Stanford Digital Economy Lab

Confidence 0.75 · 1 source · last confirmed 2026-04-28

The Stanford Digital Economy Lab is a research initiative at Stanford University focused on the economics of digital technology and AI — productivity, labor markets, market structure, measurement of intangible capital. Directed by Erik Brynjolfsson.

Distinct from Stanford HAI and the AI Index, though personnel overlap: Brynjolfsson is on the AI Index Steering Committee and the Digital Economy Lab director.

Role in the wiki

Publisher of Brynjolfsson, Chandar & Chen (2025) “Canaries in the Coal Mine?” — the wiki’s primary empirical source on AI’s recent employment effects.

Likely future-recurring as a source of empirical AI-economics research. Brynjolfsson’s earlier customer-support productivity study (Brynjolfsson, Li & Rock 2023, NBER 31161 → QJE 2025) also originated from this research stream; not yet ingested as its own source page (currently summarized via Erik Brynjolfsson entity page).

Open questions

• Lab’s funding model and full personnel roster.
• Other published Digital Economy Lab papers worth ingesting standalone (vs. cited via Brynjolfsson entity page).
• Relationship to Stanford’s broader economics department (HAI vs. Digital Economy Lab vs. econ dept — overlapping AI-economics communities).