Here are some overview papers that may be of interest to people that are learning about ties between machine learning and economics. Admittedly, it helps to have some formal background on causal inference to read these papers.
- Mullainathan, S., & Spiess, J. (2017). Machine learning: an applied econometric approach. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 87-106.
- Athey, S. (2018). The impact of machine learning on economics. In The economics of artificial intelligence: An agenda (pp. 507-547). University of Chicago Press.
For more background on causal inference, I highly recommend the book by Scott Cunningham, Causal Inference.