Research Economist, Department of Global Development
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University

Ryan Lee is a research economist in Department of Global Development at Cornell University. His primary research interests are in applied economic theory, mechanism design, political economy, and economic history. His work spans theory and empirics, united by an interest in how economic agents respond to complex incentive structures in settings where standard optimization frameworks are insufficient.

Ryan's present research focuses on multi-criterial decision theory, multi-objective optimization methods, and social choice theory. He studies the ways in which rational choice theory can be extended beyond optimization, drawing upon philosophy, empirical research, and mathematical theory, such as category theory. With Aaron Benanav, he is currently developing a formal theory for modeling decisions when agents face multiple incommensurable objectives, and for navigating choices when agents are committed to multiple irreducible values.

Ryan is also interested in applying insights from game theory and mechanism design to questions of industrial organization and market power, including how ownership structures and overlapping institutional ownership affect entry, competition, and welfare in oligopolistic markets. He seeks to connect these theoretical questions to the design of industrial policy.

His past empirical research has studied the effect of rising used vehicle prices during the 2021–2023 inflationary wave on motor vehicle theft, finding that effects concentrate near major ports and border crossings, consistent with theft-for-export networks.

Previously, Ryan served as a staff research associate for Robert Brenner at UCLA, where he compiled historical datasets and conducted empirical research on industrial development and growth in high-income countries, with a particular focus on East Asian industrial development.

Ryan holds an MS in Economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MA in History of Consciousness from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he worked on a thesis on state formation and geopolitics.