Apart from just pure tech stuff, Google is emerging as a great place for econs to work. There are two main areas econs can look at within Google – One is the Industrial Organisation perspective where you look at how Google can create more value for stakeholders via its internet platform. And second ofcourse, analysing the huge data being churned to determine economic trends..
Hal Varian gives a short answer here:
I’m the Chief Economist at Google, so I believe I am uniquely qualified to answer this question.
I joined the company in 2002 and initially worked on the economics of the AdWords auction. Since then, I have worked on many other auction design problems including the AdSense auction, the IPO auction, ad exchange auctions, spectrum auctions, and top-level domain auctions. You can see some of this work here.
I have also worked on query and revenue forecasting, advertiser behavior, ad effectiveness, and a number of other econometrics projects. We have hundreds of statisticians, econometricians, data scientists, and other quantitative analysts at Google and I try to coordinate communications among these groups via periodic get togethers and newsletters. In addition, I provide analysis and input on a number of policy issues, including antitrust, patents, copyright, and innovation policy. My team of economists, statisticians, and data engineers that works in all the areas described above, as well as several other areas.
I will not be surprised if we stop relying on our boring and inadequate macro data. Google could takeover and give us more realtime data on variety of things..Role of statisticians in particular is going to be enormously important in coming years…