Harper’s adds business column

The October issue of Harper’s Magazine will see the debut of The Anti-Economist, a new column by Jeff Madrick, marking the first time in 165 years that business commentary will make a regular appearance in the magazine.

“These days, reporting on and demystifying economic news is one of the most important responsibilities journalists have to their readers,” said Harper’s editor Ellen Rosenbush in a statement. “Jeff’s sharp eye and informed voice will make his column the perfect companion to Thomas Frank’s Easy Chair at the front of the magazine.”

Madrick, who will also cover economics for Harpers.org, is a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, where he runs the Rediscovering Government Initiative. He is also editor of the scholarly economics journal Challenge, a senior fellow at the New School’s Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, and a visiting professor at The Cooper Union.

Madrick has held staff positions at BusinessWeek, Money, and NBC News, and has written for a number of newspapers and magazines, including a five-year stint for The New York Times as an Economic Scene columnist. He is the author of several critically acclaimed economics and business books, including, most recently, “Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present.”

Madrick’s first Anti-Economist column, “The Myth of Austerity,” deconstructs the notion, taken as gospel by many well-respected economists, that Europe and the United States can clear a path out of recession by cutting deficits and curtailing public services. The allure of austerity is not grounded in reputable evidence; instead, Madrick writes, “it is as much a superstition as an economic theory.”

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