University of Zurich
Social Catalyst Lab
We work to identify scalable policies and solutions in the Global South, by experimenting with systems that conduct economics research either autonomously, or through human-AI collaboration.
News
Yrjö Jahnsson Award 2025
David Yanagizawa-Drott has won the Yrjö Jahnsson Award 2025 for his work on political economy and the media.
Read more →Talks
AI in Recruitment: Evidence, Skill Matching & Workforce Productivity
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AI in Recruitment: Evidence, Skill Matching & Workforce Productivity
India AI Impact Summit 2026
People
Meet the Social Catalyst Lab team
Core Team
Research Staff
PhD Students
Alumni
Andrin Pluess/Predoctoral Fellow
Céline Aeschbacher/Predoctoral Fellow
Giuliano Ripari/Research Assistant
Navid Samadi/Master Student
Marco Caporaletti/Master Student
Jonas Esterer/Master Student
Nils Rütten/Bachelor Student
Research
Experiments, evidence, and AI-driven policy evaluation
Work in Progress
Automation with Generative AI? Evidence from a Teacher Hiring Pipeline
with K. Awuah, U. Krenk
Is Social Learning Gendered?
with K. Awuah, S. Helmke, R. Hernández, U. Krenk, S. Rabino, D. Santos Cárdenas
In progress
How Are Gender Norms Perceived?
with L. Bursztyn, A. Cappelen, B. Tungodden, A. Voena
Project APE
An open experiment in AI-driven policy evaluation — autonomous systems that generate empirical economics papers and benchmark them against publications from top journals.
Explore Project APE →Where We Work
Research with a global footprint
Zurich
Switzerland
Main Office
Accra
Ghana
Field Office
Nairobi
Kenya
Field Research Ongoing
Dar es Salaam
Tanzania
Field Research Ongoing
Department of Economics
Schönberggasse 1
CH-8001 Zürich