15.567  The Economics of Information: Strategy, Structure and Pricing

Research Seminar on Information Technology and Organizations: Economic Perspectives

I hope you're off to a good start in the New Year.

For those who are interested in diving deeper into some of the topics we discussed in class, I'm offering a research seminar on "Information Technology and Organizations: Economic Perspectives" this spring. We'll meet from 2:30-5:30 on Mondays. The course is primarily for PhD students but in past years a few master students have also joined us.

Here's a course announcement:

15.575— Research Seminar in IT and Organizations:

Economic Perspectives

Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson

Mondays, 2:30-5:30pm

Course Objectives and Description

This course applies economic theory to investigate the roles of information technology in organizations and markets.

Topics include:

- Complementarities in work practices, technology and productivity
- Winner-take-all labor and product markets
- Two sided markets
- Pricing and bundling of digital information goods
- Using clickstream, Google trends, email messages and other “nano-data”
- Effects of radically changing search costs on competition and market structure
- The “Long Tail” and product customization
- Implications of highly targeted advertising and recommender systems
- Open source communities and technologies
- Applications of transactions cost economics and incomplete contracts theory to technology-driven changes in information costs
- Valuation of intangible assets including organizational capital
- Emerging issues in the economics of information and technology

Readings combine frontier research literature with cases and examples of current business issues. Class discussion explores the application of these theories to challenges raised by the various information technologies, with special attention to the design of empirical studies.

The class is primarily for Ph.D students from MIT and Harvard. Each student will lead part of a session a topic of his or her choosing. This will typically involve meeting with the instructor ahead of time to discuss objectives and discussion plans and may involve an appropriate guest speaker. There are no exams in this class but a final paper is due at the end of the semester. It can be either a survey of the research in a particular area or a research paper on a specific topic. Either way, the paper can be thought of as a step towards your research agenda.

For more information, contact Erik Brynjolfsson, erikb@mit.edu

First class meets February 8, 2010 at the MIT Sloan School

Announced on 13 January 2010  12:37  p.m. by Erik Brynjolfsson

Holiday Party Thursday from 4-6pm

Here are the details on the 15.567 and Center for Digital Business Holiday party.
Time: Thursday, December 10th from 4:00 - 6:00 pm
Location: NE25, 7th floor – 5 Cambridge Center (above Legal Seafoods).

Feel free to bring a friend.

See you there!

Announced on 09 December 2009  6:42  p.m. by Erik Brynjolfsson

Team Project Final Reports

Since I know you all have important parties to go to on Wednesday and Thursday, not to mention readings to do for class, I'm extending the deadline to 5pm on Friday, December 11 for the Final Team Project Reports.

Of course, you are welcome, and even encouraged, to submit the reports well before then.

Announced on 08 December 2009  2:41  p.m. by Erik Brynjolfsson

Team Project Presentations

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving break.

We have four team projects presentations scheduled for tomorrow, plus some time for Q&A on the online advertising presentation from last week.

Please read your classmates' draft reports (in the materials folder, grouped by presentation date) before class and come ready with at least one question or comment for each paper. I will ask the teams to stick to the time limits so we can have plenty of time for discussion.

After class, feel free to email your constructive suggestions and ideas directly to the team members as well, especially if we don't get to it during class time. In some cases, you may want to submit them for posting to the Economics of Information blog by emailing Allen Lamb and cc'ing me.

Announced on 30 November 2009  1:08  p.m. by Erik Brynjolfsson

Reading for Team Project Presentation

Announced on 23 November 2009  8:26  a.m. by Heekyung Kim