Welcome to the
website of Bill Emmott
I am a writer and consultant best known for my 13 years as editor-in-chief of The Economist (1993-2006) as well as for my books and films on Japan and Italy. My latest book, published in summer 2019, was ‘Japan’s Far More Female Future’ which analyses the economic impact of the growing number of females in higher education in Japan. These days, I am a “Brexile” living in Ireland, though I also spend time in Oxford, and am chairman of the Wake Up Foundation, a charity I co-founded with the film-maker Annalisa Piras, as well as of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Japan Society of the UK, and Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute. This site carries my articles, videos, speeches and books, as well as my 2050 Index looking at the long-term strengths and prospects of western societies.
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How Bad Might the 2020 Economic Shock Become?
03.04.20 Publication: La Stampa
Children often have better instincts than us supposedly experienced adults. In early March, when I was giving a talk to a group of teenage pupils at a school...
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Chairmans Blog – April 2020
01.04.20 Publication: Japan Society of the UK
In early March, in what now feels like a distant memory, I gave a talk to sixth-formers at a state school in the English countryside, as part of the excellent...
Read moreToward a 2021 Tokyo Olympics
24.03.20 Publication: Project Syndicate
With the global COVID-19 crisis quickly escalating, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has had to accept a hard truth, rightly taking the initiative...
Read moreCovid-19 Virus – How Should Corporations Respond?
16.03.20 Publication: Nikkei Business
It is the external economic and business shock that futurists have often warned about, but most of us never expected to actually happen: a new virus causing a...
Read moreThe 2050 Index
In too many countries, politics and policy making is addicted to the short term. To help foster the longer-term thinking we all need, in 2017 I worked out this index, together with James Fransham of The Economist, which ranks 35 advanced western countries according to 25 different measures, grouped under the themes of demography, knowledge, innovation, globalization and resilience. I will be publishing an updated version in 2019.
See the 2050 IndexLatest Film: Lecture at University of Tokyo, May 15th 2019
Latest Book
Japan’s Far More Female Future
Until now, Japan’s politics, economy and society have been dominated by men. The future promises to be different, as demographic realities and the growing number of women graduating from higher education since the early 1990s steadily change organisational structures and culture. How well the country adapts to this will determine whether in the 2020s, 30s […]
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