# policy.fi — Jesse Lastunen

> Personal academic website of Jesse Lastunen, Research Associate at UNU-WIDER (Helsinki). Two equally central strands of work: (1) tax-benefit microsimulation (SOUTHMOD/EUROMOD), social protection and taxation in developing countries, and poverty and inequality measurement; and (2) artificial intelligence, technology, and data systems in economic research — LLM tools and workflows, synthetic data, and technology and innovation policy.

## Pages

- [Home](https://policy.fi/): Biography, affiliations, and recent research.
- [Research](https://policy.fi/research/): Full list of 42 publications (peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, working papers, technical notes, country reports), each with abstract and citation. Machine-readable as schema.org ItemList on the page and as an Atom feed.
- [SOUTHMOD](https://policy.fi/southmod/): Resources, model documentation, an interactive model map, and a downloadable Claude Code skill for the SOUTHMOD/EUROMOD tax-benefit microsimulation models.
- [AI for Economists](https://policy.fi/ai-econ/): A curated, regularly updated library of resources for economists working with AI and LLMs — research papers, courses, coding guides (Claude Code, Cursor, Stata), AI research tools, and commentary from leading economists.

## About

Jesse Lastunen is a research associate at UNU-WIDER whose work spans two equally central strands. The first is tax-benefit microsimulation: he coordinates the research and technical assistance activities of the SOUTHMOD project for Vietnam, Rwanda, and Uganda, and works on social protection, taxation, and the distributional effects of policy reforms. The second is artificial intelligence, technology, and data systems in economic research: he chairs UNU-WIDER's AI working group, maintains a curated library of AI resources for economists, and works on generative AI workflows and synthetic data. His earlier work at OECD, RAND, Technopolis Group, Internet Association, and CERN covered science and technology indicators, innovation and technology policy, and the labor-market effects of technological change. He holds a PhD in policy analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School and a technology policy degree from Cambridge.

## Feeds and machine-readable indexes

- Research publications (Atom): https://policy.fi/research/feed.xml
- AI for Economists library (Atom): https://policy.fi/ai-econ/feed.xml
- Sitemap: https://policy.fi/sitemap.xml

## Profiles

- ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6241-7504
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TGdgvgIAAAAJ&hl=en
- GitHub: https://github.com/jesselas
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lastunen/

## Key topics

Listed as two strands of equal weight, not as a primary and a secondary.

Microsimulation and distributional analysis:
- Tax-benefit microsimulation (SOUTHMOD, EUROMOD)
- Social protection, taxation, and the distributional effects of policy reforms
- Poverty and inequality measurement in developing countries

AI, technology, and data:
- Artificial intelligence and LLMs in economic research
- Generative AI tools and workflows for economists
- Synthetic data for research and policy analysis
- Data systems and analytics
- Technology and innovation policy