To kick off this semester’s Research Seminar Series, the Marketing Department hosted Carl Mela, T. Austin Finch Foundation Professor of Marketing at Duke University. During his visit, Prof. Mela presented some of his recent work on Online advertising and held a doctoral seminar on structural econometric modeling.

His research talk addressed the pricing of display advertising in exchange markets. This work, developed with his PhD student, Hana Choi sets out to helping publishers defining reserve prices for real-​time bidding. The authors conducted a series of experiments that found a 32% increase in revenues for the publisher when setting a reserve price. The experiments also reveal that advertisers respond to the publisher’s actions by increasing their bids as a response to the increased in the reserve price.

In the doctoral seminar, Prof. Mela discussed the advantages and disadvantages of structural econometric modeling, as opposed to the alternatives, such as machine learning or nonstructural empirical models.

The Marketing department at WU thanks Prof. Mela for his presence and his insights during this long-​awaited visit.    

Filipe Sengo Furtado