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Michael Waldman

Michael Waldman

  • Charles H. Dyson Professor of Management

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Faculty Area

Interdisciplinary Theme

Faculty Expertise

  • Industrial Organization
  • Labor Economics
  • Microeconomic Theory
  • Organizational Economics

Contact

Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management

607.255.8631

mw46@cornell.edu

Cornell Directory Entry

Website

Biography

Michael Waldman, Charles H. Dyson Professor of Management and professor of economics, has served on the faculty of the Samuel Curtis 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, labor economics, 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, labor economics, and organizational economics, 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.

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, and Rand Journal of 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, the American Bar Association's Issues in Competition Law and Policy, and the Handbook of Organizational Economics.

Waldman has been the recipient of many awards and honors. Most recently, he, along with coauthor Jin-Hyuk Kim, won the RERCI Best Paper Award for the best paper published in the Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues during 2015-2016. He has also received honors for his teaching including being nominated in 2010 for the School's Apple Teaching Award, receiving the Class of 2017 Core Faculty Teaching Award, and receiving the Gravitas Teaching Award from the Cornell-Tsinghua Dual Degree MBA Program Class of 2017.

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 1982-1983, he was hired by the university as assistant professor in the department of economics and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 1989. In 1991, he moved to Johnson as a full professor of economics.

During his 30+ years at Cornell, Waldman has served both Johnson and the university in numerous capacities. In service to the discipline of economics and related areas, Waldman served in editorial roles in various journals, including as an associate editor at the Quarterly Journal of Economics from 2000 to 2014.

Selected Publications

Awards and Honors

  • Faculty Research Award (2003) Cornell University, Johnson Graduate School of Management
  • Robert F. Lanzillotti Prize for the Best Paper in Antitrust Economics (2008) International Industrial Organization Conference
  • Winner of the Best Paper Award (2016) Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues
  • Gravitas Teaching Award (2017) Cornell-Tsinghua Dual Degree MBA Program, Class of 2017
  • Core Faculty Award (2017) AMBA Class of 2017

Recent Courses

  • NRE 5030/ECON 6115/AEM 7020 - Applied Microeconomics II: Game Theory
  • NCCT 5020 - Microeconomics for Management

Academic Degrees

  • PhD University of Pennsylvania, 1982
  • BS Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1977