Anthropic partners with the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute on AI economic research

Today, we’re announcing a partnership with the University of Chicago's Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) to study AI's impact on labor markets and the economy. As part of this, we will equip BFI faculty economists with Claude for Enterprise access, provide training sessions on applying AI in economic research, and offer virtual workshops on our research to measure AI’s economic impacts. This partnership is an extension of our Economic Index initiative, which is dedicated to tracking and understanding AI’s effects on the economy over time. 

The rapid pace of technological advancement is increasing the challenges in analyzing the resulting impacts across the labor market and throughout society. We aim to deepen our analysis of AI’s economic impacts by combining our research data with BFI's distinguished economic expertise. This partnership offers BFI economists opportunities to examine questions including:

• Productivity measurement: Investigating how AI adoption affects traditional measures of productivity across different sectors;
• Labor market transitions: Analyzing shifts in occupational tasks and required skills as AI adoption increases;
• Distributional impacts: Studying how AI benefits and challenges affect different segments of society.

"The tools of economics will aid us all in understanding the full implications of AI’s impact on society," said Benjamin Krause, Executive Director at BFI. "This partnership creates a structured framework for University of Chicago economists to engage directly with the data, developing more rigorous and nuanced analyses that can inform policy discussions."

"The Anthropic Economic Index provides a foundation of data, but maximizing its research value requires expertise from economists who understand labor markets, productivity dynamics, and policy implications," said Sarah Heck, Head of Policy, Programs and Partnerships. "BFI represents an ideal partner given the breadth of expertise and commitment to both insightful theory and empirical research that has made the University of Chicago economics community world-renowned."

The partnership will help expand the methodologies used to study AI's economic impact, with the goal of providing policymakers and researchers with more robust insights. As our Economic Index shows, AI use is distributed unevenly across the economy–with complex patterns that defy simple narratives about automation. Working hand-in-hand with BFI economists, we hope to develop a more precise understanding of these patterns and their implications for economic policy, workforce development, and technology governance.