During the past year, Stanford Digital Economy Lab researchers and affiliates published working papers and journal articles covering a range of topics related to the digital economy. From digital resilience to predictive analytics to racial segregation, these publications demonstrate how AI, machine learning, and other brilliant technologies are shaping society and the future of work.

Scroll down to find a collection of these remarkable working papers and articles from 2021. Looking for publications from previous years? Go here.

Our weekly Seminar Series features researchers and experts discussing topics focused on AI and the digital economy. A big thanks to all the colleagues and collaborators who joined us throughout the quarter to share their time and insights.

This year’s Thinkers50 list is in. And for the fourth consecutive time, Erik Brynjolfsson appears on the biennial ranking that recognizes researchers and visionaries around the world who are leading the way in business and management thinking.

Brynjolfsson, who directs the Stanford Digital Economy Lab (S-DEL), is one of the most-cited authors on the economics of information. His research examines the effects of information technologies on business strategy, productivity and performance, digital commerce, and intangible assets. His other affiliations include the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI), the Ralph Landau Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), and professor by courtesy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford Department of Economics. 

Brynjolfsson was recognized alongside Andrew McAfee, a principal research scientist at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE). Over the past decade, Brynjolfsson and McAfee have co-authored three books together, including The Second Machine Age and Race Against the Machine. Thinkers50 recognized the duo for shaping the conversation and vision for a digital future: “Their work continues to provide a roadmap for success in a digital economy.”

Two S-DEL digital fellows, Marshall Van Alstyne and Geoffrey Parker, also made the Thinkers50 list for their research on the digital economy. Van Alstyne, a professor of information systems at Questrom School of Business, and Parker, a professor at Dartmouth Engineering, are experts in the realms of platforms and network business models. Their 2016 book (with co-author Sangeet Paul Choudary), Platform Revolution, shows how businesses can thrive in an evolving era of platform technology.

Another S-DEL digital fellow, Matt Beane, made the shortlist for the Thinkers50 Digital Thinking Award, an honor that celebrates leaders who are transforming the digital revolution into management insights. Beane is an assistant professor of technology management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His TedTalk titled “How do we work with intelligent machines?” has garnered more than 1.9 million views.

Visit thinkers50.com for a full list of this year’s honorees.

Last spring, scholars at Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI put forth a call: What are the most radical policy proposals focused on emerging technologies that could respond to the challenges and opportunities of an AI-powered future?

This November, some of the most ambitious proposals will be discussed and debated during the Stanford HAI 2021 Fall Conference, “Policy and AI: Four Radical Proposals for a Better Society.” The proposals include:

“Universal Basic Income to Offset Job Losses Due to Automation”
Andrew Yang, politician and former presidential candidate

“Data Cooperatives Could Give Us More Power Over Our Data”
Divya Siddarth, associate political economist and social technologist at Microsoft

“Middleware Could Give Consumers Choices Over What They See Online”
Francis Fukuyama, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

“Third-Party Auditor Access for AI Accountability”
Deborah Raji, fellow, Mozilla Foundation, and CS PhD student, UC Berkeley

During the online conference, each proposal will be vetted by a panel of experts from academia, industry, government, and civil society. Audience members will be encouraged to ask questions and join the conversation.

This year’s conference will feature a keynote speech by Eric Lander, the President’s Science Advisor and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Stanford Digital Economy Lab Director Erik Brynjolfsson and Daniel E. Ho, Stanford Law School professor and Stanford HAI associate director, will co-host the conference.

“I’m excited about the range of incredible speakers who will be engaging in these four ambitious proposals,” said Ho. “Proposers include public intellectuals like Frank Fukuyama and rising stars like Deb Raji, and the panels represent a true range of backgrounds, from politicians to social scientists, and technologists to technology skeptics.”

Brynjolfsson defined the term “radical“ in the context of the conference. “We chose proposals to be ‘radical’ in the sense that they are not small technocratic fixes,” he said. “They are ambitious proposals that grapple with fundamental problems and will require a change in outlook to adopt. At the same time, we don’t want proposals that are simply pie-in-the-sky dreams that have no hope of being implemented.”

Registration for the virtual two-day event is free and open to everyone.

Capgemini, a global firm that focuses on consulting, digital transformation, technology, and engineering services, has signed on to become the first member of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab Corporate Affiliate Program. 

The newly launched corporate program will create opportunities for industry professionals to network with leading academics and discuss key topics related to the digital economy. The events and activities are designed to promote knowledge-sharing, brainstorming, and to discuss datasets that could further S-DEL’s research portfolio.

​​“We are delighted to have Capgemini as the inaugural corporate affiliate member, and we are looking forward to working with their experts and clients to find innovative and actionable solutions,” said Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. “Industry engagement is essential to understanding the opportunities and obstacles ahead. With collaborators like Capgemini, we will be better able to help policymakers, businesses, and professionals rise to the challenges created by digitization and address the digital divide.”

As a corporate affiliate, Capgemini will draw from its Applied Innovation Exchange and global client database to collaborate with S-DEL researchers on a diverse set of topics. Their first collaboration may focus broadly on Digital Platforms, one of the Lab’s five research focus areas, with a specific project to be scoped together over the coming months.

“Collaboration between industry and academia is key to addressing the many questions that the digital economy has raised, and will continue to raise, in the years to come,” said Andreas Sjöström, Leader of Capgemini’s Applied Innovation Exchange in San Francisco. “We’re greatly looking forward to our work with the researchers at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, and combining our resources, knowledge, and insights with their own to drive true innovation and create meaningful, positive change for all.”

Is your company interested in becoming an S-DEL Corporate Affiliate? Contact Christie Ko at christieko@stanford.edu. 

The past 15 years have been economically tough for many Americans, but there are encouraging signs of a turnaround.

In their recent article, The Coming Productivity Boom, Stanford Digital Economy Lab (S-DEL) Director Erik Brynjolfsson and S-DEL Digital Fellow Georgios Petropoulos point out that while US labor productivity growth averaged only 1.3 percent since 2006—less than half the rate of the previous decade—productivity growth increased by 5.4 percent in the first quarter of 2021. “There’s reason to believe that this is not just a blip,” the researchers write, “but rather a harbinger of better times ahead: a productivity surge that will match or surpass the boom times of the 1990s.”

After growing at an average annual rate of around 2.8 percent between 1947 and 1973, US productivity has significantly slowed down, except for the internet-driven productivity boost between 1996 and 2004. Despite the relentless advances of digital technologies over the past 15 years—from smartphones and broadband wireless to cloud computing and machine learning—productivity has only grown at an anemic 1.3 percent, between 2006 and 2019. Most OECD countries have seen similar slowdowns.

What accounts for this puzzling so-called productivity paradox and when might it finally end? During the past several years, Brynjolfsson and his collaborators have explored this question, first at MIT where he was faculty director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and since 2020 at Stanford, where he’s director of S-DEL. Brynjolfsson discussed alternative explanations for the paradox at a recent MIT conference.