Awesome AI for Economists

A curated list of AI tools, libraries, and resources transforming how economists conduct research, teach, and analyze policy — from natural language data access to causal machine learning.

Scope: Tools with specific value for economists. General-purpose AI assistants are in the Appendix.

Highlights

This list is maintained by the OpenEcon team — building open-source infrastructure connecting AI to economics.

• OpenEcon Data — Query 330,000+ economic indicators from FRED, World Bank, IMF, and 10+ sources in plain English. Available as web app, Python API, and MCP server.
• Stata-MCP — Run Stata from VS Code, Cursor, Claude Code, and GitHub Copilot with real-time output, data viewer, and graph display.
• Econ Writing Skill — AI agent skill for writing economics papers, synthesizing 50+ guides by Cochrane, McCloskey, Shapiro, Head, and other leading economists.

Contents

• MCP Servers for Economic Data
• Coding Tools for Economists
• Causal Inference and Econometrics
• Simulation, Forecasting and Macro Modeling
• Literature Review and Research Discovery
• Economic Data and Analysis
• Academic Writing and LaTeX
• Document Processing and OCR
• NLP and Sentiment for Economics
• Policy, Labor and Alternative Data
• Finance-Specific AI
• Data Collection Tools
• Papers and Books
• Courses, Conferences and Community
• Appendix: General-Purpose AI

MCP Servers for Economic Data

Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers let AI assistants query economic databases directly. Connect Claude, Cursor, or other MCP-compatible tools to live data from FRED, World Bank, IMF, and more.

• Alpha Vantage MCP - Official server for stocks, forex, commodities, and economic indicators.
• Census MCP Server - Natural language queries for U.S. Census demographic data.
• Financial Datasets MCP - Stock market data including prices, financials, and SEC filings via MCP.
• FRED MCP Server - Access all 800,000+ FRED time series with date filtering and frequency adjustment.
• IMF Data MCP Server - WEO forecasts, balance of payments, and more from the IMF.
• Nasdaq Data Link MCP - Access Nasdaq/Quandl financial and economic datasets.
• OpenEcon - Unified natural language interface to 330,000+ economic indicators across FRED, World Bank, IMF, Comtrade, StatsCan, Eurostat, BIS, and ExchangeRate-API. Available as web app, Python API, and MCP server. Supports CSV, JSON, DTA (Stata), and Python export.
• TAM MCP Server - One server, eight sources: Alpha Vantage, BLS, Census, FRED, IMF, Nasdaq, OECD, and World Bank.
• World Bank MCP Server - Query World Bank Open Data API for development indicators across countries.

Browse the MCP Registry to discover more servers.

Back to top

Coding Tools for Economists

• awesome-econ-ai-stuff - Reusable AI skills for economists (SKILL.md standard) covering Stata, Python, and LaTeX workflows.
• Jupyter AI - Official JupyterLab extension with %%ai magic commands for code generation and explanation.
• Jupyter AI Agents - AI agents for JupyterLab with MCP integration for connecting notebooks to FRED, World Bank, and more.
• Marimo - Reactive Python notebook stored as pure .py files with built-in AI assistant.
• Positron IDE - Next-gen IDE from Posit (makers of RStudio) with native R and Python support and AI-powered data assistant.
• Stata-MCP - The most popular Stata-AI integration. Execute .do/.ado/.mata files from VS Code, Cursor, Claude Code, or GitHub Copilot with real-time output panels, built-in data viewer, graph display, and support for up to 100 concurrent sessions.

AI Agent Frameworks

Build automated research pipelines — from data collection to analysis to report generation.

• Agno - Open-source Python framework with memory, knowledge, and 100+ toolkits including MCP support.
• AutoGen - Microsoft's multi-agent conversation framework for complex research workflows.
• CrewAI - Role-based multi-agent systems for collaborative research workflows.
• LangGraph - Stateful agent workflows with cyclic graphs; 6M+ monthly downloads.
• Pydantic AI - Type-safe agent framework with structured input/output, ideal for working with economic data.

Back to top

Causal Inference and Econometrics

Core Libraries

• awesome-causal-inference - The definitive causal inference resource list.
• causal-learn - Causal discovery algorithms (PC, FCI, GES) from the PyWhy ecosystem.
• CausalML - Uber's uplift modeling and causal inference with machine learning.
• DoubleML - Chernozhukov et al. (2018) Double/Debiased ML in Python and R.
• DoWhy - End-to-end causal inference: model, identify, estimate, refute.
• EconML - Microsoft/PyWhy library for heterogeneous treatment effects via Double ML and causal forests.
• grf - Generalized Random Forests for heterogeneous treatment effects (Athey, Tibshirani, Wager).

Frontier Tools

• CausalAgent - Multi-agent AI for end-to-end causal inference through conversation.
• CausalFM - Foundation models for causal inference; pre-trained models replace per-problem estimation (ICLR 2026).
• CausalMatch - ByteDance's causal matching engine at industrial scale.
• CImpact - Causal impact for time series with frequentist and Bayesian methods.
• contdid - DiD with continuous treatment, by Brantly Callaway.
• diff-diff - sklearn-style difference-in-differences library filling a critical gap in Python.
• DoubleLingo - Double ML with LLM-based nuisance models for causal inference on unstructured data.
• moderndid - GPU-accelerated modern DiD with staggered adoption and event studies.
• Salesforce CausalAI - Causal analysis for time series and tabular data.
• TexIV - Extract instrumental variables from text data using ML.

Back to top

Simulation, Forecasting and Macro Modeling

Agent-Based Models and LLM Simulation

• BeforeIT.jl - Bank of Italy's agent-based macroeconomic model in Julia.
• EconAgent - LLM agents with personality traits simulating macroeconomic activities (ACL 2024).
• LLM-ABM Survey - Tsinghua's toolkit and survey for LLM agent-based modeling.
• LLM-Economist - Mechanism design with 3–1,000+ LLM agents for optimal taxation research.

Forecasting and Nowcasting

• Chronos - Amazon's pretrained time series models with Bolt variant for 250x speedup.
• Durbyn.jl - Julia port of R's forecast package.
• emerging-trajectories - LLM-based forecasting of political and economic events.
• neuralforecast - Neural forecasting models (N-BEATS, NHITS, Transformers) for economic time series.
• Now-Casting.com - Real-time GDP nowcasts for major economies, updated as data releases occur.
• Project Spectrum - BIS/ECB/Bundesbank GenAI for inflation nowcasting, categorizing 34M+ products for CPI.
• statsforecast - Fast statistical forecasting for econometric time series.
• uni2ts - Unified time series transformer models.

Game Theory and Mechanism Design

• Axelrod - Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma research with 200+ strategies and tournament simulations.
• Nashpy - Two-player game solver with support enumeration, vertex enumeration, and Lemke-Howson.
• pygambit - Comprehensive game theory computation for extensive and strategic form games with Python API.

DSGE and Structural Models

• Deep Learning for Dynamic Econ - Neural networks to solve DSGE models (course materials).
• gEconpy - DSGE toolkit in Python.
• MacroModelling.jl - Julia DSGE toolkit.
• OpenSourceEconomics - JAX-compatible DC-EGM, Kalman filters, and econ-project-templates.
• optimagic - Numerical optimization for economists (formerly estimagic).

Back to top

Literature Review and Research Discovery

• alphaXiv - Line-by-line discussion on arXiv papers with AI-powered analysis.
• Connected Papers - Visual graphs of related papers from a seed paper.
• Consensus - Evidence meter categorizing findings as yes/no/mixed across 200M+ papers.
• Elicit - Research agents synthesizing up to 80 papers into structured briefs from 138M papers.
• ResearchRabbit - Citation network and semantic similarity discovery rebuilt with Litmaps.
• SciSpace - Deep review with iterative search and Zotero integration across 280M papers.
• Scite - Classifies 1.5B+ citations as supporting or contrasting with AI-driven research rankings.
• Semantic Scholar - AI-powered academic search with citation analysis, TLDR summaries, and free API across 220M+ papers.
• Undermind - Autonomously reads hundreds of papers and produces structured reports with timelines and categories.

Back to top

Economic Data and Analysis

AI Data Analysis Platforms

• Julius AI - Upload datasets and ask questions in natural language; returns charts, regressions, and reports.
• Microsoft Data Formulator - Describe charts in English and get publication-quality output with Python code.

Economic Data Sources

• OpenEcon Data - Query 330,000+ economic indicators from FRED, World Bank, IMF, Comtrade, StatsCan, Eurostat, BIS, and more in plain English. Export to CSV, JSON, DTA, or Python. Try it | GitHub | MCP Server
• fedfred - Modern Python client for the FRED API at scale.
• FRED API v2 - Bulk retrieval of all series in any release across 800,000+ time series.
• Global Macro Database - Most comprehensive open-source macro dataset: 241 countries, 1086–2024, 27 contemporary and 84 historical sources.
• Trading Economics API - 300,000+ indicators from 196 countries with Python and R packages.

Back to top

Academic Writing and LaTeX

• Econ Writing Skill - Agent skill that transforms AI assistants into expert economics paper writers. Synthesizes 50+ guides by Cochrane, McCloskey, Shapiro, Head, Bellemare, Goldin, and other leading economists. Works with Claude Code and OpenAI Codex.
• OpenAI Prism - Free LaTeX workspace with citation management, Zotero sync, sketch-to-equation, and real-time collaboration.
• Overleaf AI Assist - LaTeX error fixing, table generation, and equation generation from prompts or images.
• Paperpal - Academic writing assistant on Overleaf, Google Docs, and Chrome.
• Thesify - AI reviewer evaluating argumentation, methodology, and rigor.
• Typst - Modern LaTeX alternative with dramatically simpler syntax and sub-second compilation.
• Underleaf - Chrome extension for image-to-LaTeX and smart citation generation.

Back to top

Document Processing and OCR

• Docling - IBM open-source document parser with 0.97 table recognition accuracy.
• Marker - PDF to Markdown/JSON at 122 pages/sec with multi-page table merging.
• Mistral OCR 3 - $1–2 per 1,000 pages with support for cursive, complex tables, and low DPI.
• Transkribus - Handwritten historical document transcription with 140+ AI models in 100+ languages.

Back to top

NLP and Sentiment for Economics

• FinBERT - Fine-tuned BERT for financial sentiment, widely cited in economics and finance research.
• FinSentGPT - Fine-tuned ChatGPT for multilingual financial sentiment, tested on ECB Monetary Policy Decisions.
• FinVADER - VADER updated with financial lexicons.
• SentiBigNomics - Sentiment analysis designed for economic text with aspect-based and negation handling.

Back to top

Policy, Labor and Alternative Data

Policy and Evidence Synthesis

• ImpactAI - World Bank DIME tool synthesizing RCT evidence with effect sizes across interventions.
• Meta-Mar - Free meta-analysis platform where AI reads PDFs and extracts quantitative outcomes.
• Plural Policy - AI bill summarizer with version comparison and momentum indicators across U.S. jurisdictions.
• PolicyEngine - Open-source U.S. tax-benefit microsimulation.
• Rayyan - AI screening for systematic reviews with 90% time reduction and PRISMA flowcharts.

Labor Market Data

• Lightcast - 2.5B job postings, 800M profiles, and 160+ countries with AI skills taxonomy.
• LinkedIn Economic Graph - Labor trends, skills migration, and talent matching data for academic researchers.
• Revelio Labs - 100M+ employment records with academic access via WRDS.

Spatial, Satellite and Alternative Data

• CARTO - AI agents that reason with spatial data via natural language.
• FlyPix AI - No-code custom AI models on satellite and drone imagery for economic measurement.
• Neudata - Alternative data intelligence cataloging thousands of non-traditional data sources.
• Stanford Satellite + AI - HDI for 61,530 municipalities from satellite imagery (Nature Communications, 2026).

Back to top

Finance-Specific AI

• awesome-quant - Curated quantitative finance resources.
• Dexter - Autonomous financial research agent with task planning and real-time data.
• Fin-R1 - Financial reasoning LLM by Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
• FinGPT - Open-source financial LLMs for sentiment, forecasting, and reports.
• OpenBB - Open-source financial research platform with AI copilot and economic data integration.

Back to top

Data Collection Tools

Web Scraping

• Firecrawl - Webpages to structured markdown with AI extraction endpoint.
• Kadoa - No-code AI extraction for financial and economic data.
• ScrapeGraphAI - LLM-powered scraping that adapts to website changes automatically.

Survey and Qualitative Research

• ATLAS.ti - AI-powered qualitative coding reducing manual effort by 90%.
• Conveo - AI video interviews with multimodal analysis at scale.
• Outset AI - Hundreds of AI-moderated interviews simultaneously in 40+ languages.
• TheySaid - AI-moderated surveys with conversational follow-ups.

Warning: Nature reports AI chatbots infiltrating online surveys. Implement detection for MTurk/Prolific studies.

Synthetic Data

• Gretel - Synthetic data with differential privacy. Open-source library.
• MOSTLY AI - High-fidelity synthetic datasets with GDPR/HIPAA compliance.

Back to top

Papers and Books

Key Papers

Books

• Deep Learning for Economists - Melissa Dell, JEL 2025 with companion Jupyter notebooks.
• The Means of Prediction - Maximilian Kasy. How AI works and who benefits (UChicago Press, 2025).
• The Scaling Era - Dwarkesh Patel. Oral history from Amodei, Hassabis, and Zuckerberg interviews.

Back to top

Courses, Conferences and Community

Courses

• AI for Economists - Jesse Lastunen's prompt-focused templates.
• Data Analysis with AI v2.0 - Gabor Bekes, CEU Vienna (2026). 12-week course covering LLMs for IV, DiD, and simulations.
• EconDL - Melissa Dell's Jupyter notebooks for deep learning in economics.
• Economics of Transformative AI - Stanford course with slides and exercises.
• genaiforecon.org - Korinek's companion site with semi-annual updates on tools and techniques.
• ML and Causal Inference - Susan Athey, Stanford GSB.
• ML and Economics at Oxford - Maximilian Kasy's reading group.
• The Economics of AI - Korinek, UVA on Coursera.
• Using AI in Research and Teaching - Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Yale SOM.

Conferences (2025–2026)

• ESIF Economics and AI+ML - Econometric Society, Cornell, June 2026.
• IESE Economics of AI - Barcelona, February 2026.
• NBER AI and Economic Measurement - Stanford, May 2026.
• NBER Digital Economics and AI - Spring 2026.

Community

Newsletters: genaiforecon (Korinek) | Causal Inference (Cunningham) | Autonomous Econ (Wong) | One Useful Thing (Mollick)

Podcasts: Dwarkesh Podcast | Exponential View

People: Anton Korinek | Scott Cunningham | Erik Brynjolfsson | Antonio Mele | Melissa Dell | Sendhil Mullainathan

Institutions: NBER AI | Stanford DEL | OECD.AI | World Bank ImpactAI

Back to top

Appendix: General-Purpose AI

Widely known tools listed for completeness with notes on what economists specifically value.

Back to top

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Read the contribution guidelines first.

License

To the extent possible under law, the author has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.