I am an Economist at Anthropic. Previously, I was an Applied Scientist at Elicit and before that an assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. My research has been covered in the New York Times, The Economist, and, importantly, Marginal Revolution. I received my PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley in 2020.
Selected research
(with Ruth Appel, Peter McCrory, Miles McCain, Ryan Heller, Tyler Neylon, and Alex Tamkin)
Working paper, 2026
▷ Abstract
This report introduces new metrics of AI usage to provide a rich portrait of interactions with Claude in November 2025, just prior to the release of Opus 4.5. These "primitives"—simple, foundational measures of how Claude is used, which we generate by asking Claude specific questions about anonymized Claude.ai and first-party (1P) API transcripts—cover five dimensions relevant to AI's economic impact: user and AI skills, how complex tasks are, the degree of autonomy afforded to Claude, how successful Claude is, and whether Claude is used for personal, educational, or work purposes.
Working paper, 2025
▷ Abstract
Is it feasible to alert workers of impending job destruction? For 80 years, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics has tried, providing thousands of employment forecasts in its Occupational Outlook. I test accuracy by comparing these forecasts to actual job growth. The forecasts were informative: across 4,000 unique predictions, occupations in the top third of projections grew significantly more in the subsequent three decades compared to ones in the bottom third. The forecasts were especially accurate when they made reference to business practices, like how a shift to cafeteria-style restaurants decreased the demand for waiters. Technology-focused forecasts were less accurate because, on average, they underestimated the extent of job loss. While the forecasts outperform naive extrapolations, the advantage is small, indicating that most of the explanatory power is captured in pre-existing trends. Overall, these results suggest that---at least historically---occupational growth and collapse has been foreseeable.
Coverage: Marginal Revolution
(with Peter DeScioli, Kyle Thomas, and Steven Pinker)
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2025
▷ Abstract
Why do people speak vaguely when they propose illicit deals? We examine the strategic use of vague speech. Participants play an economic game in which a schemer and accomplice can coordinate to take money from a mark. When a cop was watching, the schemer was more likely to send a vague message (``Some things are better left unsaid'') to the accomplice, which usually recruited the accomplice to collude. In Experiment 2, the schemer could write their own message. When the cop was watching, they wrote messages that were more vague, which again recruited the accomplice effectively.
(with Nathan Wilmers)
Journal of Public Economics, 2025
▷ Abstract
We use location data to study activity and encounters across class lines. Low-income and especially high-income individuals are socially isolated: more likely than other income groups to encounter people from their own social class. Using simple counterfactual exercises, we study the causes. While some industries cater mainly to low or high-income groups (for example, golf courses and wineries), industry alone explains only a small share of isolation. People are most isolated when they are close to home, and the tendency to go to nearby locations explains about one-third of isolation. Using our uniquely detailed data, we show that brands, combined with distance, explain about half the isolation of the rich. Casual restaurant chains, like Olive Garden and Applebee's, have the largest positive impact on cross-class encounters through both scale and their diversity of visitors. Dollar stores and local pharmacies like CVS deepen isolation. Among publicly-funded spaces, libraries and parks are more redistributive than museums and historical sites. And, despite prominent restrictions on chain stores in some large US cities, chains are more class diverse than independent stores. The mix of establishments in a neighborhood is strongly associated with cross-class Facebook friendships (Chetty et al., 2022). The results uncover how policies that support certain public and private spaces might impact the connections that form across class divides.
Coverage: Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Economist, Planet Money, Marketplace, New York Times, Newsweek
