The Economist - Features

Features

The Economist's 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. Approximately every two weeks, the publication adds an in-depth special report on a particular issue, business sector or geographical region. Every three months, it publishes a technology report called Technology Quarterly or TQ.

The publication's writers adopt a tight style that seeks to include the maximum amount of information in a limited space. Atlantic Monthly publisher David G. Bradley described the formula as "a consistent world view expressed, consistently, in tight and engaging prose."

There is a section of economic statistics. Tables such as employment statistics are published each week and there are special statistical features too. It is unique among British weeklies in providing authoritative coverage of official statistics and its rankings of international statistics have been decisive. In addition, The Economist is known for its Big Mac Index, which it first published in 1986, which uses the price of the hamburger in different countries as an informal measure of the purchasing power of currencies.

The publication runs several opinion columns whose names reflect their topic:

• Analects (China) — named after The Analects, a collection of Confucian sayings, this column was established in February 2012.
• Bagehot (Britain) — named for Walter Bagehot ( /ˈbædʒət/), nineteenth-century British constitutional expert and early editor of The Economist. From July 2010 until June 2012 it was written by David Rennie.
• Charlemagne (Europe) — named for Charlemagne, Emperor of the Frankish Empire. It is written by Anton La Guardia.
• Lexington (United States) — named for Lexington, Massachusetts, the site of the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. From June 2010 until May 2012 it was written by Peter David, until his death in a car accident.
• Buttonwood (Finance) — named for the buttonwood tree where early Wall Street traders gathered. Until September 2006 this was available only as an on-line column, but it is now included in the print edition. It is written by Philip Coggan.
• Banyan (Asia) — named for the banyan tree, this column was established in April 2009 and focuses on various issues across the Asian continent, and is written by Dominic Ziegler.
• Baobab (Africa & Middle East) — named for the baobab tree, this column was established in July 2010 and focuses on various issues across the African continent.
• Babbage (Technology) — named for the inventor Charles Babbage, this column was established in March 2010 and focuses on various technology related issues.
• Prospero (Books and arts) — named after the character from William Shakespeare's play, The Tempest, this column reviews books and focuses on arts-related issues.
• Game Theory (Sport) — named after the science of predicting outcomes in a certain situation this column focuses on "sports major and minor" and "the politics, economics, science and statistics of the games we play and watch."
• Schumpeter (Business) — named for the economist Joseph Schumpeter, this column was established on September 2009 and is written by Adrian Wooldridge.

Other regular features include:

• Face Value about prominent people in the business world
• Free Exchange a general economics column, frequently based on academic research, replaced the column Economics Focus on January 2012
• An obituary
• sections on science and the arts

The newsmagazine goes to press on Thursdays, between 6 and 7pm GMT, and is available on newsstands in many countries the next day. It is printed at seven sites around the world. Known on their website as 'This week's print edition', it is available online, albeit with only the first 5 viewed articles being free (and available to subscribers only between mid-October 2009 – 2010).

The Economist also produces the annual The World in publication. It also sponsors a writing award.