Welcome!

I write for The Economist about technology, finance and macroeconomics. Some recent pieces, which give a sense of my interests, include an assessment of the US-China tech race, and a look at the market power of big business in America.

I also do a lot of our coverage on 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.

I also do academic 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 now live in London. I’m an avid tennis player, basketball junkie and consumer of fantasy and sci-fi novels. If you’d like to chat or have a story idea please reach out at arjunramani ‘at’ economist ‘dot’ com.