Program Description:
Now entering its sixth year, the Institute brings together leading researchers with advanced graduate students to build community and push forward cutting-edge research ideas. Our organizers this year are Sarah Cen (Carnegie Mellon), Kawin Ethayarajh (Chicago Booth), Alex Imas (Chicago Booth), Sanjog Misra (Chicago Booth), Lindsey Raymond (Microsoft Research), Ashesh Rambachan (MIT), and Daniel Rock (Wharton).
Goals of the Program:
- Introduce researchers to frontier methods and datasets in AI (e.g., LLMs, agents, alignment with human feedback), and how they relate to longstanding questions in forecasting, experimental design, fairness and bias, and econometric theory; and
- Build intuitions for how these methods can open up new questions for economists in fields like macroeconomics, behavioral science, health, development, public, labor, or applied microeconomics generally.
Format:
The AIE Summer Institute 2026 will be held in-person on the University of Chicago campus.
The program for participating students will consist of two parts:
- August 6 – 10: Lectures, panel discussions, tutorials, office hours, and social activities.
- August 11: Attendance at the AI and Economics Summer Conference with talks on current research topics.
Eligibility and Participation:
Participation in the full program will be by application, and limited to around 30 Ph.D. students and post-docs who have completed their Ph.D. program in 2024 or later. Candidates in economics, AI/ML/NLP and related disciplines (e.g. statistics, etc.) who have a strong interest in economics are eligible. Participants are expected to attend the August 6–11 program full-time and in person. Housing and program-related expenses for admitted students will be fully covered for the duration of the program week. Travel funding is available on a limited basis.
Application Information:
Applications can be submitted here
Applications are due by Wednesday, April 1, 2026.
For additional questions, please contact Lauren Doan at lauren.doan@chicagobooth.edu