Research

My research centers on market fairness, with a focus on empowering the less dominant party in asymmetric marketplaces, whether consumers or sellers, to optimize their outcomes. 

My study shows how market structures, ranking mechanisms, and product displays create imbalances, and I use empirical (sometimes also analytical and experimental) methods to develop tools, strategies, or policy recommendations that level the playing field. 

Optimization of Travel Subscription Use. 

Published in Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41272-024-00488-4.   

My first project helps consumers maximize gains from a travel subscription service using multi-objective mixed integer optimization. While the subscription business model often relies on consumers underutilizing the service, the complexity of the subscription's rules further reduces users’ ability to fully benefit. This study demonstrates that consumers can significantly improve their returns by simply sorting listings based on cost per night.

Platform Ranking and Pricing in Cross-Channel Sales.

Submitted to Manufacturing and Service Operations Management. 

My second project helps sellers to thrive under a restrictive ranking method employed by platforms. The ranking method punishes sellers if they set lower prices at other sales channels, including their direct website. Popular on hotel booking sites, this ranking method is an alternative to price parity clauses (PPC), which are banned in Europe. This study shows how sellers can increase commissions for boosted rankings and achieve higher revenue from redirected traffic.

Time Preference in Buy Now Pay Later Loan Choices.

Submitted to INFORMS 2025 BOM Best Working Paper Competition.

My third project studies why consumers choose buy now pay later (BNPL) products. The empirical results indicate that consumers discount future payments and thus perceive the BNPL as a 'cheaper' option than paying in full. This distorted perception is also exacerbated by the hidden interest rates in BNPL offers. Hence, I propose that BNPL offers should clearly display the interest rates next to the monthly payments, and a lab experiment shows that the policy effectively nudges consumers to make more prudent financial decisions.

Note that these projects can just as easily be flipped to serve the interests of more powerful parties: maximizing profit for subscription service providers, ranking sellers to enforce stricter price parity, or designing BNPL loans to maximize loan uptake. I chose to study from the less dominant parties' perspective because they do not always get our attention. 

I propose to motivate more studies to protect consumers from deceptive or discriminative business practices and to help small and new businesses to thrive in the increasingly competitive environment. And hence, I propose to establish a research center for market fairness. See this page for more.