Econometrics Seminar Series. LLM Survey Framework: Coverage, Reasoning, Dynamics, Identification
Published: 20 January 2026
30 January 2026. Professor Jing Cynthia Wu, University of Illinois
Professor Jing Cynthia Wu, University of Illinois
LLM Survey Framework: Coverage, Reasoning, Dynamics, Identification
Friday, 30 January 2026. 16:00
Online
Abstract
We propose a new LLM-based survey framework that enables retrospective coverage, economic reasoning, dynamic effects, and clean identification. We recover human-comparable treatment effects in a multi-wave randomized controlled trial of inflation expectations surveys, at 1/1000 the cost. To demonstrate the framework’s full potential, we extend the benchmark human survey (10 waves, 2018–2023) to over 50 waves dating back to 1990. We further examine the economic mechanisms underlying agents’ expectation formation, identifying the mean-reversion and individual-attention channels. Finally, we trace dynamic treatment effects and demonstrate clean identification. Together, these innovations demonstrate that LLM surveys enable research designs unattainable with human surveys.
Bio
Jing Cynthia Wu is the Paul W. and Catherine A. Boltz Chair Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Wu earned her PhD in economics from UC San Diego. Her research is at the intersection of monetary economics and asset pricing, with specialization in monetary policy, the zero lower bound, and the term structure of interest rates.
Wu has published in the American Economic Review, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Monetary Economics, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of International Economics, and International Economic Review, among other journals.
She serves as an editor at the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, a co-editor at the Journal of Financial Econometrics, an associate editor (board of editors) at the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and several other journals, and a panelist at the National Science Foundation.
Her work has been cited by Federal Reserve Chairs Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and Jerome Powell, as well as The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Economist, Bloomberg News/Businessweek/View, Forbes, Business Insider among others. She proposed shadow interest rates to study the economic effects of unconventional monetary policy including quantitative easing. Her shadow rates are published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Haver Analytics, Thomson Reuters, and Bloomberg, and used for academic research and policy analyses.
For further information, please contact business-seminar-series@glasgow.ac.uk
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First published: 20 January 2026