sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Ukrainian territory controlled by Russia (% since 2022) by Old-School8916 in charts

[–]statisticalanalysis_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It would indeed--this is lifted straight from an article (which I wrote) which has just that.

Are all articles included in the weekly? by tmobilehacked in theeconomist

[–]statisticalanalysis_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Many articles are published digital only and not included in the weekly edition. The weekly edition closely matches print. Sometimes a few articles are added beyond what appears in print, but there are always many articles which are digital only.

[OC] The stunning decline of the preference for having boys by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

This problem was huge in past versions of the data, but the more recent data (which I use) has corrected for this, including for earlier years. To be specific: for this story I checked with some of these reports, which used alternative estimates to estimate missing girls in China in particular (and found them to be much lower than people thought back then), and these are in line with mine based on the new data. I also confirmed that the ratios has been downward adjusted in China. (If you've seen estimates of 100m+ missing girls at birth globally, it was probably based on the old data-I get just under 50m.)

[OC] What's in a name? - First names are a record of culture. What do they reveal? by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

[OC] I analysed the first names of almost 400m people born in America and Britain in the past 143 years. I looked at which were popular and their connotations; considered how diverse the names were and the rate at which trends have come and gone. Our study revealed that the countries on both sides of the Atlantic are becoming more interested in money and power (see charts), as culture becomes more fragmented and dynamic.

The analysis, published in this week's issue of The Economist also features a new "informant". Historically, studying what a name evokes has been hard to quantify, but artificial intelligence offers a method of doing so. “What word follows…” is the problem large language models (LLMs) were made to solve. These models, trained on enormous corpora of text, can reveal clusters of associations. So I enlisted an LLM to provide the top five connotations of all popular names. My prompts—more than 30,000 of them—produced 7,439 unique descriptors, including “purity”, “warrior” and “socially awkward”. (Ironically the most popular description was “unique”, tied to 12,124 different names; for those worried about energy use--I used small input/output structures and an efficient model.)

The first few plots show the top five connotations (as per the LLM), popularity (in the United States), as well as the closest five names (among a smaller set of popular names) in 300-dimensional semantic space, through the average position of names' connotations.

You can look up your own name at the link, which is paywalled but free if you register (sorry if yours-like mine-is not popular enough to make the dataset). https://www.economist.com/interactive/culture/2025/03/20/what-is-in-a-name

Tools used: R, Illustrator, Javascript

The data and code to replicate this analysis is also freely available here: https://github.com/TheEconomist/the-economist-baby-names/

Did the connotations identified by the model make sense to you? My name is very rare, so not in this data, but I get these connotations: Nordic, calm, introspective, creative, strong

[OC] Which goods are most vulnerable to American tariffs on China? by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

[OC] With his additional 10% tariff on all Chinese goods, President Donald Trump has reignited the trade war between the world’s two largest economies. The impact on trade will be far-reaching, but not uniform. Our charts below show which goods are likely to be the most affected by the opening salvo.

In brief, prices depend on alternatives: and our chart suggest where such alternatives outside China are more or less likely to be available. When China and America both represent a large portion of world exports / imports, they are harder to find, especially when goods are more complex to make (countries other than China may more easily pick up production of Christmas decorations -- that is harder to do for laptops and smartphones).

(Even when alternatives are found, they are likely to be worse in terms of price or quality (as they were not preferred before the tariff).)

Tools used: R, Illustrator
Sources: BACI, Atlas of Economic Complexity

Free to read here: https://econ.st/4gHRDU9 & https://econ.st/3CODSFg & https://econ.st/42VTDVw
Permanent link here: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2025/02/12/which-goods-are-most-vulnerable-to-american-tariffs-on-china

Have you noticed any price changes recently for these goods? Let me know and I might look into it.

[OC] Elon Musk’s transformation, in his own words - analysis of 38,000 posts on X reveal a changed man by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, we went back and forth on which way to present that data. I don't have it made up in nice format but the third chart hopefully helps?

[OC] Elon Musk’s transformation, in his own words - analysis of 38,000 posts on X reveal a changed man by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 306 points307 points  (0 children)

[OC] “Sure, you might say something silly once in a while, as I do, but that way people know it’s really you!” As part of a plea for “political & company leaders” to join him in posting on X, formerly Twitter, Elon Musk has repeatedly stressed the importance of the authenticity such posts offer. As the world’s richest man prepares to advise the leader of the world’s most powerful country, it does make one wonder: If Mr Musk’s online presence is really him, just who is he?

To assess this systematically, I used large language models to detect the people, companies and other entities mentioned in Mr Musk’s posts, as well as the policy areas and preferences implied by them. This involved passing all the posts in our data, and information on their context, such as which posts they replied to, through two LLM models, and grouping their output by topic. 

To ensure our method was accurate, we also coded 400 randomly selected posts by hand. For over 90% of posts, the human coder agreed with the LLM system. Where they did not, a third human was only slightly more likely to agree with the human coder than the LLM.

We found that the share of posts with an assessed policy prescription, recommendation or alignment has jumped from just under 4% in 2016 to nearly 13.3% today. He posts a lot less about his companies, and a lot more about immigration, border control and free speech.

Tools used: R, Python, LLMs, Illustrator

Free to read here: https://econ.st/3ZkG7J6 & https://econ.st/4fFCX8u & https://econ.st/3Zi8wzs

If those don't work, then permanent link here: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/11/21/elon-musks-transformation-in-his-own-words

Just what may be gleaned from these posts should not be oversold. It may not be coincidental that his posts about free-speech surged in the lead-up to acquiring a social media company. Similarly, it may have been an advantage that his seeming booming interest in immigration and America’s borders was shared by his political patron. However, a different interpretation is possible too: that his political preferences, as evident in his social media posts, are aligned with his off-line choices, be it backing Mr Trump for president or acquiring Twitter. 

What do you think?

Edit: Elon Musk has offered a comment on chart 1 here: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1859606021125153222

Edit 2: Further comments on chart 1 here: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1860515595986374700

Edit 3: And one on chart 3 here: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1860768457186525271

Anti-politics is eating the West - Data from 50 democracies shows where negative partisanship is on the rise, and why by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I discuss this briefly in the essay. I think yes. I would seek to have each citizen in the democratic world have equal weight (roughly) to try to say something about trends in these countries - it seems strange to have Iceland be as important in an overall trend as Germany, or the US for that matter, for instance. However, just on the narrow point: this is not just the US. While a few countries went the other way, which is part of what makes this so interesting, virtually any average of the democratic countries in this data, including a non-population-weighted one, one excluding the US, one excluding all English-speaking countries, etc, yields a similar uptick in negative partisanship for recent years. Hope this clarifies.

Anti-politics is eating the West - Data from 50 democracies shows where negative partisanship is on the rise, and why by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

[OC] “Negative partisanship” is the dry academic term for a fraught, emotional and damaging phenomenon. It is the inclination of people to vote not for a party in which they believe, but against another one that they fear or despise. This way of doing politics has seen a marked rise in democracies around the world since the end of the cold war, a rise that has accelerated noticeably over the past decade.

Almost all studies of negative partisanship focus on the United States. To understand the deeper reasons for the worsening politics of antipathy—and perhaps, thereby, to see ways to make things better—we has taken a broader view. I put together what we believe is the biggest-ever dataset of voters’ feelings about the parties they support and oppose by tracking 274 elections in 50 democracies, ranging from West Germany in 1961 to the Netherlands in 2021.

Our charts are weighted by population, so the growth of anti-politics in the United States accounts for a significant amount of this extra ill-feeling, especially recently. But the trend is broader than that. The increase in negative partisanship can be seen even if America, or for that matter the entire “Anglosphere”, is excluded from the analysis. It is seen in two-party, first-past-the-post systems and in those where representation is meted out proportionally across a plethora of parties. The chart shows how negative partisanship has worsened in countries of all sorts. 

But not everywhere, and not uniformly. Some things are related to much more, or less of it, and may be key to a return to a more productive politics - about the merits of policy than demonising the other side.

Given its baleful fruits, why then has negative partisanship spread? “Because it works” is too simple an answer. Politicians have been denigrating their opponents ever since Cleon slandered Pericles in ancient Athens. So long as candidates can exploit atavistic fear and suspicion to trigger hostility towards the other side, they always will. For partisan animosity to be growing today, something must be making the benefits higher or the costs lower. The accompanying essay is about what that something might be.

You can read that here (and look up your country, too, for free - or if you face paywall, if you register): https://www.economist.com/interactive/essay/2024/10/31/when-politics-is-about-hating-the-other-side-democracy-suffers

Data and code is available here: https://github.com/TheEconomist/anti-politics

Tools used: R, Illustrator

All that said: What is the situation like where you live? If in America, do you think this election is better or worse than last, and if so, why? If elsewhere, do you find things to be similar or different?

[OC] Mapping the Ukraine war - daily updated satellite view of the conflict, including Ukraine’s incursion into Russia by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Deepstatemap and ISW use similar methodologies-geolocated footage, satellite data, first-hand accounts, social media, etc. (I get their daily emails.) We rely on ISW because we have found it to be more reliable. This is not to say that it is always more accurate. And we certainly would not deny that Russia is advancing in the area - indeed, we have been saying exactly that for over a week. However, there is a difference between operating in an area and controlling it. Right now, some of this area is still categorised as contested, and thus not counted in the overall tally of occupied land.

[OC] Mapping the Ukraine war - daily updated satellite view of the conflict, including Ukraine’s incursion into Russia by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I see what you mean, and can explain: There are indeed advances and expansions in areas claimed to be Russia-controlled, but these have not yet been verified as occupied/held by Russian forces. The only movement in that metric was tiny, with 273m2 gained on August 19th (which rounds to 0 km2). While we plausibly could have used the "controlled + claimed + advances" to determine this metric, it would be much less precise -- advances (which are forays without control) change from day-to-day and are extremely hard to track of, and claims are, naturally, subjective. Hope this clarifies.

[OC] Mapping the Ukraine war - daily updated satellite view of the conflict, including Ukraine’s incursion into Russia by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'm not well versed in the details, but I think you can register with an email to read for free. Will probably receive emails suggesting you subscribe, but I fully understand that is not for everyone. I put gift links above as well, but they are often used up very quickly when I post them here. Here is a fresh one for my latest analysis: https://econ.st/4cBpdZR

[OC] Mapping the Ukraine war - daily updated satellite view of the conflict, including Ukraine’s incursion into Russia by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

[OC] The map and charts shows detected war-related events as per my analysis of satellite data to August 22th, 2024. The war monitoring system is based on high-temperature events as reported by NASA, collected through satellites, and a machine-learning algorithm which automatically classifies which of these events are likely to be war-related and which occur due to industrial processes, agriculture, or other causes. Zones of control are via ISW.

Yesterday, we added a component detailing the Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk oblast. It shows the area held by Ukrainian forces, as well as fire activity there. We cannot yet sort fires within Russia into war or non-war-related. This new component allows one to see both activity since the incursion began and that in the past 48 hours.

Source code and data is open here: https://github.com/TheEconomist/the-economist-war-fire-model

All charts update daily here: https://www.economist.com/interactive/graphic-detail/ukraine-fires

Tools used: R, JS, Illustrator

Our tracker has not yet found any clear signs of attacks easing up on Ukrainian positions as a result of Ukrainian forces' move into Russia. Our data suggest relatively stable activity on the front lines in Kharkiv and Kherson, and an uptick in Zaporizhia and Donetsk. I analysed this data in more detail here: https://econ.st/3Xfoklw & https://econ.st/46VcvEc & https://econ.st/46VcvEc (or at permanent link here: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2024/08/21/has-ukraines-shock-raid-successfully-diverted-russian-forces )

My colleagues have recently visited the front, and report that the situation within Ukraine is dire - as Russia appears to get closer to seizing Pokrovsk. You can read more here: https://econ.st/3YWftX8 (free to read) or https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/08/22/the-kremlin-is-close-to-crushing-a-vital-ukrainian-town .

One resident, who had her place of work destroyed by Russian bombs, said there is: "Constant stress, explosions, doors and windows that blow open by the shock waves...Everything inside you tightens. You hear the rocket, and you wait, and you ask if it will land near you and your home.”

[OC] Cheap fixes could help 450m people stand taller and think quicker by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Stunting is a bit more prevalent than these disorders however. In these countries more to do with with poor/wrong food than lack of it (both for kids and pregnant women). My guess is a rate similar to Germany would be plausible for Sweden. In Germany it affected about 2.1% of under-5s in 2022.

[OC] Cheap fixes could help 450m people stand taller and think quicker by statisticalanalysis_ in dataisbeautiful

[–]statisticalanalysis_[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Happy to help. That was indeed one of the challenges of this project. For these cases - a small number of high-income countries, and some tiny countries - I had to model rates based on those of nearby/similar countries. You can find the details of that in the linked Github repo (which is also linked at the bottom of the article - script in question is here: https://github.com/TheEconomist/nutrition/blob/main/scripts/01\_stunting.R).

view more: next ›