Susan Athey

Susan Athey, an economic theorist who has made significant contributions to the study of industrial organization, is the Economics of Technology Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. She also is Professor of Economics (by courtesy), School of Humanities and Sciences, and Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Her current research focuses on the economics of the Internet, marketplace design, auction theory, the statistical analysis of auction data, and the intersection of computer science and economics. She is an expert in a broad range of economic fields – including industrial organization, econometrics, and microeconomic theory – and has used game theory to examine firm strategy when firms have private information.

Professor Athey was awarded the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize in Toulouse, France in 2016. The annual award recognizes an internationally renowned economist whose research is in the spirit of the work undertaken by Professor Jean-Jacques Laffont, combining both the theoretical and the empirical. In 2007, Professor Athey was named the first female recipient of the American Economic Association’s prestigious John Bates Clark Medal, awarded every other year to the most accomplished American economist under the age of 40 “adjudged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge.” She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2012, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008, and is a fellow of the Econometric Society. Professor Athey is a member of the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science, as well as the Honors and Awards Committee of the American Economic Association. She served as an elected member of the executive committee of the American Economic Association, as an elected member of both the Council of the Econometric Society and of the Council of the Game Theory Society.

Professor Athey has been published in many professional journals including American Economic Review, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, Econometrica, and American Economic Journal: Microeconomics. She has also served as co-editor of American Economic Journal: Microeconomics and Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, and as an associate editor of several leading journals, including the American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Theoretical Economics, Econometrica, and the RAND Journal of Economics.

Prior to joining the faculty at Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2013, Professor Athey was a professor in the economics departments of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and Harvard University. She was the chair of the program committee for the 2006 North American Winter Meetings, and she has served on numerous committees for the National Academy of Science, Econometric Society, the American Economic Association, and the Committee for the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. She has also served on program committees and delivered keynote addresses for numerous conferences in computer science. She advises governments and businesses on the design of auction-based marketplaces, most recently consulting for Microsoft Corporation on its online services.