Biography

Simon Cox is the China economics editor at The Economist, based in Hong Kong. He has spent over 15 years with the newspaper, including stints in London and Delhi. In 2014, he left journalism to become an investment strategist and Managing Director for BNY Mellon, before returning to the paper in 2016.

During his career at The Economist, Mr Cox has written a variety of special reports. He examined the world’s arduous recovery from the global financial crisis (“The Long Climb”, 2009), China’s surprisingly resilient economy (“Pedalling Prosperity”, 2012) and the exaggerated perils of the middle-income trap (“Out of the Traps”, 2017). He also originated the Li Keqiang index, an unofficial proxy for China’s growth.

Outside of his day job, Mr Cox edited “The Growth Report”, published by the Commission on Growth and Development, chaired by Nobel laureate Michael Spence. He contributed to the Oxford Companion to the Economics of China and he edited “Economics: Making Sense of the Modern Economy” (Profile Books). He has also been a frequent guest on television and radio, including CNBC, Bloomberg and the BBC.

He studied at Cambridge, Harvard and the London School of Economics.