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Thomas Jungbauer

Thomas Jungbauer

  • Assistant Professor

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Faculty Area

Interdisciplinary Theme

Faculty Expertise

  • Economics
  • Strategy
  • Employment Relations
  • Industrial Organization
  • Antitrust
  • Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Contact

Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management

607.255.2501

tj268@cornell.edu

Cornell Directory Entry

Website

Biography

Thomas Jungbauer is assistant professor of strategy and business economics at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. He applies economic theory to study welfare implications of allocation mechanisms in two-sided markets with prices. His primary research investigates how the allocation of information and authority within organizations, such as firms, and between them and their employees or consumers shapes market outcomes.

In his work on authority in labor markets, for example, Jungbauer shows that wage competition in high-skill labor markets may result in an inefficient allocation of workers if firms’ buyer power for labor varies. He also establishes that firms sometimes opt to delegate their bidding for different vacant positions to agents within or outside the firm as they navigate the optimal trade-off between commitment and market power.

Furthermore, Jungbauer’s research on information and signaling in labor markets underscores the importance of how and to which degree job seekers can affect their skill set and its visibility to potential employers. In particular, his work shows that lying and strategic misrepresentation may alleviate inefficient investment. Currently, he investigates the effects of personnel-specific information held by higher-level employees such as managers on labor market outcomes.

Another line of Jungbauer’s research analyzes how information and the ownership of information shapes the strategy of online platforms: How does the allocation of property rights over consumer-specific information affect the quantity and quality of personalized ads? How do search platforms such as Amazon or Google invoke their consumer-specific information when presenting search results to the consumer?

Jungbauer’s work also comprises how market power and success and the illegal acquisition of information through espionage affect the organization and investment incentives of innovating firms. He moreover analyzes optimal branding strategies of firms that sell vertically differentiated product lines, while his previous work in economic theory critically reviews the literature of games under fundamental uncertainty and suggests an alternative benchmark approach mirroring the concept of rationalizable strategies under risk.

Jungbauer teaches the Business Strategy core module at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell in the Two-Year MBA program as well as the Cornell-Tsinghua Dual Degree Finance MBA program. He has also taught in the Johnson Cornell Tech MBA program. During his graduate studies at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University he taught sessions for various classes in economics, statistics, and strategy at the undergraduate, graduate, MBA, and executive level.

Jungbauer received his PhD in managerial economics and strategy from Kellogg in 2016. He also holds masters degrees in managerial economics and strategy from Northwestern University and in economics from the Vienna Institute of Advanced Studies.

Selected Publications

Awards and Honors

  • Teaching Honor Roll (2023) Johnson School of Management, Cornell University
  • Best 40 under 40 Professors (2018) Poets & Quants
  • Teaching Appreciation Award (2016) Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
  • Executive Teaching Appreciation Medal (2015) Executive Manager's Program 99, Northwestern University
  • Award for Extraordinary Academic Achievements (2009) Republic of Austria

Recent Courses

  • NCCT 5090 - Strategy
  • NCC 5090/LAW 5091 - Strategy

Academic Degrees

  • PhD Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 2016
  • MS Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 2013
  • MS Vienna Institute of Advanced Studies (IHS) & Vienna University of Technology (TU), 2011
  • BS Vienna University of Economics & Business Administration (WU), 2009

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