Harvard Business Review or the Economist?
 

Want to subscribe to a business magazine, but not entirely sure which one. I've heard good things about both these mags, and I'm aware that my boss reads Harvard Business Review (well not my direct boss, but I digress) so I suppose it would be good purely for chatting reasons. But obviously that's not my main focus.

Any other business mags y'all recommend? Cheers.

HBR - it's good cuz not only does it have academic articles, it also has real world ones. the economist from what i've heard is just babble.

MIT Sloan review... looks cool too. never heard anyone mention it though.. but its MIT =)

I subscribed to the Economist for a year and I would not say that it's just babble. However, the title is a misnomer - it's more of a current affairs magazine than one focused strictly on business issues.

To the OP: If you're looking for a different spin and analysis on current affairs and business, then pick up the Economist; otherwise, I would stay clear.

In my opinion you can't compare the two. Both are classified as business magazines but after reading them I think the differences become very clear. As Tapioca mentioned, the Economist is good for current affairs, politics and news discussion. HBR on the otherhand is MBA-like, topics and articles are geared towards leadership and management strategy/strategic ideas. I don't think I am describing this well, and I have to say I am bias as I subscribe to HBR. I recommend visiting Chapters and reading both as I think it will be more clear which one you'll like or maybe both. If price is a factor HBR is expensive, where there is usually a discount on the Economist.

The economist is also a british publication, so it tends to be biased IMO.

Have you also considered the Wall Street Journal?

Well there are obviously a lot of business magazines out there, and from the research I've done, namely website recommendations, I sorta have a sense of what they are to begin with, so I thank everybody here for helping me out. I am only leaning towards HBR because it's more "leadership" based, as I'm in a management trainee program currently and I'd like to "learn" something outside work. For me, either subscriptions is gonna be bloody exp cuz I work in HK right now, so 12 issues for HBR = 52 issues of Economist. And they're both around a grand HKD

As for WSJ....I read their website regularly, so in essence I would like to read something else to be get a broader scope!

The journal is pretty right-leaning as far as I am concerned.

If you search online you can find a lot of high quality PDF scans of these magazines.