Michael Luca portrait

Michael Luca, PhD

Professor
Academic AreaMarketing
Academic AreaEconomics
Academic AreaManagement & Organization

Michael Luca is a professor and the director of the Technology and Society Initiative at the Johns Hopkins University, Carey Business School, and a faculty research fellow at the NBER. Professor Luca's research, teaching, and advisory work focuses on the design of online platforms, and on the ways in which data can inform managerial and policy decisions.

His research has been published in academic journals including the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Management Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, American Economic Review: Papers and Proceeding, the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, and the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics.

He has also written about behavioral economics and online platforms for media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, Wired, and Slate. His research has been written about in a variety of media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, New Yorker, Atlantic, Economist, Washington Post, Financial Times, Guardian, Huffington Post, Harvard Business Review, Time, USA Today, Boston Globe, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Fortune, Mashable, GQ, Wired, and Vox.

Professor Luca has developed and taught materials for executive education and MBA courses on business analytics, technology, behavioral economics, and leadership.

Professor Luca's current and past advisory roles include Board Member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), Academic Advisory Board Member of the Behavioural Insights Team, Advisory Board Member for the OECD Digital for SMEs Global Initiative, and Advisory Board Member for the CNBC Technology Executive Council.

Education

  • PhD, Economics, Boston University 
  • BS, Mathematics and Economics, University at Albany

Research

  • Aneja, Abhay, Michael Luca, and Oren Reshef. “The Benefits of Revealing Race: Evidence from Minority-owned Local Businesses” Working paper.
  • Edelman, Benjamin G., Michael Luca, and Daniel Svirsky. “Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from a Field Experiment,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economic Vol. 9, No. 2 (April 2017): 1-22. (Lead Article)
  • Athey, Susan, Kristen Grabarz, Michael Luca and Nils Wernerfelt. “Digital Public Health Interventions at Scale: The Impact of Social Media Advertising on Beliefs and Outcomes Related to COVID-19 Vaccines.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 120, No. 5 (January 2023).
  • Jin, Ginger, Michael Luca, and Daniel Martin. “Is No News (Perceived as) Bad News? An Experimental Investigation of Information Disclosure.” American Economic Journal – Microeconomics, Vol. 13, No. 2 (May 2021): 141–73. (Received AEJ Best Paper Award, 2022)

Teaching

Previous

  • Data Driven Leadership 
  • Field Experiments

In the Media

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