U.S. tech titans increasingly hire PhD economists to help solve business problems.

Monica McNeil

2019-03-19 12:35:00 Tue ET

U.S. tech titans increasingly hire PhD economists to help solve business problems. These key tech titans include Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Netflix, and Twitter (FAMGANT). Most PhD economists exhibit at least 2 critical skills that can contribute to effective business solutions. First, many economists implement effective empirical methods and quantitative tools to ferret out *causal relations* in business data. Second, PhD economists can understand the useful design of both *effective incentives and market mechanisms* for better business optimization. In practice, these PhD economists help demystify many empirical puzzles in the tech sector. For instance, some economists empirically find that Uber Express Pool may inadvertently draw in active users from some other Uber products without growing the full Uber user base. Also, several other economists show that eBay tends to syphon off people who would have come through organic search when the online auction website advertises on Google. Moreover, some recent economic research demonstrates that many African-American Airbnb users experience rampant racial discrimination.

If tech platforms involve matching users or businesses, market design economists can likely help guide these key business decisions. Modern examples of disruptive platform design include Amazon, Airbnb, Tinder, TripAdvisor, and so forth. If scale economies are critical for the business, several major mergers, acquisitions, and exclusive deals may dramatically alter the strategic industry structure and market environment. For instance, Apple and Alphabet are the dominant duo in the iOS-Android market for mobile devices; Microsoft remains a primary software market player with its Office Suite and Windows operating system; Intel and Qualcomm specialize and dominate in the tech-savvy market for microchips; Google acquires 90% of U.S. online search traffic; Facebook extracts healthy profits in social media advertisements; and Netflix retains competitive moats and niches in the lucrative business of high-speed original video content distribution.

If tech companies need to analyze large-scale user data to make better business decisions, econometricians apply logistic regressions, panel estimation methods, and time-series models to derive informative business insights into user behaviors, product reviews, and customer interests and preferences. Smart data analyzers include Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, PayPal, and IBM etc. In contrast to doctors, engineers, and lawyers who may focus on specific mechanical details and techniques, most economists focus on the bigger picture when they implement empirical methods to solve practical business problems. Overall, most economists can see both the trees and the forest in important business decisions when push comes to shove.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Americans continue to keep their financial New Year resolutions.

Jonah Whanau

2019-01-15 13:35:00 Tuesday ET

Americans continue to keep their financial New Year resolutions.

Americans continue to keep their financial New Year resolutions. First, Americans should save more money. Everyone needs a budget to ensure that key paychec

+See More

Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan expects the U.S. economy to grow at 2.2%-2.5% in 2019-2020.

Becky Berkman

2019-06-11 12:33:00 Tuesday ET

Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan expects the U.S. economy to grow at 2.2%-2.5% in 2019-2020.

Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan expects the U.S. economy to grow at 2.2%-2.5% in 2019-2020 as inflation rises a bit. In an interview wit

+See More

Bank leverage and capital bias adjustment through the macroeconomic cycle

Fiona Sydney

2023-12-04 12:30:00 Monday ET

Bank leverage and capital bias adjustment through the macroeconomic cycle

Bank leverage and capital bias adjustment through the macroeconomic cycle   Abstract We assess the quantitative effects of the recent proposal

+See More

Federal Reserve raises the interest rate again in mid-2018 in response to 2% inflation and wage growth.

John Fourier

2018-07-09 09:39:00 Monday ET

Federal Reserve raises the interest rate again in mid-2018 in response to 2% inflation and wage growth.

The Federal Reserve raises the interest rate again in mid-2018 in response to 2% inflation and wage growth. The current neutral interest rate hike neither b

+See More

Several pharmaceutical companies now switch their primary focus from generic prescription drugs to medical specialties.

Rose Prince

2018-10-15 09:33:00 Monday ET

Several pharmaceutical companies now switch their primary focus from generic prescription drugs to medical specialties.

Several pharmaceutical companies now switch their primary focus from generic prescription drugs to medical specialties such as cardiovascular medications an

+See More

Corporate investment insights from mergers and acquisitions

Joseph Corr

2022-10-25 11:31:00 Tuesday ET

Corporate investment insights from mergers and acquisitions

Corporate investment insights from mergers and acquisitions Relative market misvaluation between the bidder and target firms drives most waves of mergers

+See More