Nicholas Bloom

About

Nicholas Bloom is the William D. Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow of SIEPR, and the Co-Director of the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research focuses on management practices and uncertainty. He previously worked at the UK Treasury and McKinsey & Company. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the recipient of several awards including the Alfred Sloan Fellowship, the Bernacer Prize, the European Investment Bank Prize, the Frisch Medal, the Kauffman Medal, and a National Science Foundation Career Award. Bloom holds a BA from Cambridge, an MPhil from Oxford, and a PhD from University College London. His work and expertise include remote work, hybrid work schedules, and workplace management, and he is recognized for his contributions to understanding the future of work and economic uncertainty.

Research topics

• Economics
• Monetary economics
• Business
• Finance
• Geography
• Virology
• Medicine
• Financial economics
• Management
• Macroeconomics

Selected publications

• The Unprecedented Stock Market Reaction to COVID-19

  The Review of Asset Pricing Studies · 2020 · 1469 citations

  Abstract No previous infectious disease outbreak, including the Spanish Flu, has affected the stock market as forcefully as the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, previous pandemics left only mild traces on the U.S. stock market. We use text-based methods to develop these points with respect to large daily stock market moves back to 1900 and with respect to overall stock market volatility back to 1985. We also evaluate potential explanations for the unprecedented stock market reaction to the COVID-19 p…

  DOI

• The Unprecedented Stock Market Impact of COVID-19

  2020 · 905 citations

  No previous infectious disease outbreak, including the Spanish Flu, has impacted the stock market as forcefully as the COVID-19 pandemic.In fact, previous pandemics left only mild traces on the U.S. stock market.We use text-based methods to develop these points with respect to large daily stock market moves back to 1900 and with respect to overall stock market volatility back to 1985.We also evaluate potential explanations for the unprecedented stock market reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.The…

  DOI

• The Finance Uncertainty Multiplier

  Journal of Political Economy · 2023 · 152 citations

  We show how real and financial frictions amplify, prolong, and propagate the negative impact of uncertainty shocks. We use a novel instrumentation strategy to address endogeneity in estimating the impact of uncertainty by exploiting differential firm exposure to exchange rate, policy, and energy price volatility. We show that financially constrained firms cut investment more than unconstrained firms following an uncertainty shock. We then build a general equilibrium heterogeneous firms model wit…

  PublisherDOI

• Do Management Interventions Last? Evidence from India

  American Economic Journal Applied Economics · 2020 · 72 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  We revisited Indian weaving firms nine years after a randomized experiment that changed their management practices. While about half of the practices adopted in the original experimental plants had been dropped, there was still a large and significant gap in practices between the treatment and control plants, suggesting lasting impacts of effective management interventions. Few practices had spread across the firms in the study, but many had spread within firms. Managerial turnover and the lack…

  DOI

• The Diffusion of New Technologies

  The Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2025-01-17 · 32 citations

  article

  Abstract We identify phrases associated with novel technologies using textual analysis of patents, job postings, and earnings calls, enabling us to identify four stylized facts on the diffusion of jobs relating to new technologies. First, the development of economically impactful new technologies is geographically highly concentrated, more so even than overall patenting: 56% of the most economically impactful technologies come from just two U.S. locations, Silicon Valley and the Northeast Corrid…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• CAREER: A Micro to Macro Analysis of Productivity and Growth

  NSF · $403k · 2009–2015

• Economic Policy Uncertainty: Public Data and Research

  NSF · $565k · 2013–2019

Frequent coauthors

• Steven J. Davis

  Hoover Institution

  501 shared

• John Van Reenen

  426 shared

• Raffaella Sadun

  Harvard University

  209 shared

• Jose Maria Barrero

  176 shared

• Josh Lerner

  Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

  171 shared

• Tarek A. Hassan

  158 shared

• Ahmed Tahoun

  152 shared

• Aakash Kalyani

  152 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  Stanford University

• M.A.

  University of Oxford

• B.A.

  University of Cambridge

Awards & honors

• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Alfred Sloan Fellowship
• Bernacer Prize
• European Investment Bank Prize
• Frisch Medal

Similar researchers at Stanford University

• Guido W Imbensh-109
• Matthew O. Jacksonh-103
• Patrick Kehoeh-93