Matthew Backus

Biography

Matthew Backus is an Assistant Professor at Columbia Business School. He received his Ph.D. from the Economics Department at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he focused on topics in industrial organization. His research interests include the determinants of firm-level productivity, estimation of consumer demand using data from auction-based marketplaces, and the role of cheap-talk communication in bargaining. He is also interested in the application of methods from machine learning and computer science in econometric analysis. 

Teaching

Fall 2017

Managerial Economics (MBA)
Managerial Economics (EMBA)

Fall 2016

Managerial Economics (MBA)
Managerial Economics (EMBA)

Fall 2015

Managerial Economics (EMBA)

Research

Journal articles

Search Costs and Equilibrium Price Dispersion in Auction Markets In European Economic Review (2014)
Coauthor(s): Matthew Backus, Joseph Podwol, Henry Schneider

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Working papers

Cheap Talk, Round Numbers, and the Economics of Negotiation (2015)
Coauthor(s): Matthew Backus, Tom Blake, Steven Tadelis

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Is Sniping a Problem for Online Auction Markets? In NBER Working Paper No. 20942 (2015)
Coauthor(s): Matthew Backus, Tom Blake, Dimitriy Masterov, Steven Tadelis

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Why Is Productivity Correlated with Competition? (2014)
Coauthor(s): Matthew Backus

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A Demand System for a Dynamic Auction Market with Directed Search (2012)
Coauthor(s): Matthew Backus, Gregory Lewis

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In The News

Media Mentions

Want That Apartment? You May Have to Bid for It

The Wall Street Journal