Production Network Boot Camp for Graduate Students

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), with the generous support of the National Science Foundation, will host a Production Network Boot Camp on June 25-26, 2026, in Cambridge, MA. This intensive boot camp is designed for economics PhD students who are beginning or conducting research in production networks or related fields. The program will combine lectures by leading researchers with opportunities for students to present their own work. The boot camp will be co-organized by David Baqaee (UCLA and NBER), Ernest Liu (Princeton and NBER), and Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi (Northwestern).

The boot camp is designed to promote new research activity in this area and to help students engage with frontier methods. Applicants must have successfully completed the first year of their PhD program. Those in the third, fourth, and fifth years of their respective programs will be given priority for participation.

Participants are expected to arrive on Wednesday night (June 24) and to stay until the conclusion of the boot camp on Friday evening (June 26).  The boot camp will be limited to about 25 students, whose travel and lodging expenses will be reimbursed subject to federal and NBER reimbursement guidelines and caps. Participants will be accommodated for up to two nights.

Applicants should assemble the following materials in a single PDF file:

• A cover letter that includes complete contact information, as well as the name and email address of a faculty member who could provide a recommendation if the applicant is shortlisted for participation.

• A recent CV listing completed PhD field courses and the topics covered.

• A brief statement (no more than 1 page) explaining the motivation for attending the boot camp, and the applicant’s current research interests.

Upload these materials via the following form (please note that a Google account is required in order to access the link).

no later than 11:59 pm (ET) on Monday, March 30, 2026.  Applications that are not submitted by the deadline will not be considered. Applicants from all PhD-granting institutions are welcome.   

Applications will be evaluated by the three organizers. Acceptance decisions will be announced in early April.  

Please direct questions about the boot camp’s content to Ernest Liu (ernestliu@princeton.edu), and questions about logistics and the application process to aoaxaca@nber.org.  Feel free to share this call for applications.