The Economist has a particular and well-known style guide that all writing for the publication must follow, be it for the online version (like this piece) or otherwise - and as others have pointed out, one of their styles is using the third person and "this/your correspondent" as opposed to the first person. Similarly, they don't put author by-lines on their magazine pieces (and only initials on their online ones), although die-hard Economist fans can often recognize individual authors by their phrasing and subject matter.

If you're interested in more of their particular quirks of style - or want to see how well-specified the writing style is for a major magazine - most of their guide is available online at http://www.economist.com/research/styleguide/.