Dr Jerry Chen studies the determinants of regional inequalities. He is especially interested in the relationship between the built environment and subjective wellbeing. Using a quasi-experimental approach to establish and quantify the causal pathways, Jerry applies a combination of econometrics and machine learning methods. An example of what he seeks to answer is “All else equal, does moving from the city centre to the countryside make one happier?”. He also studies how remote working impacts the spatial and temporal organisation of cities, and its implications on workers’ subjective wellbeing.

As a researcher for ai@cam, the University’s flagship mission on artificial intelligence, Jerry works on helping the public sector make use of AI in a fair, ethical, and effective manner. Further to this, he is working on extending economic models with language-model-based synthetic agents.

Jerry is a Bye-Fellow of Queens’ College.