Presidential Address: The Economist as Designer in the Innovation Process for Socially Impactful Digital Products

Susan Athey's presidential address examines the expanding role of economists as designers in the data-driven innovation process for digital products, particularly those aimed at social impact. The paper outlines six key design roles for economists, such as product and market design, and six cross-cutting challenges they face, including navigating trade-offs and addressing long-term equilibrium effects. Through numerous case studies across education, agriculture, labor markets, and online platforms, Athey illustrates how economic principles, frameworks, and empirical tools can be applied at each stage of the innovation cycle. This includes problem identification, outcome measurement, experimentation, and implementation decisions. The address also surveys recent methodological advancements in econometrics and statistics that are crucial for tackling the complexities of designing and analyzing experiments in digital environments, emphasizing the potential for both tactical solutions and the generation of generalizable knowledge. Ultimately, the work champions a more integrated role for economists in shaping socially impactful digital technologies.