Assistant Professor of Economics
Department of Social and Political Sciences
Bocconi University
germain.gauthier@unibocconi.it
curriculum vitae
About Me
I am an economist working at the intersection of political economy, public economics, and econometrics. In my applied work, I study the societal consequences of digital technologies (e.g., social media, large language models). I am particularly interested in the emergence and amplification of bias in algorithmic systems and how these shape economic and political outcomes. I have notably studied the impact of social media on protests, political attitudes, and gender norms. In my methods work, I develop models to extract structured information from unstructured data (e.g., texts, images, videos). My recent focus has been on estimating latent factor models (e.g., ideology, topics) using deep neural networks.
I am affiliated with CESifo, DONDENA and IGIER research centers. I am also involved in various initiatives at Bocconi, including the DONDENA AI and Society Initiative (DAISI), the AXA Gender Lab, and the Monitoring Democracy Initiative (MoDe).
Recent News
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17/01/2026: Just visited USI Lugano for a week, teaching a PhD level course on Text as Data (joint with Philine Widmer). Check out the slides and notebooks in my teaching section if interested.
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16/01/2026: A new WP version of our paper on The Lifecycle of Protests in the Digital Age is out. Really like it, hope you will too!
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10/01/2026: IGIER and DONDENA are organizing a conference on AI on June 11-12 at Bocconi. Consider submitting your paper! (Deadline: February 15.)