AMERICA'S MISSING MANUFACTURING RENAISSANCE Manufacturing has been in a recession for three years. The evidence is pretty convincing that tariffs have made things worse. I explore this in my latest for @economist.com. Link: www.economist.com/finance-and...

"AFFORDABILITY ANGST" I wrote this week's @economist.com cover story, on affordability in America Politically, "affordability" is a potent slogan. But on the economics, the issue is mostly a mirage—real wages have risen handsomely. That mismatch spells trouble Thread and link ⬇️

Pretty vast education splits in AI adoption-- especially at work. Via Brookings: www.brookings.edu/articles/how...

How doomed is America's jobs market? I took a look for this week's @economist.com. Certainly, there are some signs of weakness. But the labour market has been cooling gradually for several years now. What we've seen recently looks like a continuation, not a cliff. www.economist.com/finance-and...

Farewell to the K. A brief but memorable tenure in the discourse.

Robotaxis will tranform cities more than we yet realise: my latest for @economist.com — The tech will get cheaper. Dire traffic jams unless cities learn to love congestion taxes — Denser city centres (few parking lots), but also more sprawl — Cycling gets safer www.economist.com/finance-and...

A slightly more considered, day-two take on the Budget from me—ruminating on the politics of it and rounding up some of the interesting bits I missed yesterday. notes.archie-hall.com/p/a-few-nex...

Today, I think, there were actually two budgets: a spending-and borrowing heavy one for the next few years, and a more tax-heavy one for the very end of parliament. The government will naturally talk up the first to its backbenchers, and the second to markets. notes.archie-hall.com/p/fifteen-t...

A thread with a few Budget thoughts. More here: notes.archie-hall.com/p/fifteen-t... 1/ The shape of this budget depends on which year you look at. Three years out, it's more spending financed with more borrowing. Five years out, it's fiscally prudent tax rises. Up to you which will stick more.

My quick verdict on the Budget, now up. "Fifteen thoughts on the Budget" open.substack.com/pub/archieh...

Synthetic controls with a heavy weight on the US always worry me a little, but this is a careful bit of work from Nick Bloom and co with (as I see it) two big implications 1. They put the Brexit hit to GDP at 6-8%..! 2. Their measure of the damage hasn't bottomed out yet www.nber.org/papers/w34459

Great piece: www.worksinprogress.news/p/why-the-de...

From an Economist leader in August 2000

As the shutdown grinds to an end, I took stock for @economist.com on how well private-sector data has done guiding America through the past few months' data drought. www.economist.com/finance-and...

A quick take from me ahead of tomorrow’s Supreme Court arguments on IEEPA tariffs — There are lots of non-IEEPA authorities Trump can use rebuild his tariff wall — But, losing IEEPA will make the tariff-setting process more lumbering and chaotic. That could be a problem economist.com/finance-and...

Farage's jettisoning of the 2024 manifesto in favour of what promises to be a much more fiscally-conservative approach is a significant moment. My colleague @archiehall.bsky.social ran the rule over the policybook as late as May. It wasn't pretty. www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Here's something I don't have a good explanation for— British households' long-run inflation expectations are pretty severely de-anchored, but markets are totally relaxed.

Have data centres raised power bills? Not really, our analysis @economist.com finds—at least so far. Adding data centres to a state-level model of electricity prices shows no significant effect But backlash is brewing. My latest, on the politics of the data centre: www.economist.com/united-state...

For the first time in about 70 years, net immigration to America could be zero. Beneath the noise of tariff and budget fights, migration may well be the biggest economic story of 2025. My latest for @economist.com: Welcome to Zero Migration America Link: www.economist.com/finance-and... 🧵 below

Pretty crazy how the economic weakness of H1 2025 has just been... revised away

I wonder who...

Goes nicely with a slice of @spignal.bsky.social 's column about Europe's increasingly pungent lack of urgency www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

A dose of everything-is-fine-ism from me in @economist.com. Amid worries about a slowdown in America —The latest data isn't awful (even payrolls), and seems to have stopped getting worse —That leaves America with more than enough growth to keep Europeans jealous www.economist.com/finance-and...

Charts with the same energy: longue duree Lib Dem polling and the VIX

One for the degens: pulled together a tracker of Fed betting markets w/ colleagues @economist.com. Odds of Lisa Cook being ousted by December are still just 27%, and Waller has a narrow lead in the Fedstakes at 32%. Link: www.economist.com/interactive...

Has Britain's workforce sickness problem topped out?

Bracing chart from Deutsche on just how messy a compromised Fed can be for the dollar

We’re looking for a writer to join us in London for 12 months

Petition to ban “unlocking” in British public policy, a term that obscures far more than it illuminates. A brief lexicon: — “Unlock investment” = backdoor subsidies — “Fiscal rules unlock” = borrowing — “Unlock money” = spending — “Unlock new homes” = could have built them years ago

The case not to worry, and then the case to worry about the attacks on the Fed, from me in @economist.com Reassuringly, the path to stacking the Fed is narrow. But norms are fragile, and Trump's obsessions (see tariffs) tend to linger in US politics Short 🧵 below www.economist.com/finance-and...

Quick overnight take on the Lisa Cook mess: — A big, and troubling escalation in Trump's war on the Fed — Market reaction you'd expect: broad selloff in US assets — But: scale of the moves is not huge (bond yields have actually come back down). Still pricing in TACO www.economist.com/finance-and...

New Substack post: on what I've been thinking and writing about over the summer, including: — Britain's worryingly not-cheapening wind turbines — The possible demise of the Sun Belt migration boom — America's growing fondness for Britshoring Link ➡️ notes.archie-hall.com/p/what-i-wr...

Had not expected Jeremy Hunt’s book to be so amusingly catty towards his successor

My latest for @economist.com: on America's data-centre boom. Vast short-run impact on GDP growth: — Accounts for ~1/6th of growth over the past year — And ~1/2 of growth over the past six months But: so far still much smaller than the 1990s dotcom buildout. And... www.economist.com/finance-and...

A vignette from me in @economist.com on NoMa: "The YIMBYest Neighbourhood in America"

I checked in on America's shaky-seeming housing market this week for @economist.com. (Quick 🧵) www.economist.com/finance-and...

Something of a worrying pattern to Britain's inflation upsurge—which has now repeatedly surpassed BoE forecasters' expectations

Notable how "Team Transitory" the BoE remains—inflation is not far off 4% (and expectations are v high), but we're almost certain to get a rate cut in an hour. Meanwhile, the Fed seems scarred into data-dependence and held off at last week, even with inflation well below 3%.

Some work news: I’m shifting focus at @economist.com from the British to American economy, and moving from London to Washington. DC suggestions—from places to eat to people to meet—eagerly requested.

Great @jburnmurdoch.ft.com article on crime and disorder—despite a long-term falling crime trend in Britain, there has been a sharp pickup in highly visible petty crime, and a collapse of enforcement. Lines up well with what I found looking into this a few months back. (Charts 2, 3)

Energy in Britain has gotten scarce—and thus expensive. Prices are high in absolute terms, and further above the European average than any point in at least 40 years (barring the 22/23 shock). What's behind this, and is it crimping growth? I took a look for @economist.com. (🧵)

Quick Fed take: for all the double dissent discourse, Powell gave a hawkish presser and the market lowered the odds of a September cut sharply. Clear, still, who’s in charge.

Donald Trump’s tariff announcements in April prompted investors to shed American assets, sending Treasury yields soaring and the dollar falling. The greenback is yet to claw back the ground it lost since then, suggesting a persistent dent to its valuation

Some unsolicited career advice from me in this week's @economist.com: "Want higher pay? Don't change jobs"—for nearly the first time in a decade, the job-switcher pay premium in America has vanished. www.economist.com/finance-and...

A short piece from me for @economist.com: "Has Trump damaged the dollar?" Three months on, the "Liberation Day" shock has now clearly subsidied... www.economist.com/finance-and...

For a dose of optimism, read Archie's excellent cover package on why Britain's bargain sales pitch might be one of its biggest strengths

Things are so bad, they’re good. Archie with the unpopular, optimistic news for a country prepared to embrace it

A cover story from me in this week's @economist.com—on the "Poundland" strategy for the British economy: as a a cheap-but-good-value exporter of workers and assets. That means slaying some sacred "world-beating" cows, but is truer to the advantages Britain actually has. (🧵)

A thread of my favourite (read: scariest) charts from the OBR's new fiscal risks report. Starting with: Britain borrows more than most rich countries.