Newly-developed large language models (LLM)--because of how they are trained and designed--are implicit computational models of humans--a homo silicus. LLMs can be used like economists use homo economicus: they can be given endowments, information, preferences, and so on, and then their behavior...

This article describes methods used in the field of spatial economics that combine insights from economic theory and evidence from data in order to answer counter- factual questions. I outline a general framework that emphasizes three elements: a specific question to be answered, a set of...

While hypothesis testing is a highly formalized activity, hypothesis generation remains largely informal. We propose a systematic procedure to generate novel hypotheses about human behavior, which uses the capacity of machine learning algorithms to notice patterns people might not. We illustrate...

While hypothesis testing is a highly formalized activity, hypothesis generation remains largely informal. We propose a procedure that uses machine learning algorithms—and their capacity to notice patterns people might not—to generate novel hypotheses about human behavior. We illustrate the...