Even the ‘Today’ programme involves a balance between the worthy-but-heavy items with the worthless-but-entertainingly-light ones. – Evan Davis
But beginners to the World Economics Forum have to understand there is no single Davos experience, and there is no single Davos community either. There are numerous tribes who interact only at a minimal level. – Evan Davis
Personally, I don’t see old economics and behavioural economics as opposed. It is useful to assume people are rational as a good approximation to their long term behaviour, but it would be unwise not to think how in practice their behaviour may deviate from that simplifying assumption. – Evan Davis
We all know that Americans love their statistics – in sport, obviously. And in finance too. – Evan Davis
Although being economics editor sounds impressive, it does not mean I actually edit anything. It mainly reflects two decades of title-inflation at the BBC, which has given ever more status to senior reporters, presumably because it is cheaper to do that than to offer higher pay. – Evan Davis
Some people harbour an awkward clash of feelings – homosexual attraction on the one hand and shame or embarrassment about that attraction on the other. It is well known that the mind struggles to sustain conflicting views. – Evan Davis
Men don’t know much about women. We do know when they’re happy. We know when they’re crying, and we know when they’re pissed off. We just don’t know in what order these are gonna come at us. – Evan Davis
It doesn’t annoy me but I think of myself as a presenter who is gay, rather than a gay presenter. It’s a subtle distinction, but that’s how I view it. – Evan Davis
Interest rate cuts have an effect in stimulating an economy by directly or indirectly making someone, somewhere, spend more than they otherwise would. That extra spending increases demand and ensures that we all carry on with work to do, without us having to slash our prices or our wrists. – Evan Davis
I’ve never enjoyed sleep as much until I got the ‘Today’ job. There is something about early sleep that’s much better than late sleep. I feel myself going to sleep; I don’t just plonk my head on the pillow. It’s a sort of winding-down thing. – Evan Davis
It is no wonder that bank capital is regulated. When borrowing and lending is profitable, it is tempting for banks to scale up their operations and to borrow and lend too much in relation to their capital, in effect reducing the effectiveness of the potential capital cushion. – Evan Davis
We are more likely to cheat if we see others doing so. We tend to conform to accepted norms of reasonable behaviour, rather than adhere to strict rules. – Evan Davis
What comes with a job as a staff member of the BBC is a certain self-censoring that you get utterly used to. You don’t say everything you think. You hold back on some things. – Evan Davis
All socio-political phenomena in the U.K. come laden with the baggage of a class-based theory or two attached to them. In the case of gay Tories, there is one particularly silly variant of the category, which asserts that gayness is bred in public schools and thus fits with Conservatism like hand in glove. – Evan Davis
Britain, however, has ended up specializing in the ones you don’t see as much of: defense aerospace, making drive shafts for cars, pills and drugs, designing chips that go into 94 percent of the world’s mobile phones. – Evan Davis
The two questions that anyone ever asks me are: ‘Are house prices going to go down?’ and ‘Is it a good time to fix my mortgage rate?’ – Evan Davis
I actually profoundly think the world’s a better place when economics is fairly boring… The more boring the better. – Evan Davis
One of the key problems is that the Germans know what they do because everywhere they go there’s a ‘made in Germany’ label on it – they can feel proud of Volkswagens and Audis and Mercedes. – Evan Davis
When a population saves a lot, the funds are invested outside the country as well as inside. If the Japanese invest in the United States, it pushes their exchange rate down and makes their manufacturing more competitive. – Evan Davis
For industry to settle in a country, you first need electricity; for electricity, you need some trained workers; for trained workers, you need some schools; for schools you need some money; for money, you need some industry. – Evan Davis
I rarely come away from presenting the ‘Today’ programme without some sense of regret. There is always some question that I should have asked, or some point that I should have made. This is annoying but not surprising. Perfection is hard to achieve in a three-hour live programme. – Evan Davis
Crossrail is a prime example of infrastructure. It is a rather deadly word, but I think it is exciting stuff, the civil engineering which makes Britain tick – the bridges, tunnels, power and water networks, which bind us together. – Evan Davis
At the BBC we’ve had plenty of women in good management jobs. It comes and goes but there’s been plenty. On air, I think there’s quite a bit more we can do. – Evan Davis
I don’t keep it secret that I live with my partner Gio. I’m very proud of my gayness. But there is lots I wouldn’t want the press to write about me… it is a matter of regret that being gay is the most interesting thing about me. – Evan Davis
Reducing every issue to an argument can become stale but it’s often a very good way of clarifying issues. – Evan Davis