Thomas A. Weber

 

Research

 

Home          Vita          Teaching          Personal          Contact

 

         Interests

I am interested in the economics of information and uncertainty. More specifically, my research has been concerned with how asymmetries in endowments such as information or other resources, and externalities affect the functioning of markets and hierarchies, as well as the optimal strategic behavior of individuals and organizations. Examples exclude optimal screening with externalities (with applications to nonlinear pricing and taxation), multi-principal multi-agent contracting (with applications to supply chains), and the role of intermediaries in markets (with applications to paid referrals and California water). Related to this, my research has been concerned with the efficient allocation of resources in both static and dynamic settings. Examples include efficient dynamic resource allocation (with private information and learning), fair welfare maximization, and more generally optimal robust mechanism design. Methodologically I am grounded in economic theory and often use mathematical tools from nonlinear variational and functional analysis, such as optimal control theory. Motivated by findings from my more applied research I have also been working on extending optimization theory, for instance by proposing a geometric approach to monotone comparative statics (‘beyond supermodularity’) and adapting the Pontryagin maximum principle.

 

          PAPERS

  1.  
  2. A. Information Systems and the Value of Information
  1. “A Model of Search Intermediaries and Paid Referrals” (with E. Zheng), Working Paper 02-12-01, Department of Operations and Information Management, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Presented at the Workshop on Information Systems and Economics, Barcelona, Spain (December 14-15, 2002). Forthcoming, Information Systems Research. <View Abstract/Download paper in pdf>
  1. “Delayed Multiattribute Product Differentiation,” Working Paper 02-10-03, Department of Operations and Information Management, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Current Version: April 2007. Forthcoming, Decision Support Systems.
  1. “Selling Less Information for More: Garbling with Benefits” (with D. Croson), Economics Letters 83(2), May 2004, pp. 165-171. <Download paper in pdf>
  1.  “The Value of Shared Information Services,” Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Information Systems, Barcelona, Spain, pp. 209-225 (19% acceptance rate).   
  1. “Mixed Versioning of Information Goods under Incomplete Information,” Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Information Systems, New Orleans, LA, Dec. 2001 (21% acceptance rate). Nominated for the Best Completed Research Paper Award.

 

  1.  
  2. B. Applied Economic Theory
  1. “Screening with Externalities”, Working Paper, Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University. Presented at the the 2004 Workshop on Information Systems and Economics (WISE) at the University of Maryland, the 2005 Kiel-Munich Workshop on the Economics of Information Systems and Network Economics in Munich, Germany, and the 21st Annual Congress of the European Economic Association in Vienna, Austria (August 2006). Current Version: September 2006. Under Review. <View Abstract/Download paper in pdf>
  2.  
  3. “Bayesian Incentive Compatible Parametrization of Mechanisms” (with A. Bapna), Working Paper 2006-05-01, Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University. Current Version: October 2007. Forthcoming, Journal of Mathematical Economics. <View Abstract/Download paper in pdf>
  4.  
  5. “Efficient Dynamic Allocation with Uncertain Valuations” (with A. Bapna), Working Paper, Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University. Presented at the 2005 INFORMS Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (November 2005), the 2005 Workshop on Information Systems and Economics (WISE), Irvine, CA (December 2005), the 2006 NSF/NBER Conference on Decentralization in Paris, France (April 2006), and the 61st European Meeting of the Econometric Society in Vienna, Austria (August 2006). Current Version: September 2006. Under Review. <View Abstract/Download paper in pdf>
  6.  
  7. “Efficient Contract Design in Multi-Principal Multi-Agent Supply Chains” (with H. Xiong), Working Paper, Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University. Presented at the 2004 INFORMS Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (October, 2004). Current Version: November 2006. Under Review. <View Abstract/Download paper in pdf> Proceedings of the of the 18th Annual Conference of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS), Dallas, TX, May 2007.
  8.  
  9. “Constructing Efficient Equilibria in Games Played Through Agents” (with B. Strulovici), Working Paper, Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University. Current Version: December 2004. Under Review.
  10.  
  11. “Monotone Comparative Statics: Geometric Approach” (with B. Strulovici), Working Paper, Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University. Presented at the 2004 INFORMS Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (October, 2004). Current Version: May 2007. Forthcoming, Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications., Vol. 137, No. 1 (April 2008).  <View Abstract/Download paper in pdf>
  12.  
  13. “Generalized Monotonicity Analysis” (with B. Strulovici), Working Paper, Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University. (December 2006). Current Version: July 2007. Under Review. <View Abstract/Download paper in pdf>
  14.  
  15. “Fair Welfare Maximization” (with A. Goel and A. Meyerson), Working Paper, Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University. Current Version: September 2004. Under Review. <View Abstract/Download paper in pdf>
  16.  
  17. “An Exact Relation Between Willingness To Pay and Willingness To Accept,” Economics Letters 80(3), September 2003, pp. 311-315. <Download paper in pdf>

 

C. Dynamic Systems and Decision Making

  1. “Optimal Infinite-Horizon Advertising in a Market for Durable Goods,” Optimal Control Applications and Methods 26(6), November-December 2005, pp. 307-336.
  2.  
  3. “Can Optimal Moving-Horizon Decision Making Become Unstable?” Working Paper 01-10-02, Department of Operations and Information Management, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Current Version: September 2001.
  1. “An Infinite-Horizon Maximum Principle with Bounds on the Adjoint Variable,” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 30(2), February 2006, pp. 229-241. <Download paper in pdf>
  1. “Constrained Predictive Control for Corporate Policy,” Technical Report LIDS-TH 2398 Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, September 1997.

 

free hit counter