Economix Meets the Gales of Change

Creative destruction, an economic theory credited to Joseph Schumpeter, posits that institutions are destroyed so that new institutions can grow and flourish.

This blog, Economix, is perhaps another example of Schumpeter’s gale. Its five-and-a-half-year run as the location for insights into everything economic has come to an end. But in its place will rise a new site, The Upshot, which will be a plain-spoken guide to politics, policy and, importantly, economics. The brainchild of David Leonhardt, one of the founders of Economix, it will carry on the best practices of Economix: “illuminate and distill a discussion, rather than muddy it.”

That is how Economix described its mission in its inaugural post in September 2008 in the depths of the Great Recession. The blog took the talents of the economic reporters of The New York Times and added prominent economists to the mix.

The Upshot will remain a prominent platform for writing on the science of everyday life. We have hired Neil Irwin, a Washington Post economics writer and author of “The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire,” and Josh Barro, an MSNBC commentator and a former writer for Business Insider and Bloomberg View. Claire Cain Miller, formerly a Times technology reporter, will be a full-time presence. Annie Lowrey, Binyamin Appelbaum, Nelson Schwartz, Eduardo Porter, Shaila Dewan and Floyd Norris, The Times’s economic team, will frequently add their thoughts. Several regular contributors to Economix will continue: Jared Bernstein, Phillip Swagel and Uwe Reinhardt, who was with Economix from the beginning.

The Upshot will also feature the thoughts of several more provocative economists, including Sendhil Mullainathan, a Harvard economics professor, and Justin Wolfers, professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan.

Aaron Carroll and Austin Frakt â€" who write about health policy on the Incidental Economist blog â€" have also joined The Upshot. Dr. Carroll is a professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine whose research bridges information technology, medical decision making, medical ethics and health policy. Mr. Frakt is an economist with appointments at VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston University and the Leonard Davis Institute of the University of Pennsylvania.

It’s quite a team.

Thank you for reading Economix through the years, and for your comments and arguments. (Rest assured, everything will remained archived on the Times site.) And please follow us at The Upshot.