Policymakers can take actions to prevent local conflict before it begins, if such violence can be accurately predicted. We examine the two countries with the richest available sub-national data: Colombia and Indonesia. We assemble two decades of fine-grained violence data by type, alongside...

A key challenge for research on many questions in the social sciences is that it is difficult to link historical records in a way that allows investigators to observe people at different points in their life or across generations. In this paper, we develop a new approach that relies on millions...

This paper combines a data rich environment with a machine learning algorithm to provide new estimates of time-varying systematic expectational errors ("belief distortions") embedded in survey responses. We find that distortions are large on average even for professional forecasters, with all...

Thanks to big data, artificial intelligence (AI) has spurred exciting innovations. In the meantime, AI and big data are reshaping the risk in consumer privacy and data security. In this essay, I first define the nature of the problem and then present a few facts about the ongoing risk. The bulk...

Understanding factors affecting the direction of innovation is a central aim of research in the economics of innovation. Progress on this topic has been inhibited by difficulties in measuring distance and movement in knowledge space. We describe a methodology that infers the mapping of the...

We model platform competition with endogenous data generation, collection, and sharing, thereby providing a unifying framework to evaluate data-related regulation and antitrust policies. Data are jointly produced from users' economic activities and platforms' investments in data infrastructure....

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and of cross-border restrictions on data flows has created a host of new questions and related policy dilemmas. This paper addresses two questions: How is digital service trade shaped by (1) AI algorithms and (2) by the interplay between AI algorithms and...

Online platforms often face challenges being both fair (i.e., non-discriminatory) and efficient (i.e., maximizing revenue). Using computer vision algorithms and observational data from a microlending marketplace, we find that choices made by borrowers creating online profiles impact both of...

As it becomes cheaper to copy and share digital content, vendors are turning to technical protections such as encryption. We argue that if protection is nevertheless imperfect, this transition will generally lower the prices of content relative to perfect legal enforcement. However, the effect...

Wages have been spreading out across workers over time - or in other words, the 90th/50th wage ratio has risen over time. A key question is, has the productivity distribution also spread out across worker skill levels over time? Using our calculations of productivity by skill level for the U.S.,...