Data Science Talk Series 

Artificial Intelligence and Economic Research: Applications in Labor and Housing Economics (In-person)

Abstract: This presentation explores artificial intelligence's role in advancing economic research, focusing on innovative data analysis and policy insights through two key applications. First, we examine AI’s impact on labor markets, covering automation-driven job displacement, skill shifts, and productivity gains. Empirical evidence highlights challenges like wage inequality and reskilling needs, alongside opportunities for AI-augmented work. Second, we discuss "text as data" methods, spotlighting a paper that uses large language models (LLMs) to extract land use regulation data from legal texts. This approach automates the analysis of regulatory complexities, enabling large-scale studies of housing markets, urban development, and economic growth.

Bio of the speaker: Dr. Xi Yang is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of North Texas. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from Johns Hopkins University in 2014. She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate (2015–2016), was named a Lincoln Institute Scholar in 2019, and, most recently, was a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (Fall 2024). Her research interests lie in Labor Economics and Urban Economics, focusing on urban, housing, and welfare policies and their broad economic impacts, such as family and labor market outcomes, household financial well-being, and economic inequality. Her work has been published in several top-tier journals and has also been supported by highly competitive grants from the NBER-NSF Program, the Social Security Administration, and the W.E. Upjohn Institute.