Recently Accepted

This paper investigates the real-world impact of the GDPR on online content providers. Contrary to widespread industry fears, our findings show that while EU websites adapted by reducing user tracking, the regulation did not significantly harm their ability to produce content, engage audiences, or survive in the market.
Management Science, 2025
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This paper evaluates the economic arguments surrounding privacy regulation in behaviorally targeted advertising. While industry groups often claim that regulation harms innovation and consumer welfare, our review of theoretical and empirical evidence shows that these claims are weakly supported. We demonstrate that privacy regulation can be economically justified—not only ethically or legally—by reducing harms and promoting a fairer distribution of value in the digital economy.
Yale Journal of Law & Technology, 2025
Preprint Video

This study explores why governments have been slow to adopt natural language processing (NLP) tools for civic participation, despite their potential to enhance democratic engagement. Through interviews with politicians and public servants, we find that differing career incentives and concerns about legitimacy shape how each group evaluates and designs NLP tools. The absence of clear responsibility for advocating or overseeing adoption further hinders progress. These insights highlight the social and institutional factors that influence AI adoption in government and inform the design of NLP systems that better support public participation.
CSCW’25, 2025
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This paper examines how self-checkout machines—often framed as automation—actually shift labor onto customers while transforming the work of cashiers. Drawing on interviews with frontline retail workers, we show that self-checkout introduces new forms of multitasking, problem-solving, and customer policing, often positioning workers in adversarial roles. To manage these tensions, cashiers perform “relational patchwork,” using empathy and improvisation to preserve positive customer interactions. The study reveals how pseudo-automation reshapes not only tasks but also relationships in service work.
CSCW’25, 2025
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This study explores how image-generative AI (IGAI) can support participatory design processes for public spaces. Through workshops and AI-mediated interviews conducted during a real-world park redesign in Los Angeles, we find that IGAI shifts the focus of design conversations—from producing accurate renderings to fostering richer, more spatially grounded discussions among stakeholders. The results highlight both the promise and the challenges of using generative AI in collaborative settings, including the crucial role of facilitators and the skills needed to manage human–AI–stakeholder interactions.
CWCW’25*, 2025
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Drafts in the Review Process

This study examines how Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework affected the App Store ecosystem. Using data on every app in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store over an 18-month period, we analyze how developers and consumers adapted to stricter privacy rules. Despite industry concerns that ATT would harm app innovation and revenue, we find no evidence of widespread developer exit. Instead, developers adjusted by reducing reliance on advertising SDKs and modestly increasing use of authentication and payment tools, with minimal impact on consumer ratings or engagement. The results suggest that privacy regulation can prompt adaptation rather than disruption in digital ecosystems.
Management Science (Major Revision), 2025
Preprint

Following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, many companies—including Kickstarter—publicly expressed support for racial justice. This study examines whether Kickstarter’s visible #BlackLivesMatter campaign, displayed across the platform for over a year, led to improved outcomes for Black creators. Using data on projects launched before and after the campaign, we find that while the initiative increased the participation of Black creators, it did not raise their funding success rates. The findings highlight the limits of symbolic corporate activism and the persistent structural inequities faced by underrepresented creators in digital platforms.
Marketing Science (Major Revision), 2025
Preprint

Using data on over 6,000 New York City restaurants, this study shows how platforms like OpenTable reshape pricing and competition in traditional industries. Restaurants typically pass platform fees on to consumers, while moderate adopters benefit most from participation. The findings reveal both the value and the risks of relying on digital intermediaries.
Submitted to Information Systems Research, 2025
Preprint Video

This study examines how retailers use AI to prevent theft, focusing on three approaches—eyes (surveillance), locks (physical deterrents), and patterns (AI-based anomaly detection). While AI adds new capabilities, these systems still rely on frontline workers to interpret and act. The findings highlight how automation reshapes, rather than replaces, human discretion in retail security.
ILR Review (Major Revision), 2025

This study examines how public parks can foster inclusion and belonging among immigrants in Los Angeles—the nation’s most park-poor yet one of its most diverse cities. Through a participatory project to transform a former landfill into a public park, we explore how immigrants’ transgenerational and translocal experiences shape their perceptions and use of green spaces. The findings highlight design practices that make public spaces more inclusive of diversity and difference, offering insights into how urban environments can better support immigrant communities.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (Major Revision), 2025

Publications

(2025). Does Privacy Regulation Harm Content Providers? A Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of the GDPR. Management Science.

Preprint PDF Video

(2025). Economic Rationales for Regulating Behavioral Ads. Yale Journal of Law & Technology.

Preprint Video

(2025). Thoughtful Adoption of NLP for Civic Participation: Understanding Differences Among Policymakers. CSCW’25.

Preprint PDF

(2025). Pseudo-Automation: How Labor-Offsetting Technologies Reconfigure Roles and Relationships in Frontline Retail Work. CSCW’25.

Preprint PDF

(2025). From Fake Perfects to Conversational Imperfects: Exploring Image-Generative AI as a Boundary Object for Participatory Design of Public Spaces. CWCW’25*.

Preprint PDF

(2024). Image Generative AI to Design Public Spaces: a Reflection of how AI Could Improve Co-Design of Public Parks. Digital Government: Research and Practice.

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(2023). Trends in Privacy Dialog Design after the GDPR: The Impact of Industry and Government Actions. WPES’23.

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(2022). The Impact of Viral Posts on Visibility and Behavior of Professionals: A Longitudinal Study of Scientists on Twitter . ICWSM’22.

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(2015). Spinoffs and the ascension of Silicon Valley. Industrial and Corporate Change.

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(2015). Spinoffs and the Mobility of U.S. Merchant Semiconductor Inventors. Management Science.

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Working Papers

An Experimental Infrastructure to Investigate the Impact of Online Tracking, Targeting, and Advertising on Consumer Behavior and Consumer Welfare

PDF Video

The Welfare Effects of Ad Blocking

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How race and gender stereotypes impact crowdfunding outcomes

“Addressing the Paradoxical Nature of Emerging Technologies in Transformative Technology Policy Mixes

“The Cursed Equilibrium of Algorithmic Traumatization

Teaching

Networks II: Market Design

This course covers different mathematical models to understand how markets operate and how we can design them to influence agents’ behavior and produce the outcomes we need. We also explore what defines network economies, multi-sided markets, and platforms.

Cornell University (Spring 2020-2025)

Privacy and Security in the Data Economy

The course is structured around three broad topics. We first study how privacy has been understood over time, and how the economic analysis of privacy has evolved as the use of computing and connectivity has increased. We will next turn to the behavioral economics of privacy, to incorporate how human behavior influences the analysis of privacy. Finally, we will analyze how different economic theories can explain seemingly counter-intuitive patterns in information security.

Cornell University (Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2024)

Digital Markets and Online Platforms

This doctoral seminar examines how digital transformation reshapes markets, platforms, and economic behavior through empirical and experimental approaches. Students engage with research across disciplines to understand the economics of digitization and develop an original research project on a related topic.

Cornell University (Fall 2023)

Information Systems Project

This is the capstone project course of the Master of Information System Management program at the Heinz College at CMU. As faculty advisor I worked with teams of students designing and implementing an information system for an external client.

Carnegie Mellon University (Fall 2018)

Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

I co-developed this class with other faculty at P. Universidad Catolica de Chile, and faculty from UC Berkeley’s Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology. Students are required to develop a technology based entrepreneurial idea and produce a prototype and pitch for their project. The course finishes up in a competition where winners received seed funding for their projects (~US$7,500/project). In my two semesters teaching this course, several teams of my students went on to win the competition.

Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (Fall 2015, Spring 2016)

Technology, Policy, and Society

This course was part of the core curriculum of the Master in Energy program at P. Universidad Catolica de Chile. It covered topics on science and technology policy that are relevant to energy professional, and tools for analyzing complex problems in their social, technical, and economic dimensions.

Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (Fall 2015, Spring 2016)

The Strategy and Management of Technological Innovation

This course is part of the core curriculum of the Master in Engineering & Technology Innovation Management at CMU. It is case-based method course that covers several different analytical frameworks for studying technology management problems, and for supporting decision-making.

Carnegie Mellon University (Fall 2013, Fall 2014)

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