Yingkang Xie
Assistant Professor of Marketing
Yingkang Xie
My research focuses on platforms and their challenges in pricing, advertising, and channel management. I received a Ph.D. in Marketing from Northwestern University, through the Kellogg School of Management, in 2023.
My recent work investigates ad avoidance and disintermediation (platform leakage). I study these questions using techniques drawn from machine learning and econometrics, taking advantage of both rich unstructured data (text, audio, video) and large transaction data with geolocation information. I also develop and estimate structural models to study the transfer and frictions for trading partners to form contracts without an intermediary.
Before my Ph.D., from 2014 to 2017, I was the first data scientist hired by Credit Karma (acquired by Intuit) to build an auction-like ad serving system from the ground up. While I was a student at UC Davis, I interned at Adobe in 2012 and Facebook in 2013.
Area of Expertise
Microeconomics/ Industrial Organization, Information Technology, Management Science, Advertising, Distribution Channels, Marketing
Awards/Honors
Winner of 2023 Doctoral Research Award - Best Paper, American Statistical Association, 2023
Research Interests
Quantitative Marketing, Machine Learning, Platform Economy
Selected Publications
- "Platform Leakage: Disintermediation and Incentive Conflicts in Two-Sided Markets (Under Review)", with Huaiyu Zhu
- "High-Energy Ad Content: A Large-Scale Investigation of TV Commercials", Journal of Marketing Research, Issue 4, 840-859, with Joonhyuk Yang, Lakshman Krishnamurthi, Purushottam Papatla, 2022