Advances in computing and data analysis have generated tools that allow for more sophisticated pricing decisions. For many companies, choices about pricing technologies and processes influence other major decisions and are central to the underlying business model. Understanding the impacts of new pricing technologies can help leaders better manage their interactions with other market participants, customers, and the broader economy.
The mission of the Pricing Lab is to conduct research on firm-level pricing decisions, underlying pricing capabilities, and the impacts of pricing on firm performance and the overall economy. The Pricing Lab promotes an understanding of current pricing technologies and related policies through a combination of theoretical and empirical methods. Our leadership team has brought microeconomic and macroeconomic insights to collaborations with outside organizations.
Faculty
The Pricing Lab is led by:
- Alberto Cavallo, Thomas S. Murphy Professor of Business Administration. He received his PhD in Economics from Harvard University.
- Alexander MacKay, Assistant Professor of Business Administration. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago.
Activities/Research Focus
The Pricing Lab partners with organizations to assess and improve pricing capabilities and to create generalizable knowledge about the consequences of new technologies and practices.
The approach of the Lab is to combine large-scale datasets with variation arising from changes internal and external to the firm. The Lab encourages collaborative experimentation with partner organizations. It will seek to answer questions such as:
- What are the impacts to the firm of adopting new pricing technologies and processes?
- How do customers react to dynamic pricing?
- What are the broader implications for the market when firms change their pricing systems?