Research Economist

About the Role

As an Economist at Anthropic, you will work to measure and understand AI's effects on the global economy. You will make fundamental contributions to the development of the Anthropic Economic Index, establishing new methodologies to measure the usage, diffusion, and impact of AI throughout the economy using privacy-preserving tools and novel data sources. You will use frontier methods in econometrics, machine learning, and structural estimation. Such rigour will drive impact, shaping both policy discussions externally and informing Anthropic’s internal business and product decisions.

Our team combines rigorous empirical methods with novel measurement approaches. We're building first-of-its-kind datasets tracking AI's impact on labor markets, productivity, and economic transformation. Using our privacy-preserving measurement system (Clio), we analyze millions of real-world AI interactions to understand how AI augments and automates work across different occupations and tasks.

Responsibilities

• Make fundamental contributions to the development and expansion of the Anthropic Economic Index, including quarterly reports and industry-specific deep dives
• Design and conduct empirical research on AI's economic effects, drawing on external data sources and the privacy-preserving measurement systems internally
• Develop new methodological approaches for studying AI's impact on:
• Labor markets and the future of work
• Productivity and task transformation
• Economic inequality and displacement
• Industry-specific disruption and adaptation
• Aggregate economic trajectories (GDP, productivity, unemployment) under varying AI-adoption scenarios
• Develop causal-inference tooling — e.g. surrogate indexes, heterogeneous-effect pipelines — to help Anthropic evaluate the downstream economic consequences of its own compute, product, and pricing decisions
• Build and maintain relationships with academic institutions, policy think tanks, and other research partners
• Work cross-functionally with other technical teams to improve our measurement infrastructure and data collection
• Translate research insights into actionable recommendations for both product decisions and policy discussions
• Amplify external engagement through research publications, policy briefs, and presentations to diverse stakeholders

You May Be a Good Fit If You Have

• PhD in Economics
• Strong track record of empirical research, particularly studies combining novel data sources and economic theory or those implementing frontier methods in causal inference and machine learning
• Experience relevant to the study of AI’s impact on the economy, including:
  • Labor market analysis and occupational change
  • Task-based approaches to technological transformation
  • Large-scale data analysis and econometric methods
  • Large language models for social science research
  • Policy-relevant economic research
  • Experimental and quasi-experimental methods for causal inference
  • Macroeconomic modeling and time series forecasting
  • Agent-based modeling or large-scale simulation
• Technical skills including:
  • Proficiency in Python, R, SQL, or similar tools for large-scale data analysis
  • Experience working with novel datasets and measurement systems
  • Comfort learning new technical tools and frameworks
• Demonstrated ability to:
  • Lead complex research projects from conception to publication
  • Communicate technical findings to diverse audiences
  • Build relationships across academic, policy, and industry communities
• Strong interest in ensuring AI development benefits humanity
• Comfort working with AI systems and ability to think critically about their capabilities and limitations

Some Examples of Our Recent Work

• Anthropic Economic Index Report: Economic Primitives
• Anthropic Economic Index Report: Uneven Geographic and Enterprise AI Adoption
• Estimating AI productivity gains from Claude conversations
• The Anthropic Economic Index

Additional Information

For this role, we're looking for candidates who can combine rigorous economic analysis with novel measurement approaches to understand AI's transformative effects on the economy. The ideal candidate will be comfortable working at the intersection of empirical economics, technological change, and policy impact.

Application Question

Please provide a writing sample, preferably a job-market paper or other article that showcases your research and technical expertise.

Deadline to apply: None. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis