• TPM25 | March 2-5, 2025
  • TPM25
  • March 2-5, 2025 | Long Beach Convention Center

Marc Levinson

Economist, Historian, Journalist, Author

My career has been eclectic but has centered on making complex economic issues understandable to the general public. Much of my work has been international in focus, dealing with trade, globalization, finance, and business. As a historian and economist, I’ve researched and presented extensively on regulatory and macroeconomic issues as well.

I have written seven books that merge my interests in economics and business strategy with historical research. I’ve also written for leading publications, such as Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, and Foreign Affairs, and have contributed to a number of websites and scholarly journals. I frequently review books for The Wall Street Journal and other publications.

I began as a journalist, with stints at Time magazine, the Bureau of National Affairs (now part of Bloomberg), the daily Journal of Commerce in New York, and Newsweek. After serving as finance and economics editor of The Economist in London, I joined the bank that is now JP Morgan Chase, where I created a unique industry economics function and developed the company’s environmental research for institutional investor clients. I later became senior fellow for international business at the Council on Foreign Relations and managed transportation and industry analysis at the Congressional Research Service. Along the way, I’ve advised a number of businesses and public agencies and spoken to business and academic audiences in many countries and several languages.

Sessions With Marc Levinson

Tuesday, 5 March

  • 12:10pm - 12:40pm (PST) / 05/mar/2024 08:10 pm - 05/mar/2024 08:40 pm

    TPM24 Accelerator: A Presentation by Marc Levinson, Economist, Historian, and Author of "The Box," the Definitive History of Container Shipping
    Marc Levinson is the author of The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, considered the definitive account of “how a seemingly simple innovation made globalization possible,” as Levinson states it. His most recent project, Outside the Box, presents “an unorthodox history of globalization … showing that the international economic relationships we’ve known since the late 1980s, based on intricate long-distance value chains, are only a stage in the process of globalization — a stage that was waning long before Trump, Brexit, and COVID-19.” Levinson’s career began as a journalist with stints at Time magazine, the Bureau of National Affairs (now part of Bloomberg), The Journal of Commerce in New York, and Newsweek. He served as finance and economics editor of The Economist, created the industry economics function at JP Morgan Chase, and later was senior fellow for international business at the Council on Foreign Relations and managed transportation and industry analysis for the US Congress at the Congressional Research Service. In his TPM24 Accelerator talk, Marc will draw from his extensive knowledge to place container shipping and supply chains in the current context of global economics and geopolitics and tell us where it’s all headed.
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