Economists (and Economics) in Tech Companies
Harvard Business School NOM Unit Working Paper No. 19-027
Stanford University Graduate School of Business Research Paper No. 18-44
28 Pages Posted: 11 Sep 2018
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Economists (and Economics) in Tech Companies
Economists (and Economics) in Tech Companies
Date Written: September 11, 2018
Abstract
As technology platforms have created new markets and new ways of acquiring information, economists have come to play an increasingly central role in tech companies – tackling problems such as platform design, strategy, pricing, and policy. Over the past five years, hundreds of PhD economists have accepted positions in the technology sector. In this paper, we explore the skills that PhD economists apply in tech companies, the companies that hire them, the types of problems that economists are currently working on, and the areas of academic research that have emerged in relation to these problems.
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