YANG WANG
DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
Jones Graduate School of Business 267 McNair Hall – MS 531 6100 Main Street Houston, TX 77005 Cell Phone: (702) 521-2401 Email: [email protected] Web: yangwangresearch.wordpress.com
EDUCATION
PhD, Business Administration, 2016Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University
Dissertation Title: Empirical and Theoretical Investigations in Pricing (essays denoted by *)
Dissertation Committee: Amit Pazgal (chair), Wagner Kamakura, Ajay Kalra, Natalia Sizova
M.B.A, Finance, 2010
Lee College of Business, University of Nevada - Las Vegas
B.S., Hotel Administration (Magna Cum Laude), 2008
University of Nevada - Las Vegas
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Causal inference with big data, revenue management, online reviews, dynamic pricing, channel structure, industrial organization, cross-disciplinary business research
WORKING PAPERS AND RESEARCH IN PROGRESS
The Effects of Observing the Service Quality of Peers (Job Market Paper)
with Alex Chaudhry
The current research paradigm of social influence in customer satisfaction in the digital age focuses on peer effects in the expectation formation stage. We propose that the broad class of publicly observable service interactions can also have satisfaction externalities for customers who observe these interactions. We test the social influence of observable peer service interactions in the context of managers’ response to online reviews. At the time of writing the review, a focal customer has already purchased and
experienced the product or service. Even so, managers can still inadvertently influence post-consumption satisfaction through their responses to other customers’ reviews. We find empirical evidence from a big data setting of more than 17 million hotel reviews that the publicly expressed satisfaction indicated by customers’ online reviews is positively (negatively) influenced by managers’ responses to negative (positive) reviews of previous customers. We take advantage of a novel natural experiment to establish the causal relationship between observed peer service interactions and customer satisfaction.
Keywords: Online reviews, customer satisfaction, causal inference, big data, TripAdvisor
(Sub)optimality of managerial dynamic pricing* (Working paper)
This study contributes to the largely theoretical field of revenue management with an empirical investigation into the sub-optimality of managerial dynamic pricing policies as evidenced in the Las Vegas hotel market. We demonstrate that managers consistently choose prices that yield revenues approximately 25% below optimal levels. Specifically, managers appear to choose prices in a manner consistent with maximizing a mix of occupancy and revenue. We find support for the hypothesis that the unobservability of counterfactual revenues may drive managers’ suboptimal pricing policies when the
Yang Wang CV hotel is expected to fill capacity. Additionally, we explore a novel managerial use of online reviews in pricing decisions and the effect of competitors’ pricing strategies on a focal hotel’s optimal prices. We discover that predicting mean reverting tendencies of online reviews can marginally improve the focal hotel’s bottom line during slow seasons. Similarly, we show that there is an economically significant impact of predicting competitors’ prices on the focal hotel’s pricing policies.
Keywords: Revenue management, dynamic pricing, competitive pricing, online reviews
A model of pricing and advertising competition in the presence of online sales agents* (Manuscript in preparation) with Amit Pazgal
Service providers have traditionally sold either directly to the consumer or through small independent sales agents (e.g. travel agents). The internet has consolidated the role of sales agents in the form of online travel agents (OTA’s, e.g. Expedia) and other internet sales agents (ISA’s, e.g. Ticketmaster), giving them bargaining power over service suppliers. However, few theoretical investigations have been made into why internet retailers or sales agents exist in markets where service providers can act as direct sellers. This paper presents a model of a horizontally differentiated duopoly in the presence of a sales agent where all three players can sell directly to the consumer. We show that agents can exist by appealing to consumers who are relatively indifferent between the competing service providers. The sales agent creates a prisoner’s dilemma for service providers in their decision to participate on the OSA platform. Additionally, we demonstrate that prices may be higher despite the increased competition on the OSA platform because of endogenously created loyal and switching segments. Finally, we propose a model that describes the mechanism by which online sales agents may reach indifferent consumers. In this model all firms advertise to reach consumers, but while direct sellers advertises their own brand, the OSA advertises for the entire product category.
Keywords: Online sales agents, price competition, advertising, game theory, industrial organization
The global diffusion of management best practice (Research in progress)
with Alex Chaudhry
Managers’ public response to online reviews has become a common practice as online review platforms have become a prominent source of information for consumers in their purchasing decisions. The broad adoption of this publicly observable management practice provides us the perfect laboratory in which to study the diffusion of management practice. Analyzing a dataset of nearly 100 million reviews across 500,000 tourism-related businesses located across the globe, we document the rise of the practice of public response to online customers reviews over the span of 12 years. In particular, we address the questions, are large chain businesses central to the diffusion of best practices, does competition drive new practice adoption, and do customers wield a voice strong enough to force management innovation in the digital age? We find support for all three forces by estimating a spatial-temporal diffusion model of management response to online reviews. Additionally, we examine the moderating effects of a business’ reliance of repeat customers, the size of the business, and cultural barriers in the diffusion process
Keywords: Best practice, social diffusion, customer communication, online reviews
Risk premium of the bullwhip effect in a networked B2B economy (Research in progress)
with Eddy Hu
There has been a long tradition in the finance literature of studying systematic economic risk factors in the pricing of financial assets. The majority of proposed risk factors have been derived from
Yang Wang CV characteristics of firms in isolation. We propose that the interconnectedness of firms in an economy can pose additional systematic risks to firms in upstream positions due to the bullwhip effects. The bullwhip effect describes the increased volatility in production as downstream demand shocks propagate upstream due to information asymmetry, time to production, shipping time, and other frictions. To test our hypothesis of this additional risk factor, we data mine customer disclosures in the footnotes of the SEC 10-K and 8-K, constructing a B2B sales network dataset of more than 4000 unique seller nodes per year for 36 years. We are able to identify evidence of the bullwhip effect in the form of amplified cash flow volatility when we control for industry supply chain diversification of upstream firms based on firms’ position in the economic network. However, we find no evidence of the bullwhip effect being priced as a risk factor, suggesting a possible systematic mispricing by financial markets.
Keywords: B2B sales, networks, supply chain, bullwhip effect, risk premiums, factor models
HONORS & AWARDS
AMA-Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium Fellow, Northwestern University 2014
ISMS Doctoral Consortium Fellow, Emory University 2014
ISMS Doctoral Consortium Fellow, Boston University 2012
ISMS Doctoral Consortium Fellow, Rice University 2011
Structural Econometrics Workshop, Duke University 2013
UH Doctoral Symposium Fellow (Presenter), University of Houston 2012
MGM Mirage Graduate Education Grant (full tuition) 2008-2010
Weinberger Hotel Scholar (1/2 tuition) 2006-2008
Nevada Millennium Scholar (1/3 tuition) 2006-2008
National Merit Scholar (full tuition) 2006-2008
PRESENTATIONS & CONFERENCE ATTENDANCE
(Sub)optimality of managerial dynamic pricing in a competitive oligopoly
Marketing Science Conference 2014
Cambridge University (Invited) 2015
WUSTL (Invited) 2014
University of Notre Dame (Invited) 2014
Texas Tech University (Invited) 2014
McGill University (Invited) 2014
Uncertain demand in a mature market: nonparametric dynamic pricing in the Las Vegas resort market
Marketing Science Conference 2012
A model of online service retailers in horizontally differentiated markets
University of Houston Doctoral Symposium 2012
UT Dallas FORMS Conference 2012-2014
Annual Rice University Marketing Camp 2012-2015
Marketing Science Conference, Houston, TX 2011
TEACHING INTERESTS
Yang Wang CV
ACADEMIC/TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University 2010 – Current
Research Assistant to Drs. Amit Pazgal, Randy Batsell, Wagner Kamakura, and Sharad Borle
Various assignments including programming, literature reviews, referee reports, and manuscript editing Teaching Assistant to Dr. Amit Pazgal’s MGMT719 class, Thinking Strategically (Spring 2011), Dr. Randy Batsell’s MGMT895 class, Data Analytics for EMBA, and Dr. Sharad Borle’s MGMT595 class, Data Analytics for PMBA.
Ad hoc referee for Production and Operations Management 2014 – Current College of Education, University of Nevada – Las Vegas 2006 – 2007
Research Assistant for Spencer Foundation grant project on international comparative education
Coding and translation of video recorded Chinese elementary school mathematics lectures. Creating Microsoft Access database and queries for easy data extraction of lecture coding.
TestSmart, Las Vegas 2006 – 2007
SAT and AP Calculus Instructor
INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE
Cangrade, Cambridge, MA 2013 – Current
VP of Scientific Research
R&D related to employee hiring, retention, and training selection algorithms.
Las Vegas Sands (Venetian and Palazzo resorts) 2009 – 2010
Revenue Management Analyst
Call Center and Resort Operations Analyst
MGM Grand Resort 2007 – 2009
Channel Distribution Specialist Inventory Specialist
COMPUTING
Python, STATA, MATLAB, VBA, R, SAS, Linux, Amazon Web Services (EC2, S3)
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
AMA, INFORMS
PERSONAL
USA citizen, speaks native English and fluent Mandarin, avid ice hockey player (Fall 2014 Space City rec. league champion), winner of multiple state and regional violin competitions.
DOCTORAL COURSEWORK
MARKETINGAnalytical Models in Marketing Amit Pazgal
Business Game Theory Amit Pazgal
Behavioral Economics Amit Pazgal
Consumer Behavior (x3 semesters/diff readings) Ajay Kalra
Yang Wang CV
Measurement Theory Wagner Kamakura
Hierarchical Bayes Models in Marketing Sharad Borle
ECONOMICS
Mathematics for Economists Siyang Xiong
Microeconomic Theory I Simon Grant
Microeconomic Theory II Camelia Bejan
Econometrics I Bill Brown
Econometrics II Robin Sickles
Empirical Microeconomics Vivian Ho / Richard Boylan
Industrial Organization Marc Dudey
Dynamic Optimization Peter Hartley
FINANCE
Empirical Methods in Finance James Weston
ACCOUNTING
Analytical Models in Accounting Thomas Hemmer
STATTISTICS
Statistical Learning (audit) Genevera Allen
PSYCHOLOGY
Social Psychology Mikki Hebl
REFERENCES
Amit Pazgal
Professor of Marketing and Operations Mgmt. Jones Graduate School of Business
Rice University P.O. Box 2932-MS 531 Houston, TX 77252 (713) 348-5404 [email protected] Wagner Kamakura
Jesse H. Jones Professor of Marketing Jones Graduate School of Business Rice University P.O. Box 2932-MS 531 Houston, TX 77252 (713) 348-6307 [email protected] Ajay Kalra
Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Marketing Jones Graduate School of Business Rice University
P.O. Box 2932-MS 531 Houston, TX 77252 (713) 348-2387 [email protected]
