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Megan McArdle

Megan McArdle

Megan McArdle is a senior editor for The Atlantic who writes about business and economics. She has worked at three start-ups, a consulting firm, an investment bank, a disaster recovery firm at Ground Zero, and The Economist. She is currently on leave.
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Megan was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and yes, she does enjoy her lattes, as well as the occasional extra-dry skim-milk cappuccino. Her checkered work history includes three start-ups, four years as a technology project manager for a boutique consulting firm, a summer as an associate at an investment bank, and a year spent as sort of an executive copy girl for one of the disaster-recovery firms at Ground Zero � all before the age of 30.

While working at Ground Zero, Megan started Live From the WTC, a blog focused on economics, business, and cooking. She may or may not have been the first major economics blogger, depending on whether we are allowed to throw outlying variables such as Brad Delong out of the set. From there it was but a few steps down the slippery slope to freelance journalism. She has worked in various capacities for The Economist, where she wrote about economics and oversaw the founding of Free Exchange, the magazine's economics blog. She has also maintained her own blog, Asymmetrical Information, which moved to The Atlantic, along with its owner, in August 2007.

Megan holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. After a lifetime as a New Yorker, she now resides in northwest Washington, D.C., where she is still trying to figure out what one does with an apartment larger than 400 square feet.

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Issue May 2012

Why You Can’t Get a Taxi

Magazine May 2012
And how an upstart company may change that
Issue April 2012

Europe’s Real Crisis

Magazine April 2012
The Continent’s problems are as much demographic as financial. They won’t go away soon.
Issue March 2012

Why Companies Fail

Magazine March 2012
GM’s stock price has sunk by a third since its IPO. Why is corporate turnaround so difficult and rare? The answer is often culture—the hardest thing of all to change.
Issue January 2012

The Graduates

Magazine January 2012
Busted banking careers, crashed consultants, and shrunken incomes: the author attends her 10-year business-school reunion for lessons on how M.B.A.s can survive a recession.
Issue December 2011

Romney’s Business

Magazine December 2011
The Republican contender touts his business experience—but does it really matter?
Issue November 2011

Peter Thiel

Magazine November 2011
A Silicon Valley investor backs a new breed of college dropouts
Issue November 2011

Capitol Gains

Magazine November 2011
Are members of Congress guilty of insider trading—and does it matter?
Issue October 2011

Resistance Is Futile

Magazine October 2011
We won’t stop the rising tide of infections until we develop a new business model to fight them.
Issue September 2011

Devil’s Advocate

Magazine September 2011
Why the White House—and Washington—should miss departing economic adviser Austan Goolsbee
Issue June 2011

The Vigilante

Magazine June 2011
Why the man who runs the world's largest mutual fund sold all his Treasury bonds
Issue May 2011

The Joy of Not Cooking

Magazine May 2011
High-end retailers are counting on us to spend more money on our kitchens— even as we spend less time in them.
Issue April 2011

Showdown in the Sunshine State

Magazine April 2011
Two of Wall Street's savviest value investors, Bruce Berkowitz and David Einhorn, pride themselves on their rigorous analysis. Now they're locked in a scorched-earth dispute over the value of some Florida real estate. How could they look at the same facts and reach such wildly different conclusions, and what does that say about the “value” of value investing?
Issue March 2011

When Freedom Is Bad for Business

Magazine March 2011
How the U.S. invasion made Iraq’s economy worse, not better
Issue January 2011

Dire States

Magazine January 2011
Deep in debt, most governors will have to either raise taxes or cut spending— exactly what not to do when recovering from a recession.
Issue December 2010

Paging Dr. Luddite

Magazine December 2010
Information technology is on the brink of revolutionizing health care— if physicians will only let it.
Issue November 2010

Can GM Get Its Groove Back?

Magazine November 2010
Buyers remain wary, and Washington is unlikely to recover all its bailout cash. But the colossus has slashed costs and spiffed up its cars—and is rejoining the global race.
Issue October 2010

The Bright Side

Magazine October 2010
Some small businesses are struggling to get credit, but that’s the least of their problems. Those that survive the recession will be stronger for it and lead the economy’s recovery.
Issue September 2010

The Great Stock Myth

Magazine September 2010
Why the market’s rate of return—and your nest egg—may never recover
Issue July 2010

No Refills

Magazine July 2010
In 2009, only 25 new drugs were approved—less than half the number in the mid-’90s. Why are new pharmaceuticals so hard to bring to market? Overcautious regulators and profit-hungry conglomerates make easy scapegoats, but they’re only partly to blame. While we’re waiting for both sides to reinvent themselves, even little things like better monitoring of side effects can lead to big new discoveries.
Issue July 2010

Deficits Matter

Magazine July 2010

Correspondents

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The Biggest Story in Photos

The Unreal World

May 31, 2012

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Megan McArdle
from the Magazine

Why You Can’t Get a Taxi

And how an upstart company may change that

Europe’s Real Crisis

The Continent’s problems are as much demographic as financial. They won’t go away soon.

Why Companies Fail

GM’s stock price has sunk by a third since its IPO. Why is corporate turnaround so difficult…