Philip Trammell
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ABOUT ME
I am an economics postdoc at Stanford University’s Digital Economy Lab, working with Erik Brynjolfsson and Chad Jones on questions related to economic growth and AI. I have also done work on decision theory and the game theory of public good provision. My doctorate is from Oxford, and as an undergraduate I studied economics and mathematics at Brown. When I’m not trying to be productive, I sometimes try my hand at creative writing, long-distance cycling, or oversleeping.
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SOME OTHER THINGS I’VE DONE
· Did research that motivated the establishment of the Patient Philanthropy Fund, which aims to invest for a a long time and support philanthropic projects in the relatively distant future
· Heard Glenn Loury say on his podcast that he loves me
· Biked 193 miles from New York to Providence in one day
· Pledged to spend only up to a certain cap each year on my own consumption, and give away the rest as effectively as I can [+]
I pledge to consume a maximum of $30,000 per year, plus inflation since September 2017 and 50% of a cost-of-living adjustment between Chicago (where I was in September 2017) and my current place of residence. Following US inflation as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the MIT county-level living wage calculator, my budget for Oct 2025 – Sep 2026 is $47,836. Educational, extraordinary medical, and moderate work-related expenses do not count toward this maximum. I am also fortunate to have inherited savings which, on growing 2% per year, would cover a retirement at inflation-adjusted $30,000 per year. In the event of higher returns, the excess is donated; in the event of lower returns, donations slow until the gap is filled. Anything remaining after my death will be donated. |
Published papers
Trammell, Philip (2021). “Fixed-point Solutions to the Regress Problem in Normative Uncertainty”. Synthese 198(2): 1177-99. [Link]
Getting there
Economic Growth under Transformative AI (with Anton Korinek) [Working paper (new, old), Podcast & writeup (Hear This Idea)] – Invited at Annual Review of Economics (for publication in 2026)
The Extreme Inefficiency of Expanding Variety in Endogenous Growth Theory [Link] – R&R at JPE: Macro (editor emphasizes outcome still uncertain)
Working papers
Existential Risk and Growth (with Leopold Aschenbrenner) [Link]
Dynamic Public Good Provision under Time Preference Heterogeneity [Link]
Altruism in General Equilibrium [Link]
Rougher papers, in progress or abandoned
Labor, Capital, and Patience in the Optimal Growth of Social Movements (with Nuño Sempere) [Link]
Weak Betweenness and Misleading Information [Link]
New Products and Long-term Welfare [Link]
Workflows and Automation [Link]
Other
Normative Uncertainty, Normalization, and the Normal Distribution [Link]
Simplifying Cluelessness [Link]
Some informal thoughts
about economics, philosophy, effective altruism, and other stuff I know less about than I think I do
about economics, philosophy, effective altruism, and other stuff I know less about than I think I do
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