I'm a Research Scientist at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab within the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), and a Research Associate at the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE). Previously, I worked as an Economist at the OECD in Paris and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) in London. I received my PhD from the London School of Economics.
My research aims to make our transition towards modern, digital economies visible via new and better economic indicators. Based on the notion that you can't improve what you don't measure, I want to provide a better evidence base for policy and business. These are my main research areas:
1. Going beyond GDP to create welfare measures that are truly fit for purpose for modern economies increasingly affected by digital technologies and transformative AI. Together with Erik Brynjolfsson, I am developing a new measure called "GDP-B" that can capture the full surplus from digital and non-digital consumption. We also want to account for everything produced within the household, as well as important public, social, and environmental goods that are not captured by traditional metrics.
2. Augmenting humans with LLMs for economic research is something I am very excited about. Our research to date shows that LLMs can generate human-like responses that are consistent with economic theory and observed patterns of human preferences. While the potential applications are endless, we look at people's consumption preferences and labor market outcomes in terms of wages. I believe this can be a scalable and cost-effective tool to reduce the burden of surveying people, while keeping them in the loop. This is particularly important in light of declining response rates to surveys generally, and capacity constraints at statistical institutes globally.
3. Understanding what drives people's trust in anything is fundamental to successful governance (in policy or business) and a flourishing civil society. I have done some detailed survey work on measuring and understanding trust that I am eager to bring further into the my research on the digital economy. My list of publications has more details on this.
My research aims to make our transition towards modern, digital economies visible via new and better economic indicators. Based on the notion that you can't improve what you don't measure, I want to provide a better evidence base for policy and business. These are my main research areas:
1. Going beyond GDP to create welfare measures that are truly fit for purpose for modern economies increasingly affected by digital technologies and transformative AI. Together with Erik Brynjolfsson, I am developing a new measure called "GDP-B" that can capture the full surplus from digital and non-digital consumption. We also want to account for everything produced within the household, as well as important public, social, and environmental goods that are not captured by traditional metrics.
2. Augmenting humans with LLMs for economic research is something I am very excited about. Our research to date shows that LLMs can generate human-like responses that are consistent with economic theory and observed patterns of human preferences. While the potential applications are endless, we look at people's consumption preferences and labor market outcomes in terms of wages. I believe this can be a scalable and cost-effective tool to reduce the burden of surveying people, while keeping them in the loop. This is particularly important in light of declining response rates to surveys generally, and capacity constraints at statistical institutes globally.
3. Understanding what drives people's trust in anything is fundamental to successful governance (in policy or business) and a flourishing civil society. I have done some detailed survey work on measuring and understanding trust that I am eager to bring further into the my research on the digital economy. My list of publications has more details on this.
Latest publications:
Democratizing statistics: How AI can empower everyone (without causing disasters)
José Ramón Enríquez, David Levine, David Nguyen. Blog post. Digital Economy Lab Insights. Feb 2025
See the vodcast here.
Working papers:
Augmenting Human Survey Responses with Generative AI: An Application to Economic Research
Erik Brynjolfsson, José Ramón Enríquez, Sophia Kazinnik, David Nguyen. Presented at AEA Meetings San Francisco, Jan 2025.
Estimating Consumer Surplus
Erik Brynjolfsson, Avi Collis, Sophia Kazinnik, David Nguyen.
Democratizing statistics: How AI can empower everyone (without causing disasters)
José Ramón Enríquez, David Levine, David Nguyen. Blog post. Digital Economy Lab Insights. Feb 2025
See the vodcast here.
Working papers:
Augmenting Human Survey Responses with Generative AI: An Application to Economic Research
Erik Brynjolfsson, José Ramón Enríquez, Sophia Kazinnik, David Nguyen. Presented at AEA Meetings San Francisco, Jan 2025.
Estimating Consumer Surplus
Erik Brynjolfsson, Avi Collis, Sophia Kazinnik, David Nguyen.
