Catherine Tucker
Professor of Marketing
Department: Sloan School of Management
Colleges / Universities: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Contact
100 Main Street, Room E62-536
Cambridge, MA 02142
Email: cetucker@mit.edu
Website: MIT Sloan Faculty Profile
Catherine Tucker is the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management and Professor of Marketing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. She is also Chair of the MIT Sloan PhD Program. Her research interests lie in how technology allows firms to use digital data to improve their operations and marketing and in the challenges this poses for regulations designed to promote innovation. She has particular expertise in online advertising, digital health, social media and electronic privacy. Generally, most of her research lies in the interface between Marketing, Economics and Law.
Professor Tucker has received an NSF CAREER award for her work on digital privacy, the Erin Anderson Award for Emerging Marketing Scholar and Mentor, the Paul E. Green Award for contributions to the practice of Marketing Research, and a Garfield Award for her work on electronic medical records.
Dr. Tucker is Associate Editor at Management Science and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Degrees
Ph.D. Economics, Stanford University, 2005
B.A. Politics, Philosophy and Economics, Oxford University, 1999
Recent Academic Article Summaries
How Platforms Create Value Through Coring and Implications for Market Definition
Digital platforms coordinate interactions between user groups, an activity known as "coring." When analyzing coring conduct, antitrust courts should avoid defining the platform’s market too narrowly.
If courts define markets too narrowly, platforms’ monopoly power will be exaggerated.
Consumer Privacy and the Future of Data-Based Innovation and Marketing
Firms' use of consumer data for innovation and marketing can raise privacy concerns. Large incumbent firms may have an advantage over small or new firms in addressing privacy concerns.
Policymakers should be aware of tradeoffs between privacy and innovation.
Privacy, Algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence
Many economists assume that consumers understand how their data will be used and do not consider how one consumer’s decision to share data affects others. Some artificial intelligence (AI) systems seem to have learned discriminatory behavior, and simplistic models do not address this.
Economists should develop more sophisticated privacy models. AI makes models that assume that consumers know how their data will be used less relevant.
How Effective is Black-Box Digital Consumer Profiling and Audience Delivery?: Evidence from Field Studies
Little is known about how data brokers create consumer profiles for use in marketing. Analysis shows that digital profiles purporting to identify consumers by age and gender are often inaccurate. Advertisers globally waste $7 billion annually buying such profiles.
When purchasing profiles, firms should ask for evidence of the validity of the data broker’s methods. Programs to standardize and verify broker methods would improve accuracy.
Algorithmic Bias? An Empirical Study of Apparent Gender-Based Discrimination in the Display of STEM Career Ads
The use of algorithms to make decisions can lead to bias; one algorithm displayed a “gender neutral” ad to more men than women. The algorithm was designed to be cost-effective; because advertisers pay more to display ads to young women, the ad was shown to fewer women.
Algorithms may generate biased results unintentionally. Firms’ efforts to correct bias may not be permitted if the effort requires targeting one gender.
Blog Posts
Quotes in the News
Tucker, C. (2018, December 19). MIT’s Ideas Made to Matter.“The actions of platforms such as Facebook in regulating advertising do seem to have had an effect on the volume of fake news. However, our paper also emphasizes that in just focusing on ads and fake news, we are missing the bigger picture, which is the organic spread of misinformation by users themselves.”
Catherine Tucker
Professor of Marketing
Sloan School of Management
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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