Justine Hastings is an American economist, academic, and policy advisor. She is currently a vice president and chief of people-centered science at Amazon and an affiliate professor of economics at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

. Previously, she served as professor of economics and international and public affairs at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, and as an associate professor of economics at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. Her research focuses on combining

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

and

big data Though used sometimes loosely partly because of a lack of formal definition, the interpretation that seems to best describe Big data is the one associated with large body of information that we could not comprehend when used only in smaller am ...

to solve social problems, spanning topics across education policy,

retirement Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload. Many people choose to retire when they are elderly or incapable of doing their j ...

policy,

household finance HSBC Finance Corporation is a financial services company and a subsidiary of HSBC Holdings. It is the sixth-largest issuer of MasterCard and Visa credit cards in the United States. HSBC Finance Corporation was formed from the legal entity that ...

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...

antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...

, and environmental regulation. Hastings served on the Academic Research Council for the United States

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is an agency of the United States government responsible for consumer protection in the financial sector. CFPB's jurisdiction includes banks, credit unions, securities firms, payday lenders, mortg ...

(CFPB), and on the Council of Economic Advisors to the Governor of Rhode Island. She has served as a managing editor for th
International Journal of Industrial Organization
and as co-editor of the Journal of Public Economics. She has also advised state and federal agencies in matters related to antitrust, energy and environmental regulation. Research led by Hastings on the importance of providing parents with information about the benefits of school choice alternatives was cited in Nudge, the 2008 New York Times bestseller by

Richard H. Thaler Richard H. Thaler (; born September 12, 1945) is an American economist and the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In 2015, Thaler was pre ...

and

Cass R. Sunstein Cass Robert Sunstein (born September 21, 1954) is an American legal scholar known for his studies of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, law and behavioral economics. He is also ''The New York Times'' best-selling author ...

. Her research on mental accounting and consumer purchasing behavior was cited in the Scientific Background for Thaler's 2017 Nobel Prize. Hastings' subsequent research measured how mental accounting impacts grocery spending for

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program In the United States, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, is a federal program that provides food-purchasing assistance for low- and no-income people. It is a federal aid program, ad ...

(SNAP) participants. Hastings helped found Research Improving People's Lives (RIPL), which was established as a non-profit science and technology organization in 2018, with the goal of helping state and local governments use data, science, and technology to improve outcomes for communities. In 2018, Hastings and RIPL partnered with Governor Gina Raimondo, the

Rhode Island Department of Education The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) is a state agency in Rhode Island that oversees the elementary and secondary education system from pre-Kindergarten through high school. It is headquartered in Providence. RIDE works closely with the ...

, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to launch Rhode2College, a statewide incentive program designed to encourage low- and moderate-income high school students to apply to and attend college. Over 4 years, the program has served more than 1,400 low-income juniors and seniors. In March 2020, when the economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19 emergency resulted in an unprecedented surge in unemployment claims that threatened to overwhelm the state's legacy systems used to collect, process, and pay claims, Hastings and RIPL led an effort with the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training to create a scalable cloud solution to collect pandemic unemployment assistance claims. She started in Dec 2020 at Amazon as a VP and leads the PXTCS (People Experience and Technology Central Science) team. It's reported in Dec 2022 that she has been investigated by the company for creating a toxic work environment. An Amazon spokesperson said the allegations against Hastings were “inaccurate, contradictory" and do not "reflect the reality of the situation."

Education

Hastings holds a PhD in Economics from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

Bibliography

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hastings, Justine Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American economists American women economists Brown University faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni 21st-century American women