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Debt is central to the modern economy and it has long been so. The idea of debt has long been loaded with as much morality as financial meaning. Anne McElvoy explores our ideas about debt, what it is and how it works. Decisions about borrowing or paying down debt are currently being faced the world over. They鈥檙e informed by political beliefs and a whole history of ideas behind that. So, how have our ideas changed over time and what can or should be done about it?

Professor Kenneth Rogoff is Maurits C. Boas Chair of International Economics at Harvard University, a former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund and the author of This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.

Vicky Pryce is an economist and a former Joint Head of the United Kingdom's Government Economic Service.

New Generation Thinker Philip Roscoe is a Reader in the School of Management at the University of St Andrews and the author of How to Build a Stock Exchange: On the past, present and future of finance.

New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel is a lecturer in Divinity at the University of St Andrews who looks at the history of philosophy and religious thought.

Producer: Ruth Watts

You can find other Free Thinking conversations about money available to download as the Arts & Ideas podcast or on 大象传媒 Sounds
Writing about Money /programmes/m0018qph
Coins, going cashless and the magic money tree /programmes/m000s2v5
Mandeville's View of 18th-Century Economics /programmes/b040hysk
Britain's Economy: Will Hutton, Luke Johnson, Wendy Carlin, Richard Davies and how we teach the subject /programmes/b051cpxb
Economics: Liam Byrne, John Redwood, Luke Johnson, Juliet Michaelson and Matt Wolf /programmes/p03qbv3q
Does Growth Matter? demographer Danny Dorling and economists Richard Davies and Petr Barton /programmes/m000gbtl