The Economist

The Economist is a weekly news and international affairs publication of The Economist Newspaper Limited in London. As of 2004, its average circulation topped 1 million copies a week, about half of which are sold in North America.

Features

The Economists primary focus is world news, politics and business, but it also runs regular sections on science and technology as well as books and the arts. Every two weeks, the newspaper includes, as an additional section, an in-depth survey of a particular business issue, business sector or geographical region.

Related Topics:
News - Politics - Business - Science - Technology - Book - Art

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Articles often take a definitive editorial stance and almost never carry a byline. This means that no specific person or persons can be named as the author. Not even the name of the editor (since 1993, Bill Emmott) is printed in the issue. It is a longstanding tradition that an editor's only signed article during his tenure is written on the occasion of his departure from the position. The author of a piece is named in certain circumstances: when notable persons are invited to contribute opinion pieces; when Economist writers compile surveys; and to highlight a potential conflict of interest over a book review. The names of Economist editors and correspondents can be located, however, via the staff pages of the website.

Related Topics:
Byline - Author - Editor - Bill Emmott

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The newspaper has a trademark tight writing style http://www.economist.com/research/StyleGuide/ that is famous for putting a maximum amount of information into a minimum of column inches. The one feature most articles have in common is the concluding witticism. Some have joked that as long as the writers can deliver that, their political or other opinions do not matter. Since 1995, The Economist has published one obituary every week, of a famous (or infamous) person from any field of endeavour.

Related Topics:
Witticism - Obituary

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The Economist is famous for its Big Mac index, which uses the price of a Big Mac hamburger sold by McDonald's in different countries as an informal measure of purchasing power parity between two currencies. It has turned out to be a whimsical but surprisingly accurate index for comparison. In January 2004, this index was joined by a Starbucks "tall latte index".

Related Topics:
Big Mac index - Big Mac - McDonald's - Countries - Purchasing power parity - Starbucks

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The newspaper is also a co-sponsor of the Copenhagen Consensus.

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Each of the opinion columns in the newspaper is devoted to a particular area of interest. The names of these columns reflect the topic they concentrate on:

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• Bagehot (Britain) - named for Walter Bagehot, nineteenth century British constitutional expert and early editor of The Economist.
• Charlemagne (Europe) - named for Charlemagne, founder of the Frankish Empire, an early "European Union".
• Lexington (United States) - named for Lexington, Massachusetts, the site of the beginning of the American War of Independence.
• Buttonwood (finance) - named for the buttonwood tree where early Wall Street traders gathered. This is an online column.

Two other regular columns are:

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• Face Value: about prominent people in the business world
• Economic Focus: a general economics column frequently based on academic research

The magazine goes to press on Thursdays, is available online from Thursday evening GMT, and is available on newsstands in many countries the next day. It is printed in seven sites around the world.

Related Topics:
Thursday - Newsstand

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The Economist newspaper sponsors yearly "Innovation Awards", now in six categories.

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