Susan Athey

The Economics of Technology Professor

Professor of Economics (by courtesy), School of Humanities and Sciences
Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Academic Area:

Additional Administrative Titles

Director, Golub Capital Social Impact Lab

Research Statement

Susan Athey’s research is in the areas of the economics of digitization, marketplace design, and the intersection of machine learning and econometrics. She has studied a range of application areas, including timber auctions, online advertising, the news media, and the application of technology for social impact.

Research Interests

  • Economics of Digitization
  • Machine Learning and Causal Inference
  • Adaptive Experiments and Multi-Armed Bandits
  • Industrial Organization
  • Economics of the News Media
  • Marketplace Design
  • Platform Markets
  • Online Advertising
  • Design and Measurement of Digital Interventions for Social Impact
  • Market Shaping for Innovation

Teaching Statement

Athey teaches classes about digital marketplaces, platform economics, machine learning, and using technology for social impact.

Bio

Professor Athey is The Economics of Technology Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. She received her bachelor’s degree from Duke University and her PhD from Stanford, and she holds an honorary doctorate from Duke University. She previously taught at the economics departments at MIT, Stanford, and Harvard. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Science and is the recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded by the American Economics Association to the economist under 40 who has made the greatest contributions to thought and knowledge.

Her current research focuses on the economics of digitization, marketplace design, and the intersection of econometrics and machine learning. She has worked on several application areas, including timber auctions, internet search, online advertising, the news media, and the application of digital technology to social impact applications.

As one of the first “tech economists,” she served as consulting chief economist for Microsoft Corporation for six years, and has served on the boards of multiple private and public technology firms. She also served as a long-term advisor to the British Columbia Ministry of Forests, helping architect and implement their auction-based pricing system. She was a founding associate director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and she is the founding director of the Golub Capital Social Impact Lab at Stanford GSB. In 2022, she took leave from Stanford to serve as Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division. Professor Athey is the 2023 President of the American Economics Association, where she previously served as vice president and elected member of the Executive Committee.

Academic Degrees

  • PhD, Economics, Stanford Graduate School of Business, 1995
  • BA, Economics, Computer Science, and Mathematics, Duke University, 1991

Academic Appointments

  • Professor, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, 2013-present
  • Professor of Economics, Harvard, 2006-2012
  • Holbrook Working Professor of Economics, Stanford, 2004-2006
  • Associate Professor of Economics, Stanford, 2001-2003
  • Castle Krob Career Development Associate Professor of Economics, MIT, 1998-2001
  • Assistant Professor of Economics, MIT, 1995-1997

Awards and Honors

  • Honorary degree, London Business School, 2022
  • Adam Smith Award, National Association of Business Economists, 2020
  • CME Group-Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Prize in Innovative Quantitative Applications, 2020
  • R. Michael and Mary Shanahan Faculty Fellow for 2020–21
  • Von Neumann Prize, Rajk László College for Advanced Studies, 2019
  • Fellow, International Association of Applied Econometrics, elected 2019
  • Fellow, Game Theory Society, elected 2017
  • Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize, 2016
  • Codirector, Digital Business: Data, Decisions & Platform Strategy Initiative, Stanford GSB, 2015
  • Spence Faculty Fellow, Stanford GSB, 2013–14
  • Fellow, Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory, 2013
  • Member, National Academy of Science, elected 2012
  • Honorary degree, Duke University, 2009
  • Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected 2008
  • John Bates Clark Medal, 2007
  • Fellow, Econometric Society, elected 2004
  • Guggenheim Faculty Scholar, Stanford University, 2004–06
  • Elaine Bennett Research Award, 2001
  • Sloan Foundation Research Fellow, 2000
  • Undergraduate Economics Association Teaching Award, 1995–96
  • Review of Economic Studies Tour, 1995
  • Stanford University Lieberman Fellow, 1994–95
  • State Farm Dissertation Award in Business, 1994
  • National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, 1991–94
  • Jaedicke Scholar, Stanford Graduate School of Business, 1992–93
  • Mary Love Collins Scholarship, Chi Omega Foundation, 1991–92
  • Duke University Alice Baldwin Memorial Scholarship, 1990–91

Publications

Journal Articles

Ruohan Zhan, Zhimei Ren, Susan Athey, Zhengyuan Zhou
Management Science
August 2024 Vol. 70 Issue 8 Pages 4953–5625
Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy, Adrienne M Propp, Susan Athey
Proceedings of The 27th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics
May 2024 Vol. PMLR 2382476-2484 Pages 2476–2484
Molly Offer-Westort, Leah R. Rosenzweig, Susan Athey
Nature Human Behaviour
March 2024
Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens, Jonas Metzger, Evan Munro
Journal of Econometrics
March 2024 Vol. 240 Issue 2
Keyon Vafa, Emil Palikot, Tianyu Du, Ayush Kanodia, Susan Athey, David Blei
Transactions on Machine Learning Research
January 2024
Susan Athey, Mark Chicu, Malika Krishna, Ioana Marinescu
Review of Industrial Organization
January 2024 Vol. 63 Pages 525–544
Damian Clarke, Daniel Pailañir, Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens
Stata Journal (forthcoming)
2024
Ruoxuan Xiong, Susan Athey, Mohsen Bayati, Guido W. Imbens
Management Science
December 2023
Susan Athey, Katy Bergstrom, Vitor Hadad, Julian C. Jamison, Berk Özler, Luca Parisotto, Julius Dohbit Sama
Science Advances
October 2023 Vol. 9 Issue 40
Ruoxuan Xiong, Allison Koenecke, Michael Powell, Zhu Shen, Joshua T. Vogelstein, Susan Athey
Statistics in Medicine
August 2023
Kosuke Inoue, Susan Athey, Yusuke Tsugawa
International Journal of Epidemiology
August 2023 Vol. 52 Issue 4 Pages 1243–1256
Susan Athey, Peter J. Bickel, Aiyou Chen, Guido W. Imbens, Michael Pollmann
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series B: Statistical Methodology
July 2023
Alberto Abadie, Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens, Jeffrey M. Wooldridge
Quarterly Journal of Economics
February 2023 Vol. 138 Issue 1 Pages 1–35
Susan Athey, Kristen Grabarz, Michael Luca, Nils Wernerfelt
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
January 2023 Vol. 120 Issue 5
Zhengyuan Zhou, Susan Athey, Stefan Wager
Operations Research
January 2023 Vol. 71 Issue 1 Pages 1–395
Susan Athey, Juan Camilo Castillo, Esha Chaudhuri, Michael Kremer, Alexandre Simoes Gomes, Christopher M. Snyder
Oxford Review of Economic Policy
December 2022 Vol. 38 Issue 4 Pages 742–770
Susan Athey, Russell Pittman, Fan Zhang
Review of Industrial Organization
November 2022 Vol. 61 Pages 439–447
Jiaming Zeng, Michael F. Gensheimer, Daniel L. Rubin, Susan Athey, Ross D. Shachter
Nature Communications
February 23, 2022 Vol. 13
Peng Cui, Susan Athey
Nature Machine Intelligence
February 2022 Vol. 4 Issue 2 Pages 110–115
Robert Donnelly, Francisco J.R. Ruiz, David Blei, Susan Athey
Quantitative Marketing and Economics
December 27, 2021 Vol. 19 Issue 409 Pages 1–39
Dmitry Arkhangelsky, Susan Athey, David A. Hirshberg, Guido W. Imbens, Stefan Wager
American Economic Review
December 2021 Vol. 111 Issue 12 Pages 4088–4118
Susan Athey, Billy Ferguson, Matthew Gentzkow, Tobias Schmidt
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA
November 16, 2021 Vol. 118 Issue 46
Michael Powell, Allison Koenecke, James Brian Byrd, Akihiko Nishimura, Maximilian F. Konig, Ruoxuan Xiong, Sadiqa Mahmood, Vera Mucaj, Chetan Bettegowda, Liam Rose, Suzanne Tamang , Adam Sacarny, Brian Caffo, Susan Athey, Elizabeth A. Stuart, Joshua Vogelstein
Frontiers in Pharmacology
July 28, 2021 Vol. 12
Guido W. Imbens, Susan Athey
Observational Studies
July 2021 Vol. 7 Issue 1
Allison Koenecke, Michael Powell, Ruoxuan Xiong, Zhu Shen, Nicole Fischer, Sakibul Huq, Adham M. Khalafallah, Marco Trevisan, Pär Sparen, Juan J. Carrero, Akihiko Nishimura, Brian Caffo, Elizabeth A. Stuart, Renyuan Bai, Verena Staedtke, Nickolas Papadopoulos, Kenneth W. Kinzler, Bert Vogelstein, Shibin Zhou, Chetan Bettegowda, Maximilian F. Konig, Brett Mensh, Joshua T. Vogelstein, Susan Athey
ELIFE
June 11, 2021 Vol. 10
Jake M. Hofman, Duncan J. Watts, Susan Athey, Filiz Garip, Thomas L. Griffiths, Jon Kleinberg, Helen Margetts, Sendhil Mullainathan, Matthew J. Salganik, Simine Vazire, Alessandro Vespignani , Tal Yarkoni
Nature
June 2021 Vol. 595 Issue 866 Pages 181–188
Susan Athey, Mohsen Bayati, Nikolay Doudchenko, Guido W. Imbens, Khashayar Khosravi
Journal of the American Statistical Association
May 10, 2021 Vol. 116 Issue 536 Pages 1716–1730
Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens
Journal of Econometrics, Advanced online
April 21, 2021
Vitor Hadad, David A. Hirshberg, Ruohan Zhan, Stefan Wager, Susan Athey
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
April 13, 2021 Vol. 118 Issue 15
Liam Rose, Laura Graham, Allison Koenecke, Michael Powell, Ruoxuan Xiong, Zhu Shen, Brett Mench, Kenneth W. Kinzler, Chetan Bettegowda, Bert Vogelstein, Susan Athey, Joshua T. Vogelstein, Maximilian F. Konig, Todd H. Wagner
Frontiers in Medicine
March 31, 2021
J. C. Castillo, A. Ahuja, Susan Athey, A. Baker, E. Budish, T. Chipty, R. Glennerster, S. D. Kominers, M. Kremer, G. Larson, J. Lee, C. Prendergast, C. M. Snyder, A. Tabarrok, B. J. Tan, W. Więcek
Science
February 25, 2021 Vol. 371 Issue 6534 Pages 1107–1109
R.W. Thomsen, C.F. Christiansen, U. Heide-Jørgensen, J.T. Vogelstein, B. Vogelstein, C. Bettegowda, S. Tamang, Susan Athey, H.T. Sørensen
JAMA Network Open
February 10, 2021
Susan Athey, Stefan Wager
Econometrica
January 2021 Vol. 89 Issue 1 Pages 133–161
Rina Friedberg, Julie Tibshirani, Susan Athey, Stefan Wager
Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics
2021 Vol. 30 Issue 2 Pages 503–517
Ittai Abraham, Susan Athey, Moshe Babaiof, Michael D. Grubb
Games and Economic Behavior
November 2020 Vol. 124 Pages 454–477
Erik Sverdrup, Ayush Kanodia, Zhengyuan Zhou, Susan Athey, Stefan Wager
The Journal of Open Source Software
June 2020 Vol. 5 Issue 50
Susan Athey, Kevin A. Bryan, Joshua S. Gans
AEA Papers and Proceedings
May 2020 Vol. 110 Pages 80–84
Kun Kuang, Ruoxuan Xiong, Peng Cui, Susan Athey, Bo Li
Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
April 3, 2020
Susan Athey, Francisco J. R. Ruiz, David M. Blei
Annals of Applied Statistics
March 2020 Vol. 14 Issue 1 Pages 1–27
Susan Athey, Michael Luca
Journal of Economic Perspectives
December 2019 Vol. 33 Issue 1 Pages 209–230
Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens
Annual Review of Economics
August 2019 Vol. 11 Pages 685–725
Maria Dimakopoulou, Zhengyuan Zhou, Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens
Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
July 23, 2019 Vol. 33 Issue 1 Pages 3445–3453
Susan Athey, Mohsen Bayati, Guido W. Imbens, Zhaonan Qu
American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings
May 2019 Vol. 109 Pages 65-70
Susan Athey, Julie Tibshirani, Stefan Wager
Annals of Statistics
2019 Vol. 47 Issue 2 Pages 1148-1178
Alberto Abadie, Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens, Jeffrey M. Wooldridge
Econometrica (forthcoming)
2019
Stefan Wager, Susan Athey
Journal of the American Statistical Association
June 6, 2018 Vol. 113 Issue 523 Pages 1228–1242
Susan Athey, David Blei, Robert Donnelly, Francisco Ruiz, Tobias Schmidt
American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings
May 2018 Vol. 108 Pages 64-67
Susan Athey, Emilio Calvano, Joshua S. Gans
Management Science
April 2018 Vol. 64 Issue 4 Pages 1574-1590
Susan Athey, Jonathan Levin
Research in Economics
March 2018 Vol. 72 Issue 1 Pages 101–116
Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens, Stefan Wager
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society-Series B
February 18, 2018 Vol. 80 Issue 4 Pages 597-623
Kun Kuang, Ruoxuan Xiong, Peng Cui, Susan Athey, Bo Li
Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining
2018
Susan Athey, Dean Eckles, Guido W. Imbens
Journal of the American Statistical Association
November 13, 2017 Vol. 113 Issue 521 Pages 230-240
Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens, Thai Pham, Stefan Wager
American Economic Review
May 2017 Vol. 107 Issue 5 Pages 278-81
Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens
Journal of Economic Perspectives
May 2017 Vol. 31 Issue 2 Pages 3-32
Susan Athey, Andrzej Skrzypacz
Journal of Economic Perspectives
May 2017 Vol. 31 Issue 2 Pages 237-256
Susan Athey
Science
February 3, 2017 Vol. 335 Issue 6324 Pages 483-485
Maja Rudolph, Francisco Ruiz, Susan Athey
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 30 (NIPS 2017)
2017
Li-Ping Liu, Francisco J. R. Ruiz, Susan Athey, David M. Blei
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 30 (NIPS 2017)
2017
Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
July 2016 Vol. 113 Issue 27 Pages 7353–7360
Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens
American Economic Review
May 1, 2015 Vol. 105 Issue 5 Pages 476–480
Susan Athey, Glenn Ellison
Journal of Economics & Management Strategy
April 2014 Vol. 23 Issue 2 Pages 294–316
Susan Athey, Ilya Segal
Econometrica
November 2013 Vol. 81 Issue 6 Pages 2463–2485
Susan Athey, Dominic Coey, Jonathan Levin
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
2013 Vol. 5 Issue 1 Pages 1–27
Susan Athey, Jonathan Levin, Enrique Seira
Quarterly Journal of Economics
February 2011 Vol. 126 Issue 1 Pages 207–257
Susan Athey, Glenn Ellison
Quarterly Journal of Economics
2011 Vol. 126 Issue 3 Pages 1213–1270
Susan Athey, Joshua S. Gans
American Economic Review
May 2010 Vol. 100 Issue 2 Pages 608–613
Nikhil Agarwal, Susan Athey, David Yang
American Economic Review
2009 Vol. 99 Issue 2 Pages 441–447
Susan Athey, Kyle Bagwell
Econometrica
May 2008 Vol. 76 Issue 3 Pages 493–540
Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens
International Economic Review
December 2007 Vol. 48 Issue 4 Pages 1159–1192
Susan Athey, David A. Miller
Theoretical Economics
September 2007 Vol. 2 Issue 3 Pages 299–354
Susan Athey, Ilya Segal
American Economic Review
May 2007 Vol. 97 Issue 2 Pages 131–136
Susan Athey, Larry Katz, Alan Krueger, Steve Levitt, James Poterba
American Economic Review
May 2007 Vol. 97 Issue 2 Pages 512–520
Susan Athey, Philip A. Haile
Handbook of Econometrics
2007 Vol. 6 Issue A Pages 3847–3965
Susan Athey, Guido Imbens
Econometrica
March 2006 Vol. 74 Issue 2 Pages 431–497
Susan Athey, Andrew Atkeson, Patrick J. Kehoe
Econometrica
September 2005 Vol. 73 Issue 5 Pages 1431–1475
Susan Athey, Kyle Bagwell, Chris Sanchirico
Review of Economic Studies
April 2004 Vol. 71 Issue 2 Pages 317-349
Susan Athey, Scott Stern
RAND Journal of Economics
September 2002 Vol. 33 Issue 3 Pages 399-432
Susan Athey
Quarterly Journal of Economics
February 2002 Vol. 117 Issue 1 Pages 187-223
Susan Athey, Philip Haile
Econometrica
2002 Vol. 70 Issue 6 Pages 2107 - 2140
Susan Athey, Kyle Bagwell
RAND Journal of Economics
September 2001 Vol. 32 Issue 3 Pages 428-465
Susan Athey, John Roberts
American Economic Review
May 2001 Vol. 91 Issue 2 Pages 200-205
Susan Athey, Jonathan Levin
Journal of Political Economy
April 2001 Vol. 109 Issue 2 Pages 375-417
Susan Athey, Armin Schmutzler
RAND Journal of Economics
March 2001 Vol. 32 Issue 1 Pages 1-26
Susan Athey, Chris Avery, Peter Zemsky
American Economic Review
September 2000 Vol. 90 Issue 4 Pages 765-786
Susan Athey, Scott Stern
Industrial Relations Research Association
January 3, 1999 Pages 53-60
Susan Athey, Armin Schmutzler
RAND Journal of Economics
December 1995 Vol. 26 Issue 4 Pages 557-574

Book Chapters

Susan Athey, Fiona Scott Morton
Antitrust Law Journal Vol. 84, Issue 3
November 2022 Vol. 84 Issue 3 Pages 677–703
Susan Athey
The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda (forthcoming)
January 2018
Susan Athey, Scott Stern
Economic Analysis of the Digital Economy (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report)
April 1, 2015 Pages 443–447

Working Papers

Keyon Vafa, Susan Athey, David Blei September 2024
Susan Athey, Juan Camilo Castillo, Bharat Chandar September 2024
Tianyu Du, Ayush Kanodia, Herman Brunborg, Keyon Vafa, Susan Athey June 2024
Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy, Susan Athey, Emma Brunskill May 2024
Susan Athey, Undral Byambadalai, Matias Cersosimo, Kristine Koutout, Shanjukta Nath April 2024
Keshav Agrawal, Susan Athey, Ayush Kanodia, Emil Palikot January 2024
Susan Athey, Matias Cersosimo, Dean Karlan, Kristine Koutout, Henrike Steimer December 2023
Susan Athey, Shawn Allen Cole, Shanjukta Nath, S. Jessica Zhu August 2023
Susan Athey, Lisa K. Simon, Oskar N. Skans, Johan Vikstrom, Yaroslav Yakymovych July 2023
Aldo Gael Carranza, Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy, Susan Athey February 2023
Molly Offer-Westort, Leah R. Rosenzweig, Susan Athey January 2023
Keshav Agrawal, Susan Athey, Ayush Kanodia, Emil Palikot December 2022
Susan Athey, Undral Byambadalai, Vitor Hadad, Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy, Weiwen Leung, Joseph Jay Williams November 2022
Susan Athey, Katy Bergstrom, Vitor Hadad, Julian C. Jamison, Berk Özler, Luca Parisotto, Julius Dohbit Sama September 2021
Ruohan Zhan, Vitor Hadad, David A. Hirshberg, Susan Athey June 10, 2021
Susan Athey, Fiona Scott Morton March 2021
Amrita Ahuja, Susan Athey, Arthur Baker, Eric Budish, Juan Camilo Castillo, Rachel Glennerster, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Kremer, Jean Lee, Canice Prendergast, Christopher M. Snyder, Alex Tabarrok, Brandon Joel Tan, Witold Wiecek January 30, 2021
Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy, Vitor Hadad, Susan Athey October 25, 2020
Michael Powell, Allison Koenecke, James Brian Byrd, Akihiko Nishimura, Maximilian F. Konig, Ruoxuan Xiong, Sadiqa Mahmood, Vera Mucaj, Chetan Bettegowda, Liam Rose, Suzanne Tamang, Adam Sacarny, Brian Caffo, Susan Athey, Elizabeth A. Stuart, Joshua T. Vogelstein September 10, 2020
Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy, Susan Athey February 23, 2020
Susan Athey, Stefan Wager September 16, 2019
Jonathan Johannemann, Vitor Hadad, Susan Athey, Stefan Wager August 2019
Susan Athey, Stefan Wager February 20, 2019
Susan Athey, Billy Ferguson, Matthew Gentzkow, Tobias Schmidt February 2019
Maria Dimakopoulou, Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens December 2018
Maja Rudolph, Francisco Ruiz, Susan Athey, David Blei September 28, 2017
Susan Athey, Christian Catalini, Catherine E. Tucker June 2017
Susan Athey, Julie Tibshirani, Stefan Wager January 2017
Susan Athey, Emilio Calvano, Saumitra Jha August 6, 2016
Susan Athey, Iva Parashkevov, Vishnu Sarukkai, Jing Xia August 2016
Susan Athey, Guido W. Imbens April 2015
Susan Athey, Markus Mobius, Jeno Pal January 14, 2014
Susan Athey, Christopher Avery, Peter Zemsky 1994
Susan Athey, Joshua Gans, Scott Schaefer, Scott Stern 1994

Academic Publications

Matias Cersosimo, Matt Jarvis, Shannon Coyne Rosado, Leah R. Rosenzweig, Susan Athey, Dean Karlan
Golub Capital Social Impact Lab
October 2022
Ruohan Zhan, Vitor Hadad, David A. Hirshberg, Susan Athey
KDD ’21: The 27th ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining
August 14, 2021 Pages 2125–2135
Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy, Vitor Hadad, Susan Athey
Proceedings of Machine Learning Research
April 2021 Vol. 130 Pages 1423–1431
Vitor Hadad, Leah R. Rosenzweig, Susan Athey, Dean Karlan
Golub Capital Social Impact Lab
March 2021
Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy, Vitor Hadad, Susan Athey
Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Machine Learning
2021
Amrita Ahuja, Susan Athey, Arthur Baker, Eric Budish, Juan Camilo Castillo, Rachel Glennerster, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Kremer, Jean Lee, Canice Prendergast, Christopher M. Snyder, Alex Tabarrok, Brandon Joel Tan, Witold Więcek
American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings
2021 Vol. 111 Pages 331–335
Rena Conti, Susan Athey, Richard Frank, Jonathan Gruber
Health Affairs
December 2020
Zhengyuan Zhou, Panayotis Mertikopoulos, Susan Athey, Nicholas Bambos, Peter Glynn, Yinyu Ye
32nd Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS 2018)
2018

Teaching

Executive Education & Other Non-Degree Programs

Reinvigorate and ramp up your professional journey and evolve as a leader in our flagship executive program.

Other Teaching

Programs and Non-Degree Courses

This is a team-based course where students will work on a project to improve a product using data and experimentation. We will cover key considerations for designing and executing high-quality research for product innovation to drive business outcomes and social impact. Students will have the opportunity to apply methods from machine learning and causal inference to a real-world scenario provided by a partner organization. Topics include designing research and experiments, data analysis, experimental and non-experimental methods for estimating the impact of product features, as well as management consideration for the delivery of actionable research. The course involves three weekly meetings: two lectures and one lab.

Conferences, Talks & Speaking Engagements

Susan Athey was the keynote speaker at the 2021 UC Berkeley Undergraduate Economics Commencement.

Susan Athey presents “Designing Adaptive Field Experiments” at the University of Chicago, Department of Economics, Advances with Field Experiments Seminar Series.

Susan Athey went to Toulouse to receive the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize 2016. She tells about her research on “the internet and the news industry” and her relationship with TSE.

Susan Athey discusses how data-driven organizations still need to exercise intuition and judgment to ensure that short-term results don’t override long-term interests.

Susan Athey discusses “Designing Online Advertising Markets at the Algorithmic Game Theory and Practice” at a talk held at the Simons Institute for the Theory Computing, UC Berkeley.

This webinar, convened by the National Academies’ Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy, featured Susan Athey as a panelist.

Stanford GSB Affiliations

Stanford University Affiliations

  • Senior Fellow Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research
  • Member Program on Computational Social Science

Service to the Profession

Current Activities

  • Member, President’s Committee for the National Medal of Science (Presidential Appointment), 2014-Present
  • Member, National Academies Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy Innovation Policy Form, 2013-present
  • Member, National Academies Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, 2013-present

Past Activities

  • Member, President’s Committee for the National Medal of Science (Presidential Appointment), 2011-2013
  • Member, Nominating Committee for American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2011-2012
  • Cambridge Economics Economics and Computational Day, co-founder, 2011.
  • Council, Game Theory Society, 2009-2012. (elected position)
  • Associate Editor, Theoretical Economics, 2005-2011
  • Council, Econometric Society, 2007-2010. (elected position)
  • Executive Committee, American Economic Association, 2008-2010. (elected position)
  • Advisory Committee on Editorial Appointments, American Economics Association, 2011
  • Co-Editor, American Economic Journals: Microeconomics, 2007-2008
  • Associate Editor, Econometrica, 2006-2007
  • Associate Editor, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2001-2007
  • Editorial Board, Not a Journal Economics, 2001-2008
  • Fellows Nominating Committee, Econometric Society, 2006
  • Elaine Bennett Research Prize Committee (AEA/CSWEP), 2002, 2004, 2006 (Chair)
  • Chair, Program Committee, Winter Meetings of the Econometric Society, 2006
  • National Science Foundation Economics Panel, 2004-2006
  • Co-director, Market Design Program, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, 2004-2006
  • Mentor, CeMent Mentoring Workshop, AEA/CSWEP, 2006
  • Young Faculty Nominating Committee, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
  • Associate Editor, American Economic Review, 2002-2005
  • Associate Editor, RAND Journal of Economics, 2002-2004
  • Foreign Editor, Review of Economic Studies, 2001-2004
  • American Economic Association Nominating Committee, 2003
  • Stanford University Fellow, 2002-2004
  • Co-editor, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, 1997-2001
  • Program Committee, Summer Meetings of the Econometric Society, 1997 and 1998; 8th World Congress of the Econometric Society, 2000; Winter Meetings of the Econometric Society, 2001 and 2005

In the Media

Insights by Stanford Business

January 22, 2024
Combining the power of experiments with the potential of machine learning has tremendous implications for designing more effective public policy.
December 12, 2023
’Tis the season for personal and professional growth.
October 25, 2023
Expert advice on how to move fast — without breaking stuff.
February 15, 2023
Stanford GSB researchers designed an experimental program that helps women quickly boost their skills so they can land technology jobs.
October 14, 2022
A human-centered approach to artificial intelligence envisions a future where people and machines are collaborators, not competitors.
April 15, 2022
Years of patient collaboration generated insights that have narrowed the gap between economics and the real world.
March 11, 2022
The movement of millions of phones shows that Americans experience less racial isolation once they get out of their neighborhoods.
October 19, 2021
Susan Athey and a team of economists have been pushing for an unprecedented expansion of vaccine capacity.
November 20, 2020
Access to superabundant data has transformed the methods of scholastic inquiry — and possibly the basic tenets of inquiry itself.
August 06, 2020
Using GPS data to analyze people’s movements, Stanford researchers found that in most U.S. metropolitan areas, people’s day-to-day experiences are less segregated than traditional measures suggest.
July 29, 2020
Why organizations might want to design and train less-than-perfect AI.
June 16, 2020
From Hollywood to courtrooms to biased hiring practices, Stanford GSB experts analyze the breadth of racial discrimination — and how to grow beyond it.
March 16, 2020
A conference on prosecution reform through data discusses the challenges of culture change.
January 31, 2020
To maximize the potential of big data, firms are looking for employees with a new skill set.
January 16, 2020
Innovations developed at big tech firms could transform the nonprofit world, with a little help from academia.
December 06, 2019
Communication mistakes, job-stealing robots, and career-gap explanations captured reader attention this year.
November 14, 2019
Experts weigh in on economic, education, and financial gaps at a Stanford GSB conference.
November 07, 2019
At an AI forum, experts say the arrival of superhuman machine intelligence will be one of the biggest events in human history.
March 07, 2019
At a Future of Work forum, experts say demographic shifts, not artificial intelligence, create the biggest challenges for today’s workplace.
December 03, 2018
Seven Stanford business professors recommend their favorite books.
October 10, 2018
Academics, investors, and nonprofit leaders on how to find innovative solutions for the world’s starkest problems.
May 23, 2018
Telling cats from dogs is easy. It’s the what-ifs that get problematic.
August 03, 2017
Consumers choose convenience over protection.
March 10, 2017
Susan Athey wants to help machine-learning applications look beyond correlation and into root causes.
February 25, 2014
Economist Susan Athey and venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan discuss the digital currency.
September 20, 2013
The Stanford economist explains how troves of digital data will reshape competition.

School News

June 13, 2024
Policymakers, industry leaders, and scholars met at Stanford to discuss AI regulation, fairness, and creators’ rights.
February 08, 2024
Insights and Bites offers evening sessions with an informal vibe
October 25, 2023
In Washington and around the globe, faculty are helping policymakers untangle knotty problems.
July 07, 2022
The Stanford GSB economics professor will serve as chief economist of the antitrust division at the Department of Justice.
October 07, 2021
Stanford scholar Caroline Hoxby selected as vice president.
April 14, 2021
How the Stanford GSB campus and community responded to the pandemic — as told through images.
September 29, 2020
Stanford Graduate School of Business professor and economist recognized for pioneering and innovative scholarship on markets.
March 18, 2020
Faculty members explore new technologies to bring classroom lessons to remote students.
October 30, 2019
Project-based courses pair students with external organizations to solve real-world business problems.
October 28, 2019
The recently launched lab aims to support and guide innovation in the social sector.
May 14, 2019
Meet three graduates of an innovative Stanford GSB program designed to create a path for women and minorities in business academia.
March 27, 2019
These Stanford GSB women are changing their industries and their communities.
February 27, 2018
“Effective leaders in the digital age will need to be mindful of the social consequences of technology.”
July 11, 2012
Award-winning economist Susan Athey, noted econometrician Guido Imbens, corporate finance expert Joshua Rauh, and others to join Stanford GSB faculty.
November 01, 2010
John Roberts' groundbreaking work in industrial organization affected the course of economic research and inspired a new generation of economists.