Fiona Chen

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Business Economics at Harvard University. My research is in labor economics, with a focus on the impacts of AI and organizational decisions.

I am on the 2026-2027 academic job market.

Previously, I was a visiting student at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. I received my B.S. in Mathematics and in Economics from MIT.

I served on the MIT Corporation and as a Research Fellow at the Social Finance Institute, where I worked on practitioner-oriented research about the economic impacts of AI.

My work is supported by the Stripe Economics of AI Fellowship, Schmidt Sciences AI at Work Program, Paul and Daiy Soros Fellowship, and Stone Fellowship in Inequality and Wealth Concentration.

Research

Artificial Intelligence in the Firm: Bottlenecks in Software Production
with James Stratton, January 2026
The Economist Harvard Stone Seminar Jellyfish 1 Jellyfish 2 OECD

Task Assignment and Career Advancement
with James Stratton

AI as a Career Advisor
with Katelyn Cranney and Leo Saenger

The Labor Market Effects of AI: Current Evidence and Future Directions
with Erik Brynjolfsson and Bharat Chandar

Selected Policy and Writing

Shaping the Future of Work: Generative AI, Inequality, and Opportunity
December 2025
Social Finance Institute, Workplace and Economic Mobility Papers

MIT Values Statement
with Daniel Hastings, Tracy Gabridge, and many others, March 2022
Statement Announcement The Tech

Reflecting on Noam Chomsky’s 66 years at MIT
with Whitney Zhang, September 2017
The Tech