The Leading Indicators

“The Leading Indicators presents a potentially dry but important topic in an engaging manner, with wit and intelligence.”– “The Cleveland Plain Dealer”“Karabell offers an engaging account of the history of these indicators, and his explanation of their flaws is both readable and useful for non-economists trying to make sense of the barrage of numbers with which they’re pelted on a regular basis.”– “The Wall Street Journal”“To any who treat the government’s economic data as if it were Holy Writ, Zachary Karabell’s book will come as a revelation. The Leading Indicators is the fast-paced story of the statistics that occupy far too large a part of our national consciousness. If you always suspected that the GDP was a snare and the CPI a delusion, Karabell’s narrative will tell you just how right you were.”–James Grant, Editor, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer“Zachary Karabell’s lively account, The Leading Indicators, is a terrific introduction to the range of statistics economists and governments use to address these questions.”– “The New York Times”

Zachary Karabell is an author, money manager, commentator, and president of River Twice Research, where he analyzes economic and political trends. Educated at Columbia, Oxford, and Harvard, where he received his PhD, Karabell has written eleven previous books. He is a regular commentator on CNBC, MSNBC, and CNN. He writes the weekly “Edgy Optimist” column for Reuters and The Atlantic, and is a contributor to such publications as The Daily Beast, Time, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The New York Times, and Foreign Affairs.