Yuya Takahashi: Economists Influencing Tech Companies

2022/08/15

I work as an assistant professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, and Seattle is a city where the influence of many tech companies is significant.

This influence can be broadly divided into two categories. First, working at these tech companies after graduation has become a very important option for undergraduate and graduate students. Among the students I have taught, two joined Amazon and one joined Facebook after obtaining their Ph.D.

These tech companies do not only hire graduates from the University of Washington. At companies like Microsoft and Uber, as well as the two mentioned above, people with Ph.D.s and Master's degrees in fields such as economics, statistics, computer science, and operations research are working.

Another channel of influence is that economists who are currently members of the Faculty of Economics work part-time at these tech companies. A famous example is Pat Bajari, who served as Amazon's Chief Economist and was a professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, Faculty of Economics until recently. In addition, Bajari's co-authors and friends come from all over the world for short-term stays at Amazon.

They use their expertise in their research fields to provide advice on Amazon's business strategy.

I would like to delve a little deeper into the story of the economists working at the tech companies in Seattle mentioned above. According to a friend currently at Uber, people are leaving Amazon in droves right now. Those economists (as well as statisticians, computer scientists, etc.) seem to be moving to companies like Wayfair, Microsoft, and Uber. Conversely, there is also a flow of people moving from Microsoft to the Faculty of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, such as Amit Gandhi.

Finally, let me share a story I heard from a former student of mine who started working at Amazon after obtaining their Ph.D. The company has three economist teams (causal inference, IO (structural analysis), and time series), and other people such as data scientists and software engineers also work together as part of these teams.

In other words, economists are active in this industry at various levels. This trend will likely continue for some time.