Anton Korinek
Professor of Economics, Department of Economics
Professor, Darden School of Business
Office
Monroe Hall 246Academic Area
Areas of Expertise
Education: M.A., University of Vienna; Ph.D., Columbia University
Anton is a Professor at the University of Virginia, Department of Economics and Darden School of Business, and Faculty Director of the Economics of Transformative AI (EconTAI) Initiative. His current research examines the economic and financial implications of artificial intelligence and the transition towards transformative AI. He analyzes how to steer progress in AI to lead to shared prosperity and how to prepare our society for the transformative potential of AI in the future. For his work in the field, he was named to TIME's 2025 TIME100 AI list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence, Vox's 2024 Future Perfect 50, and serves on the Anthropic Economic Advisory Council.
His research investigates AI's implications for economic growth, labor markets, inequality, and market concentration. He has served on the G7 Panel of Experts on AI and testified before the US Senate on AI's workforce impacts. His work on preparing for transformative AI has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and TIME Magazine. He edited the Oxford Handbook of AI Governance, teaches "The Economics of AI" on Coursera, and publishes a semi-annual article series "Generative AI for Economic Research" in the Journal of Economic Literature examining how researchers can leverage AI tools. In his past research, he investigated the mechanics of financial crises and developed policy measures to prevent future crises, including an influential framework for capital flow regulation in emerging economies.
He is a Research Associate at the NBER, a Research Fellow and Leader of the AI Research Network at the CEPR, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 2007 and has held positions at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland as well as visiting appointments at Harvard, the World Bank, IMF, and BIS.
Working Papers
- The Economics of Transformative AI: A Research Agenda [PDF], with Erik Brynjolfsson and Ajay Agrawal, Aug. 2025
- Scenarios for the Transition to AGI [PDF | Slides], with Donghyun Suh, March 2024
- Economic Growth under Transformative AI [PDF], with Phil Trammell, invited by Annual Review of Economics, Sept. 2025
- Steering Technological Progress [PDF | Slides], with Joseph Stiglitz, updated, April 2025
Selected Publications
- AI Agents for Economic Research [PDF], Update of "Generative AI for Economic Research," Journal of Economic Literature, Aug. 2025.
- Concentrating Intelligence: Scaling and Market Structure in Artificial Intelligence [Publication | INET WP | Blog], with Jai Vipra, Economic Policy 40(121), pp. 225-256, Jan. 2025.
- Economic Policy Challenges for the Age of AI [PDF | LM Podcast (11min)], forthcoming in Rethinking Economic Policy: Steering Structural Change, MIT Press, 2025.
- LLMs Learn to Collaborate and Reason [PDF | Deep Dive Podcast (11 min)]. Update of "Generative AI for Economic Research," Journal of Economic Literature, Dec. 2024.
- Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Models [Website | Publication | X Thread], with Usman Anwar et al., Transactions on Machine Learning Research, Sep. 2024.
- LLMs Level Up—Better, Faster, Cheaper [PDF | WP | Website], June 2024 Update to Section 3 of "Generative AI for Economic Research," Journal of Economic Literature, Jun. 2024.
- Oxford Handbook of AI Governance [Book | Intro], with Justin Bullock et al, Oxford University Press, Apr. 2024.
- Aligned with Whom? Direct and Social Goals for AI Systems [PDF | Publication], with Avital Balwit, Oxford Handbook of AI Governance, pp. 65-85, Apr. 2024.
- Preparing for the (Non-Existent?) Future of Work [PDF | Publication], with Megan Juelfs, Oxford Handbook of AI Governance, pp. 746-776, Apr. 2024.
- Generative AI for Economic Research: Use Cases and Implications for Economists [PDF | Website | Slides], Journal of Economic Literature 61(4), pp. 1281-1317 (lead article), Dec. 2023.
- Scenario Planning for an A(G)I Future [Link | PDF], IMF Finance & Development Magazine 60(4), pp. 30-33, Dec. 2023.
- AI's Economic Peril to Democracy [PDF | Publication], with Stephanie A. Bell, Journal of Democracy. 34(4), pp. 151-161, Oct. 2023.
- Managing Capital Flows: Theoretical Advances and IMF Policy Frameworks [Publication | IEO BP], Journal of Globalization and Development, 13(1), pp. 91-122, May 2022.
- AI and Shared Prosperity [Publication | WP], with Katya Klinova, Proceedings of the 2021 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES ’21), pp. 645-651, July 2021.