EconReporter is independent journalism on central banking, inflation data, and the academic debate that shapes both.
Started in Hong Kong in 2015 as a non-expert’s guide to the economic world, EconReporter has spent ten years narrowing in on what we actually want to cover: how central banks decide, how the data they react to is built, and how the academic debate about both is moving.
We publish in two languages — English for the global central banking audience, Cantonese for Hong Kong readers — with overlapping but not mirrored coverage.
What we cover here
- EconReporter covers central banking, the macroeconomic data behind the headlines, and the academic debate that shapes both — across analytical writing, book reviews, and long-form interviews with leading macroeconomists.
What ties it together is a preference for the layer underneath the headline — what’s actually in the data, how a decision was actually made, what the literature has actually settled (or hasn’t). Wire stories give readers the what; we try to do the why and the how.
We also maintain a long-running research interest in Hong Kong’s Linked Exchange Rate System — the currency board, the Exchange Fund’s operations, and how HK’s monetary architecture holds up under capital flow pressure.
Who writes this
EconReporter is written by Cloud Yip, originally from Hong Kong, now based in Toronto. His interviews with leading macroeconomists including John Cochrane and Ricardo Reis for the General Theory of the 21st Century series have been republished by Hoover Digest and listed in The Journal of Economic Perspectives‘s “Recommendations for Further Reading”. He writes in English for the central banking column Monetary Policy, Unconventionally, and in Cantonese on Patreon for the more candid version of the same beat.
For press, interviews, corrections, or just to say hello: [email protected]
Start here
A few pieces that show what EconReporter does:
- The curious case of why UK and Canada CPI use grocery scanner data but the US can’t — on why the BLS has lagged behind other countries in modernizing how it collects CPI data.
- Is tipflation even part of CPI inflation? — what the CPI actually counts when tipping culture spreads; picked up by FT Alphaville.
- Conversation with John Cochrane, Part I — Where is macroeconomics heading? — flagship interview from the General Theory of the 21st Century series, republished in Hoover Digest.
- A 2019 investigation into the shortcomings of the Global Economic Policy Uncertainty Index — on a widely-cited measure that may not hold up under scrutiny; recommended by Tracy Alloway in a Bloomberg newsletter.
Beyond the beat — our 2019 Medium analysis on how young Hong Kongers’ dislike of Facebook reshaped their protest organizing was cited in academic research by Yung Au and the RAND Corporation.
Featured in
- Our interviews with John Cochrane, on Fiscal Theory of Price Level (part 1 & part 2) was republished in the Hoover Digest, Winter 2017 issue
- Our interviews with Ricardo Reis, on macroeconomics’ post-2008 performance and how to use interest on reserve to target inflation, was listed on the “Recommendation for Further Reading” of The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2017 issue
- Our article, “Is tipflation even part of inflation“, was featured on FT Alphaville and Blockworks
- Our 2019 featured story investigating the shortcomings of the Global Economic Policy Uncertainty Index was recommended by Tracy Alloway in a Bloomberg Newsletter.
- Our 2019 analysis (hosted on Medium) on how young Hong Kongers’ dislike of Facebook changed their protest organization was cited by several research papers, including Protest, pandemic, & platformisation in Hong Kong: Towards cities of alternatives by Yung Au and RAND Corporation’s An Exploratory Examination of Agent-Based Modeling for the Study of Social Movements
Flagship projects
Monetary Policy, Unconventionally
Our ongoing central banking column. Conventional central banking coverage — unconventional opinions. The Fed, BoE, and BoC read through a lens that takes the wires’ reporting as a starting point, not a conclusion — going past the day’s headline into the policy choices and the analytical frameworks underneath.
Where is the General Theory of the 21st Century?
A series of in-depth conversations with leading macroeconomists about the trajectory of macroeconomics since 2008 — and whether the field is converging on a new framework or fragmenting away from one. Featured guests include John Cochrane on the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level (republished in the Hoover Digest) and Ricardo Reis on post-2008 monetary policy (cited in The Journal of Economic Perspectives).
Connect
Patreon — Cantonese analytical insights with the writer’s take and forward read; the layer we keep off the EN site.
Bluesky — daily news flow, reactions, and the running commentary that doesn’t make it into pieces.
Substack — long pieces mirrored to your inbox.
