Innovation Research Bootcamp for Econ PhD Students

By Kevin Kuruc @ 2022-01-04T14:58 (+25)

Note: I am not involved with organizing this; I am just reposting an announcement I saw. 

If you're interested in the economics of innovation -- and are an economics PhD student or recent grad -- there is an innovation research bootcamp (funded by Open Phil, actually) being held alongside the NBER Summer Institute this year. Deadline to apply is Jan 20. 

From the announcement:

The NBER, with generous support from Open Philanthropy, will host the inaugural Innovation Research Boot Camp (IRBC) in Cambridge, MA in July 2022.  The broad goal of this initiative is to encourage young scholars to carry out research on the economics of innovation and innovation policy.

...

Participation: The boot camp will include around 25 participants, who may be Ph.D. students or recent Ph.Ds. who are faculty members or affiliates of non-academic research institutions.  To be eligible to attend, participants must have completed at least one year of Ph.D. coursework in economics or a closely-related field, such as financial economics.

So-Low Growth @ 2022-01-05T01:10 (+2)

What are the intersections between this and EA focused research? Would love to see some examples if you (or anyone else) has any.

Kevin Kuruc @ 2022-01-05T15:14 (+2)

Here are two broad examples off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are many more. If I think of anything worth adding, I'll do so. 

  1. Economic growth: See for example Chad Jones' body of work, who will be giving one of the lectures at the bootcamp (here's an excellent overview of some important papers). 
  2. Causes and consequences of AI development: see Phil Trammel's overview on the consequences of transformative AI in economic models. 
So-Low Growth @ 2022-01-05T16:17 (+2)

Thanks for the quick response Kevin. Haha, so in my original question I was going to say 'with the exclusion of the work of Chad Jones', i.e. the intersection of growth theory and EA/longtermism, which seem quite clear to me.

I would be interested in hearing about the other presenters: (Ben) Jones, Azoulay, Williams, Reenen, etc.