Socialist Group in the Parliament, and close to the Labour Party leadership.Denis MacShane is the former MP for Rotherham, and Europe Minister under Tony Blair. He is also the author of several books on Europe - including his best-seller, Brexiternity.

Why you should watch: With the scale of financial markets dwarfing the resources of governments, companies and those who invest in them cannot escape a central role in funding the changes needed to save the planet. In an interview with the CSFI, Anne Simpson, an international leader on governance and investment strategy, explains how finance can be harnessed to re-allocate capital towards sustainable wealth creation. The innovations she lays out include valuing human and natural capital, and finding ways to finance biodiversity. Many more ideas are explored in a book entitled, ‘The Financial Ecosystem’, of which Anne is a co-author. Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Jane Fuller (Co-director, CSFI) Anne Simpson is the (British-born) Director of Board Governance and Strategy, at CalPERS in California. She is also a member of the Senior Advisory Board at the Center for Responsible Business in the Haas School at Berkeley. She was listed as one of the 100 Top Women in US Finance by Barron's in 2020. She has written several books on corporate governance and sustainable investing.

Why you should watch: 'Without payments, money doesn't work' - that is the message of this new book (published on July 1, by Elliott & Thompson) by two former senior executives at SWIFT, which begins as a (highly readable) trawl through the early-modern history of cheques and cards and cash, and which chronicles the development of both retail/consumer payments and the wholesale payments industry as it has opened up in the increasingly digital world. How we pay is as fundamental as what we pay for, and this book really does open the lid on how the plumbing of the financial system operates. It also looks at the social implications - the impact on the digitally disenfranchised and the less affluent. It looks at the US as the initial market leader, at Europe as a challenger with a goal to set global standards, and at China and India as the big disrupters.Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Leighton Hughes (FinTech Lead, CSFI)Gottfried Leibbrandt is the former CEO of SWIFT. He is currently a non-exec at CLS Group and a senior adviser at McKinsey. He is also a Board member at Yes.com. He was educated at university in Amsterdam, Stanford (from which he got his MBA) and Maastricht (PhD).Natasha de Terán is the former head of corporate affairs at SWIFT, where she spent seven years, having held the same role at LCH. She is also a member of the Financial Services Consumer Panel and the Payment Systems Regulator Panel, and a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment. She is a former journalist and adviser to the European Commission and ESMA.

Geopolitics after the pandemic: A tour d'horizon of global threats, with Prof Joe Nye (Harvard)Why you should watch: The G7, the NATO Summit, Biden's tete-a-tete with Merkel next month in DC... Global geopolitics have seldom been so febrile. Other world leaders may be ecstatic that they don't have to deal with (or work around) Trump. But even with the US back on board as a full member of the Western alliance, it is far from plain sailing. What to do about China - a rising power in an unstable region? What to do about Russia - a declining power with the ability to make trouble in Europe, the Middle East and in cyberspace? And will the old certainties hold? Does the 'special relationship' still mean anything - besides a photo op on a beach? Plus, importantly, what will the manifest failure of the 'rich' countries to solve the problems the Covid pandemic is causing in the 'poor' world do to geopolitics going forward? One thing one can say with confidence: Covid is not over - at least, for half the world.Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)Prof Joseph Nye is a Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at Harvard's Kennedy School - of which he is a former Dean. He is also chairman of the US branch of the Trilateral Commission, a member of the US Foreign Policy Board and a former Assistant Secretary of State for International Security. He is one of the most distinguished international relations scholars of the last fifty years, the source of much talk about 'hard' and 'soft' power, and the author of many important books - including 'Do Morals Matter? Presidents and foreign policy from FDR to Trump' - which he published last year. His views are well worth a listen.

Why you should watch: The UK (and most other advanced countries) have made very ambitious commitments to achieve net-zero carbon by 2050 or earlier -commitments enshrined in the Paris Accords, and likely to be reaffirmed (or even advanced) at COP26 in November. Are the targets realistic? There is certainly a huge amount of activity at the level of corporates - and even at the level of individual investors. And pressure for change, political and social, is increasing all the time - even if the economic costs are not always fully appreciated. But what about the EMs - China in particular? This discussion covers everything from the G7 to emissions trading, transition fuels, biodiversity, the impact on farming, deglobalisation and border adjustment taxes. A must-watch...   Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Jane Fuller (Co-director, CSFI)   Panellists:   The Rt Hon Philip Dunne has been MP for Ludlow since 2005. He is a former Minister of State for Health, and is currently chairman of the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee.   Chris McHugh is the founding director of the LIBF's Centre for Sustainable Finance. He is a former Visiting Lecturer at Cambridge's Judge Business School, and a former banker (with HSBC).   Alice Ross is deputy news editor at the Financial Times. She is a former editor of Trade Secrets and FT Wealth, as well as Frankfurt bureau chief. Her book, 'Investing to save the planet', was published by Penguin last November.

Why you should watch: Andy Haldane counts... He is one of the few economists or central bankers who can genuinely move markets. Here, he offers his views on the current state of monetary and fiscal policy, the dangers of inflation, the impact of the pandemic on inequality and on the possibility of a 'kinder, gentler' form of capitalism - which might include more scope for industrial policy. Plus, FinTech and the role of a post-Covid, post-Brexit City - as well as his own agenda for the new role at the RSA. Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Jane Fuller (Co-director, CSFI)  Andy Haldane is Chief Economist and Executive Director for monetary analysis and statistics at the Bank of England, which he joined in 1989. He is also a member of the Financial Policy Committee and the Basel Committee, a Trustee of the National Numeracy campaign, chair of the government's Industrial Strategy Council and co-founder of Pro Bono Economics. He was educated at the Universities of Sheffield and Warwick, and is the author of more than 70 articles on economics and finance. Later this year he will take up a new role as CEO of the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, better known as the RSA.