Welcome!

I am The Economist’s global business and economics correspondent. After two years writing from London, I am now doing an extended stint in Mumbai and Delhi to cover India’s economy. My views are outlined in a six-part special report on India’s economy that I have written with Tom Easton. Other recent pieces include a look at why elites like Modi, a look at the GDP growth rate debate, and an assessment of Modi’s flagship industrial policy (PLIs). I was recently on Ideas of India with Shruti Rajagopalan and Crash Course with Michael Walker to talk about India.

In 2023, I wrote a lot about AI. Some favourites include a sci-fi inspired piece on what humans might do in a world of superintelligence, based on economic theory. I also very much like a piece co-written with Callum Williams on why the diffusion of AI will be slow. Callum and my reporting on the economics of AI was shortlisted for Journalist of the Year by the Wincott Foundation. Zhengdong Wang of DeepMind and I built on these themes in a recent essay published in The Gradient on the various bottlenecks to rapid economic growth from AI. This is probably the most comprehensive record of my views on the technology.

Outside of journalism, I do economics research with Nick Bloom at Stanford, which is also where I did my undergrad in economics and masters in computer science. Our most recent paper shows how working-from-home has led to a “donut effect” in America’s largest cities and has been covered by the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times, among other outlets. I like bringing new micro data to questions of macroeconomic importance.

I was born and raised in West Lafayette, Indiana, and love tennis, basketball and science fiction novels. If you’d like to chat or have a story idea please reach out at arjunramani ‘at’ economist ‘dot’ com.