Matthew D. Baird

I am a Senior Staff Economist at LinkedIn’s Economic Graph Research Institute, where I lead the Economic Opportunity Research Program. I am an applied economist and data scientist with over 15 years of experience using causal inference, experimentation, and large-scale data to study labor markets and workforce behavior.

At LinkedIn, I lead end-to-end applied research and serve as a technical leader across economics and data science teams, partnering closely with product, engineering, legal, and policy stakeholders. I am a trusted technical advisor to executive and external audiences and frequently present research findings to corporate, policy, and academic forums. My work combines rigorous causal methods with modern data engineering and experimentation workflows used in large-scale technology platforms. I also lead the Economic Technical Leadership Group across LinkedIn, contributing to methodological standards, mentorship, and technical review.

Previously at RAND, I led multidisciplinary research teams as principal or co-principal investigator on multiple applied projects totaling several million dollars. I also was the Director of the Center for Causal Inference, and was Professor of Policy Analysis and taught several doctoral classes in causal inference, applied econometrics, and labor economics. I have authored over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and institutional reports, with my research cited thousands of times. I hold a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).