Stanford Digital Economy Lab

Stanford Digital Economy Lab
Name	Stanford Digital Economy Lab
Formation	2019
Headquarters	Stanford, California
Parent organization	Stanford University
Leader title	Director
Leader name	Susan Athey

Stanford Digital Economy Lab The Stanford Digital Economy Lab is a research center at Stanford University focused on digital markets, platform competition, data governance, and the impacts of artificial intelligence on labor and productivity. The Lab brings together scholars from economics, computer science, law, and public policy to study platforms such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Meta, Twitter, Microsoft, and Apple and the regulatory responses shaped by institutions like the Federal Trade Commission and the United States Department of Justice. It collaborates with international organizations including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Commission to inform policy debates and technical standards relating to algorithmic transparency, antitrust litigation, and data portability.

Overview

The Lab was founded amid debates following high-profile antitrust cases such as United States v. Microsoft Corp. and investigations into Google LLC and Facebook, Inc. and aims to produce empirical evidence for policymakers at bodies like the U.S. Congress, the House Judiciary Committee, and the European Parliament. It is situated within Stanford’s ecosystem alongside centers such as the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, the Stanford HAI, the Stanford Law School, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, fostering interdisciplinary work with researchers affiliated with National Bureau of Economic Research, Brookings Institution, Peterson Institute for International Economics, and universities including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Princeton University, and University of California, Berkeley.

Research Areas

The Lab’s research spans digital platforms, competition policy, market design, and artificial intelligence, engaging topics that intersect with cases like Epic Games v. Apple Inc. and policy frameworks such as the Digital Markets Act and the Sherman Antitrust Act. Researchers study platform envelopment in contexts like Uber and Airbnb marketplaces, advertising ecosystems involving The New York Times and The Washington Post, and privacy regimes shaped by laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act. Work also addresses labor-market impacts linked to Amazon Mechanical Turk, gig-work litigation exemplified by AB5, and productivity shifts tied to OpenAI, DeepMind, and research from labs such as Google DeepMind and IBM Research.

Projects and Initiatives

Initiatives include large-scale field experiments, data collaboratives, and policy toolkits used in proceedings like the DOJ Antitrust Division investigations. Projects analyze ad-tech supply chains implicated in cases involving Verizon Communications, programmatic advertising platforms such as The Trade Desk, and measurement in digital markets similar to metrics used by Nielsen Holdings plc. The Lab runs workshops and conferences that convene participants from European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and industry leaders from Netflix, Spotify, Salesforce, and Intel Corporation.

Partnerships and Funding

The Lab receives support through grants and partnerships with foundations including the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and collaborations with corporations such as Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft. It engages with governmental research programs at the National Science Foundation and consults for regulatory bodies including the Federal Communications Commission and the United Kingdom Competition and Markets Authority. Funding partnerships emphasize data-sharing agreements with platforms and repositories like the Internet Archive and the Common Crawl corpus to enable replication and reproducibility standards akin to practices at the OpenAI research program.

People and Leadership

Leadership includes scholars with prior affiliations to institutions such as Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School, Yale University, and Columbia University. The Lab’s director, Susan Athey, has testified before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary and collaborated with researchers from National Bureau of Economic Research and European University Institute. Faculty and affiliates include economists and computer scientists who have published in journals linked to American Economic Association, contributed to reports for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and advised litigation teams in matters like United States v. Google LLC.

Publications and Outputs

The Lab publishes working papers, policy briefs, datasets, and software tools disseminated through outlets such as the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Harvard Business Review, and academic journals that include the Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, and Quarterly Journal of Economics. Outputs have informed policy reports at the Brookings Institution and the Peterson Institute for International Economics and contributed empirical evidence to major antitrust cases and legislative proposals like the Digital Services Act and the Platform Competition Regulation debates. The Lab also curates reproducible code repositories consistent with standards promoted by the Open Science Framework and partners with archives such as arXiv.

Category:Stanford University research institutes