Economists debate AI research: clean identification takes decades, but we need signals now
daveholtz · x · 2026-09-25
- Quoted tweet (alexolegimas): Economists are trained to value clean identification—instrument validity, parallel trends—and such papers can take years or even decades to produce. Rigorous causal research on AI's economic effects is necessary, but we also need directional signals right now, even if imperfect.
- RT (Ronnie Chatterji): OpenAI's Economic Research team follows this dual approach, publishing descriptive papers documenting AI usage trends while also running field experiments to identify causal effects.
The thread captures the core tension in AI economics: rigorous-but-slow causal identification versus timely-but-imperfect descriptive evidence—and argues both are needed at this stage.
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