Richard Davies

I enjoy writing and believe that high-quality journalism can help us clarify economic and social problems, just as academic research can. I have published two books, and am currently working on my third.

Books

Extreme Economies. My book, published in the UK (Penguin, 2019), US (Macmillan, 2020) with translations released in China, Japan and Korea and Taiwan. Extreme Economies won the Lonely Planet debut travel writing prize and made the FT-McKinsey prize longlist. More details are on the book’s site: www.extremeeconomies.com/the-book

Making Sense of the Modern Economy. I wrote a guide to economics published by The Economist (Profile, 2015), with Chinese translation in 2018 and Arabic translation in 2024. https://profilebooks.com/work/the-economist-economics-4th-edition/

Newspapers

I occasionally write for newspapers and magazines. A selection of pieces are below.

Radio / podcasts

I regularly discuss economics on television, radio and podcasts. Recent longer-form examples are set out below.

  • Steel Dragons. A radio documentary that I made with BBC Radio 4.
  • Understand the Economy. A Tim Harford show. (I feature in episodes on inflation, GDP and trade).
  • EconTalk. It was an honour to join Russ Roberts on his show. One of the longest ones he has recorded!
  • Trade Talks. Talking about economics with Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown.

The Economist

I really learned to write at The Economist, and ended up as economics editor there. A selection of my favourite pieces are below.

Front cover of UK edition of Extreme Economies