Hello, I'm Simon Long, the economist's finance editor, and this is Money Talks.

Later in the programme, why an ever-increasing number of young men in America are dropping out of the job market to play video games.

The hard question is, is that the decision that they're making or are they instead being forced

out of the workforce for whatever reason and then choosing to play

video games to occupy their time. And we meet a researcher who's been

investigating if papers written by female economists are somehow clearer and

more precise than the ones written by men.

If it were something about women just writing more clearly, then we should not see any kind of a

readability gap. We don't see that. We see in fact a widening gap.

But to start, the surprise news of a snap election in Britain on June the 8th.

I'm joined by my colleague Philip Coggin to talk about what this might mean for the markets.

But first of all, Philip, let's get the procedure sorted out.

We have fixed term parliaments now in Britain.

The Prime Minister has said she would like an election on June of the 8th.

Do the markets take it for granted she will get one?

Yes, they do, because the opposition parties have indicated they will vote to support an election.

Under the new system, you need a two-thirds majority in

parliament to get an election. There will be a vote on April the 19th and is

expected to pass through that

stage and an election will be called on June the 8th.

In practice it means that we don't have a huge change from the system that

prevailed before 2011 when the Prime Minister could choose to call an election

...