Line-up announced for this year's Kilkenomics festival - Kilkenny Live

After a pause of three years, the world’s first festival of economics and comedy returns to Kilkenny’s medieval city with a vibrant programme of discussions and debates on economics, finance, politics and culture hosted by comedians.

This year’s line up features former Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis; ad man, Rory Sutherland; Black Swan author, Nassim Taleb; Isabella Kaminska; Ha-Joon Chang who’ll talk to Chef Ross Lewis about Edible Economics; former PIMCO boss, Paul McCulley; Caribbean economist Marla Dukharan; Carolina Alves; Taiwan expert Angelica Oung; Leah-Rose Downey; and Aditi Sahasrabuddhe among many others including festival co-founder, David McWilliams.

Comedians who will host the talks as well as the hit comedy description show, Jargon Busting, include Barry Murphy, Colm O’Regan, Fiona Frawley, Kevin McGahern, Kevin Gildea, Alison Spittle, Bill Badbody (Waterford Whispers News) and Paddy Cullivan and there’s a special show from Paul Howard who presents “Affluenza: Ross O’Carroll Kelly’s guide to Economics”. 

Topics under discussion at the event include: Crypto After the Crash; Ireland’s Next Government; The Irish Housing Crisis; The Economics of Russia’s War on Ukraine; Fantasy Finance Minister: How to Start a Country and Fund it; The Great British Break-Off - the UK After Brexit; Why Women Are Poorer Than Men; Qatar, Corruption and Cash - The Economics of Sport; Scorched Earth: The Economics of Climate Change; China's Path to Global Domination; and 40 more fascinating discussions with wit and levity included! 

Kilkenomics, which was founded in 2010, brings together some of the world’s leading economists, financial analysts and media commentators with some of our funniest, sharpest standup comedians: it’s been called “Davos with jokes” but it’s much more than that. The aim of Kilkenomics has always been to take economics out of the conference room and academia and make it accessible to ordinary people’s lives.