Johannes Wachs

Associate Professor, Corvinus University Budapest Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies Faculty, Complexity Science Hub Vienna
Johannes Wachs

I study the digital economy and its economic geography. I am interested in how people build software together, how AI is transforming knowledge work, and what role geography plays in these processes. I develop data and network science methods to address these questions.

johannes.wachs@uni-corvinus.hu

News

2026 Our paper on how AI is changing software development is out in Science.
2026 I'll be giving a keynote at the Conference on Economic Complexity in Istanbul.
2025 I gave a talk at a World Bank organized workshop on the diffusion of AI in software.
2025 The new MSc in Social Data Science is launching at Corvinus this fall.
2025 Our paper on LLMs and knowledge sharing was covered in the Wall Street Journal.
2024 Our paper on campaign contributions and federal contracting won the Beryl Radin Award.

For a full listing, visit Google Scholar.

Recent Highlights & Working Papers

  • Who is using AI to code? Global diffusion and impact of generative AI S. Daniotti, J. Wachs, X. Feng, F. Neffke Science (2026) Links: paper, preprint Media/Press: World Bank talk
  • The software complexity of nations S. Juhasz, J. Wachs, J. Kaminski, C. Hidalgo Research Policy (2026) Links: paper, preprint
  • The building blocks of software work explain coding careers and language popularity X. Feng, J. Wachs, S. Daniotti, F. Neffke Working paper Link: preprint
  • Anchor Sponsor Firms in Open Source Software Ecosystems B. Nemeth, J. Wachs Working paper Link: preprint

Selected Work

  • The dynamics of leadership and success in software development teams L. Betti, L. Gallo, J. Wachs, F. Battiston Nature Communications (2025) Link: paper
  • Large language models reduce public knowledge sharing on online Q&A platforms R.M. del Rio-Chanona, N. Laurentsyeva, J. Wachs PNAS Nexus (2024) Link: paper Media/Press: WSJ
  • Digital Traces of Brain Drain: Developers during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine J. Wachs EPJ: Data Science (2023) Link: paper Media/Press: WSJ · Bloomberg · New Scientist
  • Agency independence, campaign contributions, and favouritism in US federal government contracting M. Fazekas, R. Ferrali, J. Wachs Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (2022) Link: paper Beryl Radin Award
  • The Geography of Open Source Software: Evidence from GitHub J. Wachs, M. Nitecki, W. Schueller, A. Polleres Technological Forecasting & Social Change (2022) Link: paper Media/Press: Presentation at OFE
  • Does Crowdfunding Really Foster Innovation? Evidence from the Board Game Industry J. Wachs, B. Vedres Technological Forecasting and Social Change (2021) Link: paper Media/Press: Data Skeptic podcast
  • How Gamification Affects Software Developers: Cautionary Evidence from GitHub L. Moldon, M. Strohmaier, J. Wachs ICSE (2021) Links: paper, preprint Media/Press: Presentation at ICSE

I am the program director of the MSc in Social Data Science at Corvinus University Budapest.

At Corvinus, I teach courses on machine learning and programming. Previously, I taught computational social science and social networks at WU Vienna and RWTH Aachen.

Prospective thesis students and PhD students are welcome to contact me.

In 2023, I moved to Budapest to take up positions at Corvinus University and the Centre for Economic and Regional Studies. Previously, I was an Assistant Professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and a researcher at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna. Before that, I was a postdoctoral fellow at RWTH Aachen with Markus Strohmaier.

I received my PhD in Network Science from Central European University in 2019, where my thesis on corruption was supervised by Janos Kertesz. I also hold an MSc in Applied Mathematics from CEU and a BS in Mathematics and Economics from Tulane University.