Books

• Steven Tadelis. Reputation and Feedback Systems in Online Platform Markets. Annual Review of Economics.
  2016
• Steven Tadelis, Florian Zettelmeyer. Information Disclosure as a Matching Mechanism: Theory and Evidence from a Field Experiment. American Economic Review.
  2015
• Steven Tadelis, Chris Nosko, Tom Blake. Consumer Heterogeneity and Paid Search Effectiveness: A Large Scale Field Experiment. Econometrica.
  2015
• Steven Tadelis, Michael Gelman, Shachar Kariv, Matthew D. Shapiro, Dan Silverman. Harnessing Naturally-Occurring Data to Measure the Response of Spending to Income. Science.
  2014
• Steven Tadelis, Pat Bajari, Stephanie Houghton. Bidding for Incomplete Contracts: An Empirical Analysis. American Economic Review.
  2014
• Steven Tadelis, Patrick Bajair, and Robert McMillan. Auctions versus Negotiations in Procurement: An Empirical Analysis. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization.
  2009
• Steven Tadelis and Jonathan Levin. Profit Sharing and the Role of Professional Partnerships. Quarterly Journal of Economics.
  2005
• Steven Tadelis. The Market for Reputations as an Incentive Mechanism. Journal of Political Economy.
  2002
• Steven Tadelis. Complexity, Flexibility and the Make-or-Buy Decision. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings.
  2002
• Steven Tadelis, Michael Gelman, Shachar Kariv, Matthew Shapiro, Dan Silverman. How Individuals Respond to a Liquidity Shock: Evidence from the 2013 Government Shutdown. Journal of Public Economics.
  Using comprehensive account records, this paper examines how individuals adjusted spending and saving in response to a temporary drop in liquidity due to the 2013 U.S. government shutdown. The shutdown cut paychecks by 40% for affected employees, which was recovered within 2 weeks. Because the shutdown affected only the timing of payments, it provides a distinctive experiment allowing estimates of the response to a liquidity shock holding income constant. Spending dropped sharply, implying a naïve estimate of 58 cents less spending for every dollar of lost liquidity. This estimate overstates the consumption response. While many individuals had low liquid assets, they used multiple sources of short-term liquidity to smooth consumption. Sources of short-term liquidity include delaying recurring payments such as for mortgages and credit card balances.

• Price Salience and Product Choice
  October 2018
  Steven Tadelis, Tom Blake, Kane Sweeney, and Sarah Moshary

  We study the effect of price salience on whether a product is purchased and, conditional on purchase, the quality purchased. Consistent with our theoretical predictions, we find that making the full purchase price salient to consumers reduces both the quality and quantity of goods purchased. The effect of salience on quality accounts for at least 28% of the overall revenue decline. Evidence shows that the effects persist beyond the first purchase and impact even experienced users. Detailed click-stream data shows that price-obfuscation makes price comparisons difficult and results in consumers spending more than they otherwise would. We also find that sellers respond to the increased price obfuscation by listing higher quality tickets. JEL classifications: C93, D12, D83, L11

• Certification, Reputation and Entry: An Empirical Analysis
  July 2018
  Steven Tadelis, Xiang Hui, Maryam Saeedi, and Giancarlo Spagnolo

  Markets with asymmetric information will often employ third-party certification labels to distinguish between higher and lower quality transactions, yet little is known about the effects of certification policies on the evolution of markets. How does the stringency in quality certification affect the intensity and composition of entry, incumbents’ reactions, and market outcomes? We use detailed administrative data and exploit a policy change on eBay to explore how a more selective certification policy affects entry and behavior across a rich set of online market segments. We find that after the policy change, entry increases and does so more intensely in markets where it is harder to become certified. The average quality of entrants also increases more in the more affected markets, while the quality distribution of entrants exhibits fatter tails ex post. Finally, some incumbents increase the quality of their service to maintain certification and deliver higher quality after the policy change. The results help inform the design of certification policies in electronic and other markets with asymmetric information. JEL classifications: D47, D82, L15, L86

• Sequential Bargaining in the Field: Evidence from Millions of Online Bargaining Interactions
  March 2018
  Steven Tadelis, Matt Backus, Tom Blake, and Brad Larsen

  We study patterns of behavior in bilateral bargaining situations using a rich, new dataset describing over 88 million listings from eBay’s Best Offer platform, with back-and-forth bargaining occurring in over 25 million of these listings. We document patterns of behavior and relate them to “rational” and “psychological” theories of bargaining and find that bargaining patterns are consistent with elements of both approaches. Most notably, players with more bargaining strength typically receive better outcomes, and players exhibit equitable behavior by making offers that split-the-difference between negotiating positions. We are publicly releasing this new dataset to support additional empirical bargaining research. JEL classifications: C78, D82, D83, M21

• The Response of Consumer Spending to Changes in Gasoline Prices
  September 2016
  Steven Tadelis, Michael Gelman, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Shachar Kariv, Dmitri Koustas, Matthew D. Shapiro, and Dan Silverman

  This paper estimates how overall consumer spending responds to changes in gasoline prices. It uses the differential impact across consumers of the sudden, large drop in gasoline prices in 2014 for identification. This estimation strategy is implemented using comprehensive, daily transaction-level data for a large panel of individuals. The estimated marginal propensity to consume (MPC) is approximately one, a higher estimate than estimates found in less comprehensive or well-measured data. This estimate takes into account the elasticity of demand for gasoline and potential slow adjustment to changes in prices. The high MPC implies that changes in gasoline prices have large aggregate effects. JEL classifications: D12, D91, E21, H31

• Expectation, Disappointment, and Exit: Evidence on Reference Point Formation from an Online Marketplace
  March 2017
  Steven Tadelis, Matt Backus, Tom Blake, and Dimitriy Masterov

  We study expectation-based reference point formation using data from ascending auctions in an online marketplace. Our model formalizes the hypothesis that a disappointment-averse bidder who spends more time in the lead prior to a sudden loss will suffer a higher degree of disappointment. We find that for every additional day in the lead, bidders who lose abruptly are 6 percentage points more likely to exit the marketplace. In contrast, for losing bidders whose expectations are informed by higher competing bids, there is no effect. Also consistent with our model of platform exit, more experienced bidders show less sensitivity to disappointment. JEL classifications: D03, D47, D83

• The Limits of Reputation in Platform Markets: An Empirical Analysis and Field Experiment
  January 2015
  Steven Tadelis and Chris Nosko

  Reputation mechanisms used by platform markets suffer from two problems. First, buyers may draw conclusions about the quality of the platform from single transactions, causing a reputational externality. Second, reputation measures may be coarse or biased, preventing buyers from making proper inferences. We document these problems using eBay data and claim that platforms can benefit from identifying and promoting higher quality sellers. Using an unobservable measure of seller quality we demonstrate the benefits of our approach through a large-scale controlled experiment. Highlighting the importance of reputational externalities, we chart an agenda that aims to create more realistic models of platform markets. JEL classifications: D47, D82, L15, L21, L86 

• Buying Reputation as a Signal of Quality: Evidence from an Online Marketplace
  August 2016
  Steven Tadelis, Lingfang (Ivy) Li, and Xiaolan Zhou

  Reputation is critical to foster trust in online marketplaces, yet leaving feedback is a public good that can be under-provided unless buyers are rewarded for it. Signaling theory implies that only high quality sellers would reward buyers for truthful feedback. We explore this scope for signaling using Taobao’s reward-for-feedback” mechanism and find that items with rewards generate sales that are nearly 30% higher and are sold by higher quality sellers. The market design implication is that marketplaces can benefit from allowing sellers to use rewards to build reputations and signal their high quality in the process. JEL classifications: D47, D82, L15, L86 

• The Power of Shame and the Rationality of Trust
  March 2011
  Steven Tadelis

  A mounting number of studies suggest that individuals are not selfish, which perhaps explains the prevalence of trust among strangers. Models of players who care about their opponents’ payoffs have been used to rationalize these facts. An alternative motive is that players care directly about how they are perceived by others. I propose and implement an experimental design that distinguishes perception motives from payoff motives. Participants not only exhibit concerns for perception, but they seem strategically rational by anticipating the change in behavior of their opponents. The approach can explain previously documented behaviors, both in the lab and in the field, and can shed light on some determinants of trust. JEL classifications C72, C91, D03, D82

At Haas since 2005
2018 – present, Sarin Chair in Strategy and Leadership
2016 – 2018, James J. and Marianne B. Lowrey Chair in Business
2016 – 2017, VP of Economics and Market Design, Amazon.com Inc.
2015 – present, Professor of Economics, Business and Public Policy, Haas School of Business
2015 – 2016, Joe Shoong Chair in International business
2005 – 2015, Associate Professor, Haas School of Business
2011 – 2013, Senior Director and Distinguished Economist, eBay Research Labs
2006 – 2009, Associate Dean for Strategic Planning, Haas School of Business
1997 – 2005, Assistant Professor, Stanford University

• 2016 – present, CESifo Research Network Fellow
• 2015 – present, Research Fellow, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)
• 2014 – present, Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
• 2011 – 2014, Co-Editor, Journal of Law, Economics and Organization
• 2004 – 2007, Editorial Board, American Economic Review
• 2004 – 2007, Associate Editor, International Journal of Industrial Organization

• Hebrew

Honorable Mention, Cheit Teaching Award, Full-Time MBA Program
2010 – 2011

Montias prize – best article published in the Journal of Comparative Economics
2010 – 2011

Barbara and Gerson Bakar Faculty Fellow, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business
2008 – 2015

Phi Beta Kappa Undergraduate Teaching Award, Stanford University,
2005

Department of Economics Advising Award, Stanford University
2002

W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow, Hoover Institution
1999 – 2000

Review of Economic Studies Euorpean Tour Speaker
May 1997

Alfred P. Sloan Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship
1995 – 1996

National Science Foundation Research Grants
1999 – 2000, 2000 – 2002, 2003 – 2008

• Facebook Is Broken. Execs Say a Fix Won’t Come Fast., Barron’s, 04/25/2022
• Study finds Trump’s support of vaccines may have swayed some vaccine skeptics, KRON4, 04/04/2022
• Trump Helped Boost Vaccine Use After Endorsement in Online Ads, Bloomberg, 04/04/2022
• Federal Government’s Crackdown On Broadway Ticket Service Fees Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be, Forbes, 03/28/2022
• Why Are There So Many Bad Bosses?, Freakonomics Radio, 03/02/2022
• Online inflation catches up, Marketplace, 12/10/2021
• 2021 Most Disruptive MBA Startups: ScholarSite, U.C. Berkeley (Haas), Poets & Quants, 12/05/2021
• Want to read a tech company’s user agreements? Got 90 minutes to spare?, Los Angeles Times, 08/24/2021
• Why Big Tech Companies Should Engage With Academia, and Why They Don’t, ProMarket, 04/30/2021
• Subscriptions Are Getting Out of Hand. Here’s How to Manage Them., The Wall Street Journal, 03/21/2021
• Does Advertising Actually Work? (Part 2: Digital) (Ep. 441), Freakonomics Radio, 11/25/2020
• MA, CA & WA Best-Placed to Combat COVID-19 With Their Digital Economies, Storage Cafe, 05/14/2020
• American government workers are feeling the shutdown’s financial impact, The Economist, 01/23/2019
• The chart that shows the financial peril facing federal workers, The New York Times, 01/16/2019
• California’s economy could suffer if the government shutdown drags into February, CNBC, 01/15/2019

• Economic Analysis for Business Decisions, MBA 201A
• The Economics of Institutions, PhD
• Mechanism Design and Agency Theory, Economics 206, PhD