Stanford Digital Economy Lab

Confidence 0.85 · 5 sources · last confirmed 2026-10-08

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

Bumped to source_count: 2 on 12 August 2026 via [[2026-08-01-brynjolfsson-mckinsey-talks-talent-biggest-ai-opportunity|Brynjolfsson’s McKinsey Talks Talent appearance]], where he speaks as the lab’s director and gives the current state of its ADP payroll partnership — the entry-level employment decline in the most AI-exposed occupations now at 16–17%, collected monthly and still growing. The underlying papers remain un-ingested; the lab’s output reaches the wiki so far only through interviews.

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).

The Canaries series extended to mid-2026 (added 2026-10-08)

Richardson on Reuters Econ World (Oct 2026): ADP’s chief economist describes the lab as ADP’s research partner on payroll data by AI exposure and career stage. Reuters’ charts, credited to the lab and ADP Research, run the Canaries occupation series to mid-2026: employment of 22–25-year-old software developers at about 80 and of customer service reps at about 82 (Nov 2022 = 100), against about 123 for home health aides of the same age. The source count above is recounted from inbound links on this date.