Long-form essays that use a single story or question to explain big puzzles in economics, history and institutions, such as why ambulance rides cost so much in the US or why China outgrew India. Readers get narrative-driven, researched explanations of how societies and systems work.
Website: https://davidoks.blog
Adam Tooze's newsletter curates and comments on daily links across economics, geopolitics and economic history, from tariffs and inflation to the AI boom's effect on the US current account. Each issue pairs current macro and market items with historical and intellectual-history threads and an art image.
Noah Smith's blog covers economics, AI, politics, and culture, including essays on film, AI progress, and political critique. Readers get long-form analysis mixing policy commentary with personal reflections on current events.
Data-driven explainers that put public policy numbers into context using charts and datasets, such as UK tax levers, pensions and the ages of world leaders. The author compiles her own data and shows how large each issue is relative to the whole.
Niall Ferguson's Time Machine is a Substack newsletter from historian Niall Ferguson that uses historical analysis to examine current economics, politics, and culture. Issues cover topics such as European protests and debt, American founding principles, election-year risks, and newly unlocked Nixon White House tape transcripts.
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