About me

I am a journalist, economist, and author. Most recently, I served as the Director of Portfolio Communications for Select Equity Group, a New-York-based investment fund. Prior to that, I was an editor and economics writer at The Economist, where I worked in a number of economics roles, including six years as author of the Free Exchange economics column. Before joining The Economist I worked as a freelance journalist, as an associate at an economics consulting firm, and as an industry analyst at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not all at once.

I am the author of several books. The most recent—In Good Faith: How the Nature of Belief Shapes the Fate of Society—was published in April of 2026 by Yale University Press. I’ve also written The Wealth of Humans, published in 2016, and The Gated City, a Kindle single, published in 2011. Other work has been published by the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the Guardian, Bloomberg, and a number of other places. I have also had articles published by the Journal of Economic Geography, the journal of the Royal Economic Society, and the journal of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

At present I live in Raleigh, North Carolina, with my wife Lisa, my two children, my two dogs, and a rabbit called Edith.