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Faculty & Research

Michael Waldman

Michael Waldman, the Charles H. Dyson Professor of Management and Professor of Economics, has served on the faculty of the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University since 1991. He is widely recognized as one of his field's top researchers in the area of applied microeconomic theory, where his main fields of interest are industrial organization and organizational economics. In these areas, he is best known for his work on learning and signaling in labor markets, the operation of durable goods markets, and the strategic use of tying and bundling in product markets.

In addition to his work in industrial organization and organizational economics, Professor Waldman has also conducted research on a diverse set of topics including the role of expectational shocks in business cycle fluctuations, the role of tied transfers in family and government decision making, how the theory of natural selection can explain systematic errors in decision making, and the ramifications of limitedly rational behavior for market outcomes.

Professor Waldman has published in many of the top journals in economics, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Economic Journal, Rand Journal of Economics, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, and Journal of Labor Economics. He has also published a number of book chapters in highly regarded outlets, including chapters in the Handbook of Labor Economics, The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, and the American Bar Association's recently published Issues in Competition Law and Policy. Professor Waldman also has a chapter forthcoming in the Handbook of Organizational Economics.

In 2003, Professor Waldman was the recipient of the Johnson School's Faculty Research Award and in 2008 he, along with coauthors Dennis W. Carlton and Joshua Gans, won the Robert F. Lanzillotti Prize for the Best Paper in Antitrust Economics presented at the 2008 International Industrial Organization Conference.

Michael Waldman received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from MIT in 1977 and a PhD from the Economics Department at the University of Pennsylvania in 1982. Following a post-doctoral position at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1982-83, he was hired by the university as assistant professor in the Department of Economics. He was promoted by UCLA to associate professor with tenure in 1989. In 1991, he moved to the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University as a full professor of economics. He was given the Charles H. Dyson Chair in Management in 1997. Professor Waldman has also visited Yale's School of Organization and Management and Chicago's Graduate School of Business, where he was the John M. Olin Visiting Professor during the 1997-98 academic year.

Professor Waldman is listed in both the 3rd and 4th editions of "Who's Who in Economics" and in various editions of "Marquis Who's Who in America," "Marquis Who's Who in the World," "Marquis Who's Who in Science and Engineering," and "Marquis Who's Who in American Education."

During his 17 years at Cornell, Professor Waldman has served both the Johnson School and the university in numerous capacities. He has chaired three different MBA curriculum reviews and has served as the chair of the Johnson School's Faculty Policy Committee multiple times. In October 2008, Professor Waldman began a two-year term as Director of the Institute for the Advancement of Economics at Cornell. He was appointed by Acting Provost David Harris to lead the council in its work to improve and raise the profile of the economics discipline university-wide.

In service to the discipline of economics, Professor Waldman served as a co-editor at the Journal of Economic Perspectives, from 2000 to 2006, and has been an associate editor at the Quarterly Journal of Economics since 2000. He was also a member in 2004 of the American Economics Association Program Committee, and is slated to be a member in 2009 of the International Industrial Organization Conference Program Committee.

Professor Waldman has recently explored whether the exploding growth in autism diagnosis rates over the last few decades can be partially explained by the existence of an environmental trigger for autism that has become more prevalent over time. He is the lead author of "Autism Prevalence and Precipitation Rates in California, Oregon, and Washington Counties" which appears in the November 2008 issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. This paper provides evidence consistent with the existence of an important environmental trigger for autism among genetically vulnerable children that is positively associated with precipitation. He is also the lead author of the 2006 National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper, titled "Does Television Cause Autism?" This paper provides evidence consistent with the specific environmental trigger being early childhood television viewing. Professor Waldman plans to continue conducting research on this topic.