Welcome!

I write for The Economist about macroeconomics, technology and finance. After two years writing from London, I am now doing an extended stint in Mumbai to cover India’s economy. Here is my recent assessment of how India’s economy has performed under Narendra Modi.

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 economics first principles. I also very much like a piece co-written with Callum Williams on why the diffusion of AI will be slow. 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.