John J. Horton
Bio
I am an economist and the Richard S. Leghorn (1939) Career Development Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER. My research is primarily focused on issues in information systems, market design, labor economics and organizational economics, particularly in the context of online markets. I am also interested in the effects of AI on labor markets and the potential of AI to improve social science methodology. Twitter: @johnjhoron
Academic Employment
Associate Professor (with Tenure), MIT Sloan School of Management, 2023—Present
Richard S. Leghorn Career Development Associate Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, 2020—2023
Assistant Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, 2019—2020
Assistant Professor of Information Systems, Stern School of Business, New York University, 2013—2019
Research
Automated social science: Language models as scientist and subject
(with Kehang Zhu and Benjamin Manning)
Large language models as economic agents: what can we learn from homo silicus?
Status: R&R at Review of Economics and Statistics
The death of a technical skill
(with Prasanna Tambe)
Versions: (jjh)
Status: R&R at Information Systems Research
Links: Citations: (gs) Media: (Quartz) Slides: (1) Twitter Thread(s): (1)
Algorithmic writing assistance on jobseekers resumes increases hires
(with Emma Wiles and Zanele Munyikwa)
Status: R&R at Management Science
Links: Citations: (gs) Media: (MarketWatch)(Business Insider)(The Observer)(Quartz) Slides: (1)(2)
Price floors and employer preferences: evidence from a minimum wage experiment
Versions: (jjh)
Status: Conditional Accept, American Economic Review
Links: Citations: (gs) Media: (The New York Times)(Bloomberg View)(Wall Street Journal) Videos: (1) Slides: (1)(2)
Job-seekers send too many applications: experimental evidence and a partial solution
(with Shoshana Vasserman)
The tragedy of your upstairs neighbors
(with Apostolos Filippas)
Status: R&R at Journal of Public Economics
Links: Citations: (gs) Media: (The Guardian) Videos: (1) Slides: (1)
Consumer demand with social influences: evidence from an e-commerce platform
(with Chiara Farronato and El Hadi Caoui)
Versions: (nber)
Status: R&R at Management Science
Links: Citations: (gs) Media: (HBS Working Knowledge)
Information about vacancy congestion redirects job search
(with Andrey Fradkin and Monica Bhole)
Labor allocation in paid crowdsourcing: experimental evidence on positioning, nudges and prices
(with Dana Chandler)
Covid-19 and remote work: an early look at us data
(with Adam Ozimek, Daniel Rock, Erik Brynjolfsson, Garima Sharma and Hong-Yi TuYe)
Buyer signaling improves matching: evidence from a field experiment
(with Philipp Kircher and Ramesh Johari)
Wielding peer effects in online production: evidence from a series of field experiments
(with Richard Zeckhauser)
Status: Working paper
Links: Citations: (gs)
The ruble collapse in an online marketplace: some lessons for market designers
The production and consumption of social media
(with Apostolos Filippas and Elliot Lipnowski)
Status: R&R, Management Science
Ride-sharing markets re-equilibrate
(with Dan Knoepfle and Jonathan Hall)
Status: Working paper
Links: Citations: (gs) Media: (Wall Street Journal)(Quartz)(AP News)(None) Videos: (1) Slides: (1)
Steering in online markets: the role of platform incentives and credibility
(with Moshe Barach and Joseph Golden)
The future of crowd work
The effects of algorithmic labor market recommendations: evidence from a field experiment
Digital labor markets and global talent flows
(with Christopher Stanton and William Kerr)
The dot-guessing game: a ’fruit fly’for human computation research
Head in the clouds: challenges and opportunities in crowdsourcing
Status: ACM Crossroads
Links: Citations: (gs)
Reputation inflation
(with Apostolos Filippas and Joseph Golden)
Status: Marketing Science
Links: Citations: (gs) Media: (Financial Times)(Quartz)(Fortune)(EurekAlert) Videos: (1) Slides: (1)
Labor economists get their microscope: big data and labor market analysis
(with Prasanna Tambe)
Online labor markets
The online laboratory: conducting experiments in a real labor market
(with David Rand and Richard Zeckhauser)
Status: Experimental Economics
The labor economics of paid crowdsourcing
(with Lydia Chilton)
Designing incentives for inexpert raters
(with Daniel Chen and Aaron Shaw)
Buyer uncertainty about seller capacity: causes, consequences, and a partial solution
The effects of search advertising on competitors: an experiment before a merger
(with Joseph Golden)
Status: Management Science
Links: Citations: (gs) Media: (Freakanomics Radio) Slides: (1)
Owning, using and renting: some simple economics of the sharing economy
(with Apostolos Filippas and Richard Zeckhauser)
Status: Management Science
Links: Citations: (gs) Media: (The Washington Post) Slides: (1)(2) Replication: (1)
Are online labor markets spot markets for tasks?
(with Daniel Chen)
The need for standardization in crowdsourcing
(with Panos Ipeirotis)
Versions: (jjh)
Status: Proceedings of the workshop on crowdsourcing and human computation at CHI
Links: Citations: (gs)
Task search in a human computation market
(with Lydia Chilton, Robert Miller and Shiri Azenkot)
The condition of the turking class: are online employers fair and honest?
How do employers use compensation history: evidence from a field experiment
(with Moshe Barach)
Versions: (jole)
Status: Journal of Labor Economics
Links: Citations: (gs) Media: (The New York Times)(MarketWatch) Slides: (1)
Awards
INFORMS ISS Cluster Best Paper Award, Runner-up (Production & Consumption of Social Media), 2022
Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Business Analytics, AI/ML “Rising Star” Award, 2021, 2021
ISS Sandra A. Slaughter Early Career Award, 2021, 2021
Experimental Economics, Editor’s Award Winner for 2011, 2011
Becker-Friedman Center on Price Theory, Summer Camp, University of Chicago, 2010, 2010
NSF-IGERT Multidisciplinary Fellowship in Inequality and Social Policy, 2008 - 2010, 2008
Institute for Humane Studies Graduate Fellowship, 2009, 2009
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Honorable Mention, 2008, 2008
Bronze Star Medal, 2004
Army Acheivement Medal (for budgeting & spreadsheet work), 2005
Army Commendation Medal, 2004
Combat Action Badge, 2004
Basic Parachutist Badge, 1999
Grants
[‘grant: Microsoft Research’, ‘year: 2023’]
[‘grant: Schwartzman College of Computing Grant - “Using AI Agents to Simulate Social Scenarios”’, ‘year: 2023’]
[‘grant: Upjohn Institute, Early Career Award Grant, 2016’, ‘year: 2016’]
[‘grant: Lab for Economic Applications and Policy, Harvard University, Research Grant, 2010’, ‘year: 2010’]
[‘grant: Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Travel Grant, 2010’, ‘year: 2010’]
[‘grant: Amazon Research Grant, Web Services, 2010’, ‘year: 2010’]
[‘grant: Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School, Research Grant, 2009’, ‘year: 2009’]
Talks
CMU Workforce and Technology Mini-Conference (scheduled), 2024
HBS Technology, Operations and Management Seminar (scheduled), 2024
Behavioral Approaches to Financial Decision Making Conference, 2024
UC Berkeley - Econ Seminar (scheduled), 2024
ACM-EC 2024, 2024
NBER Summer Institute, Economics of IT and Digitization, 2024
Strategy Group, Harvard Business School , 2024
Paris Economics of Digitization seminar (remote), 2024
Stanford GSB - Marketing, 2024
Workshop on the Economics of Social Media, SSRC, 2023
NBER Summer Institute - Personnel Economics, 2023
NBER Summer Insitute - Industrial Organization & Digitzation, 2023
SERC Panel at MIT, 2023
Paris Economics of Digitization seminar (invited but declined for health reasons), 2023
Walmart Economics Team, 2023
LinkedIn - Tech Talk, 2023
Yale Economics - Labor and Public Seminar (invited), 2023
Microsoft Research New England - EconCS Seminar, 2023
University of Nottingham - Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, 2023
Tsinghua-HKUST DEEP Seminar, 2023
Hong Kong University, 2023
Workshop on Information Systems and Economics (2 papers), 2022
Singapore Management University, 2022
Toronto Rotman Strategy Seminar, 2022
Boston University - Information Systems, 2022
Purdue, 2022
UC Irvine, 2022
Keynote Address, 2021 Conference on AI, ML and Business Analytics, 2021
GMU Economics Seminar, 2021
UMD Economics Seminar, 2021
Council of Economic Advisors, 2021
University of Bocconi, 2021
Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, 2021
Mannheim Unversity, 2021
Columbia Business School, Management Dept., 2021
CESifo panel, “Firm-Academic Research Collaborations in Economics”, 2021
Keynote Address, 3rd Crowdworking Symposium, 2021
Digital Economics Seminar (video), 2021
Toulouse Seminar in Platform Economics, 2021
NBER Labor Studies Meeting, 2021
MIT Org econ Seminar (remote), 2020
MIT Sloan, TIES Group (remote), 2020
University of Washington - Olin School of Business (remote), 2020
CMU Heinz School, 2020
University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, 2019
Stanford University Economics Dept. Labor Seminar, 2019
Temple University, Big Data & Mobile Analytics Workshop, 2018
Keynote speaker, IZA Workshop on ‘Matching Workers and Jobs Online’, 2018
Society of Labor Economists Annual Meeting (Toronto), 2018
Kellogg School at Northwestern (invited seminar; declined for health reasons (broken foot)), 2018
Booth School, University of Chicago (invited seminar; declined for scheduling reasons), 2018
Princeton CITP (invited seminar), 2018
Columbia Business School (invited seminar; declined - health), 2018
17th ZEW Conference on Economics of Information & Communications Technology, 2018
NBER Summer Institute (3 papers - 2 at IT & Digitization, 1 at Labor Studies), 2018
MIT Economics Dept (invited seminar), 2018
Stanford SIEPR (invited seminar; declined due to scheduling reasons), 2018
AEA Annual Meeting (two papers), 2018
Workshop at MIT on AI, Cities and the Future of Work, 2017
“Field Days” at University of Copenhagen, 2017
Advances in Field Experiments, University of Chicago, 2017
Platform Strategy at BU, 2017
15th ZEW Conference on Economics of Information & Communications Technology, 2017
NBER Summer Institute (Economics of Digitization - 2 papers), 2017
Federal Communications Commission (turned down), 2017
ASU Information Systems Workshop, 2017
Temple University, 2017
HBS Entrepreneurial Management Unit, 2017
AEA Annual Meeting, “Inequality in the Evolving Labor Market”, 2017
Speaker, Collective Intelligence, NYU Stern, 2016
Sharing Economy Symposium, Keynote Speaker, University of Minnesota, 2016
SOLE/EALE Conference, Seattle, 2016
Creativity and Innovation Research Initiative (CIRI), NYU Stern, 2016
The On-Demand Economy Conference, MIT Sloan, 2016
Frontiers in Digital Data, HBS, 2016
AEA Annual Meeting, Organizer: “The Economics of Peer-to-Peer Markets”, 2016
WIN Conference (conference presentation), 2015
INFORMS, “Empirical Market Design”, 2015
NBER Productivity & Innovation, 2015
CMU, Tepper School of Business, Business and Technology, Bus. & Society, 2015
eBay Research, 2015
Facebook Data Science, 2015
Uber Technologies, 2015
NBER Summer Institute, Economics of IT and Digitization, 2015
ACM-Electronic Commerce, Portland, 2015
SOLE/EALE Conference, Montreal, 2015
13th ZEW Conference on the Economics of Information & Communications Technology, 2015
Chapman University, ESI/IFREE Lecture, 2015
CODE (Conference on Digital Experimentation), 2015
Microsoft Research, NYC, 2015
Texas A&M - MEER Conference, 2015
Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computing, 2015
Texas A&M University, Economics Dept, Economic Theory & Experimentation Seminar, 2015
UMN, Carlson School of Management, Work & Organizations Dept. Seminar, 2015
AEA Annual Meeting, “Empirical Market Design”, 2015
MIT Sloan, Operations Management Seminar, 2014
NBER Summer Institute 2014, Economics of IT and Digitization, 2014
University of Chicago, Harris School, Public Policy and Economics Seminar, 2014
University of Nuremburg, 2014
Xiamen University, International Symposium on Contemporary Labor Economics, 2013
INSEAD, Technology and Operations Management Seminar, 2013
MIT Roundtable on the Digital Economy, 2013
SOLE/EALE, Society of Labor Economics Annual Meeting, 2013
The Bernard L. Schwartz Globalization Initiative at SAIS Distinguished Lecture Series, Johns Hopkins University, November 2012, 2012
Experimental Economics Lunch Seminar, University of Chicago, 2011
Networked Business Seminar, Harvard Business School, 2011
Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) 24th Annual Conference, Vancouver, British Columbia, Invited Speaker on “Social Science and the Wisdom of Crowds,” December 2010, 2010
The 6th Workshop on Internet and Network Economics (WINE 2010), Stanford University, 2010
Christakis Lab Group Seminar Series, Harvard Medical School, November 2010, 2010
CrowdConf 2010, San Francisco, CA, October 2010, 2010
Advances with Field Experiments, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania,, 2010
Crowdsourcing Applications Seminar, University of Massachusetts, 2010
European Association of Labour Economists (EALE) / Society of Labor Economists (SOLE) 3rd International Conference, University College London, June 2010, 2010
ACM-Conference on Electronic Commerce (ACM-EC), Cambridge, MA, 2010
EconCS Seminar, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science, 2010
SJDM Annual Conference, Boston, MA, 2009
Education
PhD, Harvard University
BS, United States Military Academy at West Point