the pyramid begins to widen. around 33, 000 students completed a - level economics in the uk in 2016 / 17, typically studying between the ages 16 to 18. encouragingly, these numbers have swelled, by around 70 %, over the past ten years. that remains only 4. 3 % of the total number of young people in this age range. beyond 18, at university and college level, student numbers in economics have also been rising rapidly, with the number graduating reaching 9, 000 in 2016 / 17, a rise of over a third in the past six years ago. this has increased the fraction of university - level students taking economics to over 2 %, similar to subjects such as politics and accountancy. it is still of course only a tiny 1 % of the total population in this age range. if we look in greater detail at just who is taking economics, the selectivity bias is more acute still. at ages 16 to 18, around 22 % of economics students are drawn from independent schools, more than double their population averages. at university, around a fifth of economics students are drawn from independent schools. so not only are economics student numbers pretty small, they have a heavy socio - economic slant. the same may well be true of other subjects. national numeracy see https : / / www. nationalnumeracy. org. uk / research - skills - life - survey - 2011 money advice service ( 2017 ). pshe association ( 2017 ), practitioner survey perhaps reflecting that, there is strong support among parents for pshe having statutory status ( phse association, parent survey ). there are also strong gender and ethnicity biases in the study of economics. there are discussed in, for example, crawford, davies and smith ( forthcoming ), tenreyro ( 2017 ) and blackaby and frank ( 2000 ). all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches economics also appears to have a heavy regional slant, probably for related reasons. the fraction of students from london studying economics between ages 14 and 18 is roughly twice the national average. a student from the north - east of england, where i was born, is around five times less likely to study economics than one born in london. the fraction of the population of the north - east who is likely never to have had any education in economics could be as high as 98 %, similar to levels in wales and northern ireland. this is a “ good news / bad news

##s and prejudices. this comes from listening, rather than just hearing. it comes from engaging in two - way conversation, from genuine dialogue not monologue. it comes from drawing on social skills every bit as much as cognitive skills. other professions offer an object lesson here. why are doctors top of the trust league table? studies show that what matters for doctors ’ patient satisfaction scores is not just their clinical competence. indeed, their knowledge of the latest lancet article is irrelevant. what matters every bit as much, or more, to patients ’ trust in their doctor is their social skills, their listening skills, their personal touch, their bedside manner. few people would want an economist at their bedside. an economist with strong social skills is one who stares at your shoes, rather than their own, when engaged in polite conversation. and conversation does not appear to come easily to the economics profession. a recent study of twitter behaviour found that economists were the least likely discipline to engage in general conversation, on topics such as fluffy labradors. their conversations are technical in nature and narrow in reach. the bank has recently re - oriented fundamentally its outreach programme to improve its engagement with non - expert audiences, with a less technical focus and a longer reach. the bank ’ s agents around the uk have for many years collected intelligence on the economy and financial system, largely from companies. recently, the bank ’ s agents have placed greater emphasis on meeting charities, community and faith groups and trade unions, widening its non - expert contacts and expanding its intelligence pool. over a number of years now, i have been reorienting my own regional visits towards these groups. earlier this year, i augmented these regional visits with a “ townhall tour ”, partnering with charities, citizen and faith groups to engage with new sets of people across the whole of the uk. these are, by design, listening events. the main messages are captured in my blog and animations and photos from each of the events. the townhalls have made clear to me the benefits of asking open questions, uncontaminated by priors and prejudices. they have taught me a lot about the economic and financial issues that really matter to people, only some of which are captured by economists ’ theories and surveys. they have underlined for me the whittaker et al ( 2017 ), for example, found that patients were willing to wait longer for an appointment with a doctor with good listening skills. holmberg and thelwall (