Richard Westcott talks to Diane Coyle and César Hidalgo about how knowledge, ideas and intangible assets are becoming central to modern prosperity.
In this episode of Crossing Channels, Richard Westcott talks to Diane Coyle and César Hidalgo about how knowledge, ideas and intangible assets are becoming central to modern prosperity. They discuss what makes intellectual capital distinctive, how AI may widen or narrow inequalities, and why some places benefit more than others. The conversation also explores the challenges of measuring intangible value and what kinds of skills, institutions and infrastructure are needed for countries and regions to turn intellectual capital into broader, long-term growth.
Season 5 Episode 3 transcript: PDF / MS Word
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With thanks to:
- Audio production by Alice Whaley
- Associate production by Burcu Sevde Selvi
- Visuals by Tiffany Naylor and Pauline Alves
More information about our host and guests:
Podcast host
Richard Westcott is an award-winning journalist who spent 27 years at the BBC as a correspondent/producer/presenter covering global stories for the flagship Six and Ten o’clock TV news as well as the Today programme. His last role was as a science correspondent covering the covid outbreak, but prior to that he was the transport correspondent reporting on new technologies such as driverless cars, major accidents and large infrastructure projects including HS2 and the expansion of Heathrow. Over the decades he also reported on the Iraq War and 9/11 as well as numerous UK general elections. Last year, Richard left the corporation and he is now the communications director for Cambridge University Health Partners and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, both organisations that are working to support life sciences and healthcare across the city.
Diane Coyle is the Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. She is the Research Director at the Bennett School of Public Policy. Diane’s latest book is The Measure of Progress: Counting what really matters.
Her own research focuses on productivity, the digital economy and AI policy, and economic measurement. She has been writing about the effects of digital technologies since her first book, The Weightless World, in 1997. The underlying motivation for all her work is the question: what does it mean for the economy to improve, and who benefits?
Diane is currently a member of the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy Council, the New Towns Taskforce, and advises the Competition and Markets Authority. She has served previously in a number of public service roles including as Vice Chair of the BBC Trust, member of the Competition Commission, and of the Natural Capital Committee. Diane was awarded a DBE in 2023 for her contribution to economics and public policy.
César Hidalgo is a Chilean-Spanish-American scholar known for his contributions to economic complexity and for his applied work on data visualization and artificial intelligence. César is a tenured professor at the Toulouse School of Economics’ (TSE) Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the head of the Center for Collective Learning a multidisciplinary research laboratory with offices at Institute for Advanced Study (IAST) at TSE and the Corvinus Institute of Advanced Studies (CIAS) at Corvinus University of Budapest. He is also an Honorary Professor at the Alliance Manchester Business School of the University of Manchester.
Between 2010 and 2019 Hidalgo led MIT’s Collective Learning group and prior to that he was a research fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. César is also a founder of Datawheel, an award winning company specialized in public data distribution and economic development strategy. He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Notre Dame and a Bachelor in Physics from Universidad Católica de Chile.
César’s contributions have been recognised with numerous awards, including the 2018 Lagrange Prize and three Webby Awards. Hidalgo’s has authored dozens of peer-reviewed papers and of three books: Why Information Grows (Basic Books, 2015), The Atlas of Economic Complexity (MIT Press, 2014), and How Humans Judge Machines (MIT Press, 2021). His most recent book, The Infinite Alphabet (Penguin-Random House, 2025) was published in November of 2025.
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy.
