Mihai Codreanu

About Me

I work in the Econ of AI research team at Google. This website mostly reflects work before/during my PhD and reflects only my personal views. I have an Economics PhD from Stanford and an MPhil in Economics from Oxford (Nuffield College, Clarendon Scholar).

When I'm not debugging code, you can find me playing racket sports, board games or traveling.

Research Papers:

"Rationalizing Firm Forecasts" (joint w/ N. Bloom and R. Fletcher). NBER Working Paper 33384, January 2025 (revised March 2026). Previously circulated as "Rationalizing Entrepreneurs' Forecasts". Presented: NBER SI Entrepreneurship, NBER Org. Economics, AEA, EFA, EEA-ESEM, Columbia/Wharton MAD, World Management Survey, ERMAS, CFXS, WEAI.
"Demand-Driven Technical Change: Evidence from WFH Technologies" (joint w/ S. Davis, N. Bloom). NBER Working Paper 35083, April 2026. Previously circulated as "Directed Technical Change: Evidence from WFH Technologies". Media: NBER Digest, Time Magazine, New Things Under the Sun.
"The Impact of University Research Parks" (joint w/ J. Bonney). Part of "Technology, firm beliefs and human capital: historical and contemporary evidence", Stanford University, 2026. Previously circulated as "Industry-Academia Ties & the Direction of Innovation: Evidence from Stanford Research Park". Awards: Beyers Prize in Historical Writing, ERMAS Association Prize, Best Stanford Second-Year Economics Paper (Sean Buckley Memorial Award). Kindly supported by an Emergent Ventures Grant. Presented: All California Labor Economics Conference, George Mason University, LMU Munich, ERMAS. Media: Stanford Engineering (Honors Co-Op 70th Anniversary), LASER Talks (Leonardo/ISAST) .
"The Widespread Adoption of Large Language Model-Assisted Writing Across Society" (joint w/ W. Liang, Y. Zhang, J. Wang, H. Cao, J. Zou). Patterns (Cell Press), Vol. 6, article 101366, December 2025. Previously arXiv 2502.09747, February 2025. Editors' picks: Best of 2025. Kindly supported by a Stripe Economics of AI Fellowship. Media: Forbes, Fast Company, Ars Technica, Futurism/Yahoo! Tech, Phys.org, National Affairs, my favorite Reddit thread.
"Do Start-Up Grants Help Start Up New Businesses? Evidence from Romania's Start-Up Nation Program" (joint w/ I. Gavril, E. Krkoska, E.-M. Zamfir). SSRN 5342962, July 2025. Media: Economedia.
"Do Work Search Requirements Work? Evidence from a UK Reform Targeting Single Parents" (joint w/ T. Waters). IFS Working Paper 23/02, February 2023. Media: Guardian, Bloomberg, Yahoo! Finance, ITV, Evening Standard, Independent, Morning Star, Daily Mail.

About Me

Current Work at Google:

Research Papers:

Policy, Reports & Data Papers (Reverse Chronological Order):

Interviews: