Michael Powell

Kellogg School of Management, 2211 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208
E-mail: mike-powell@kellogg.northwestern.edu

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Employment

2019 - Present: Associate Professor (with tenure) of Strategy, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

2016 - 2019: Associate Professor (without tenure) of Strategy, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Spring 2018: Visiting Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Harvard University

2013 - 2016: Assistant Professor of Strategy, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

2012 - 2013: Donald P. Jacobs Scholar, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

2011 - 2012: Postdoctoral Fellow in Applied Economics, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 

Education

2006 - 2011: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D., Economics
     Thesis title: "Essays in Organizational Economics"
     Committee: Robert Gibbons, Glenn Ellison, Bengt Holmström

2003 - 2006: University of California at Los Angeles, B.A. and M.A., Economics

2001 - 2003: West Valley College, A.A., Liberal Arts

 

Editorial Positions

Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Co-editor, 2019 - 2022

RAND Journal of Economics, Associate Editor, 2020 - Present

 
 

Published Papers

Career Spillovers in Internal Labour Markets (with Nicola Bianchi, Giulia Bovini, Jin Li, and Matteo Paradisi). Review of Economic Studies, 90(4), July 2023.

A/B Contracts (with George Georgiadis). American Economic Review, 112(1), January 2022.

Behavioral Constraints on the Design of Subgame-Perfect Implementation Mechanisms (with Ernst Fehr and Tom Wilkening), American Economic Review, 111(4), April 2021.

Multilateral Interactions Improve Cooperation Under Random Fluctuations (with Jin Li), Games and Economic Behavior, 119, January 2020.

Sticking Points: Common-Agency Problems and Contracting in the U.S. Healthcare System (with Brigham Frandsen and James B. Rebitzer), RAND Journal of Economics, 50(2), Summer 2019.

Policies in Relational Contracts (with Dan Barron), American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 11(2), May 2019.

Productivity and Credibility in Industry Equilibrium, RAND Journal of Economics, 50(1), Spring 2019.

Managing Careers in Organizations (with Rongzhu Ke and Jin Li), Journal of Labor Economics, 36(1), January 2018.

Power Dynamics in Organizations (with Jin Li and Niko Matouschek), American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 9(1), February 2017.

An Influence-Cost Model of Organizational Practices and Firm Boundaries, Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, 31(Suppl 1), August 2015.

Organization and Information: Firms' Governance Choices in Rational-Expectations Equilibrium (with Robert Gibbons and Richard Holden), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 127(4), November 2012.

 

Unpublished Papers

Organizing Modular Production (with Niko Matouschek and Bryony Reich), June 2023. Journal of Political Economy, revise and resubmit.

Common Agent or Double Agent? Pharmacy Benefit Managers in the Prescription Drug Market (with Rena Conti, Brigham Frandsen, and Jim Rebitzer), May 2022.

Markets for Rhetorical Services (with Dan Barron), December 2018.

Firm Growth and Promotion Opportunities (with Jin Li and Rongzhu Ke), August 2018.

 

Work in Progress

Organizational Economics: Foundations and Applications (with Dan Barron and Robert Gibbons), under contract, Princeton University Press

Economics of Strategy, 8th edition (with David Besanko, David Dranove, Craig Garthwaite, Scott Schaefer, and Mark Shanley), Wiley.

 

Other Publications

Organizational Economics and the U.S. Healthcare System (with David Chan, Brigham Frandsen, and James B. Rebitzer). In The Economics of US Healthcare: Competition, Innovation, Regulation, and Organizations, May 2023.

What Happens to Younger Workers When Older Workers Don’t Retire? (with Nicola Bianchi and Jin Li), Harvard Business Review (online), November 2018.

 

Awards

Eric Zitzewitz Award, Utah Winter Business Economics Conference (2017)

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2007-2011)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Presidential Fellowship (2006-2008)

UCLA Departmental Scholar in Economics (2004-2006)

 

Professional Activities

Referee for: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics; American Economic Journal: Microeconomics; American Economic ReviewAmerican Law and Economics Review; Cambridge University Press; Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory; Econometrica; Economic Inquiry; Economic Journal; Economics Letters; Economica; European Economic Review; Games; Games and Economic Behavior; International Economic Review; International Journal of Health Economics and Management; International Journal of Industrial Organization; Israel Science Foundation; Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization; Journal of Economic Surveys; Journal of Economic Theory; Journal of Economics and Management Strategy; Journal of the European Economic Association; Journal of Financial Economics; Journal of Industrial Economics; Journal of Labor Economics; Journal of Law and Economics; Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization; Journal of Political Economy; Journal of Political Economy: Microeconomics; Journal of Public Economics; Labour Economics; Management Science; Quarterly Journal of Economics; RAND Journal of Economics; Review of Economic Design; Review of Economic Studies; Review of Economics and Statistics; Theoretical Economics

Program Committee: NBER Organizational Economics (2009, 2011); North American Winter Meetings of the Econometric Society (2016); Workshop on Relational Contracting (2016); Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics (2017, 2019, 2023)

Co-Organizer: Workshop on Relational Contracting (2017); Columbia Junior Faculty Workshop in Organizational Economics (2018); European Summer Symposium in Economic Theory (2023)

 

Talks

2023-2024: Duke Fuqua Strategy Seminar; Cornell Johnson

2022-2023: Utah Organizational and Political Economy Conference (Discussant); Triangle Micro Conference; Cowles Foundation Conference on Economic Theory; 9th CUSO Summer School in Behavioral Economics and Experimental Research; 10th Swiss Young Researchers Workshop in Behavioural Economics and Experimental Research (Keynote)

2021-2022: Chile TOI Workshop; Hitotsubashi University; Michigan State University; Johns Hopkins Carey; Conference in Honor of Harold Demsetz (Panelist); Santa Fe Institute Workshop on the Structure of Technology (Panelist)

2020-2021: Erasmus University Rotterdam; Guanghua School of Management; Diego Portales University; CUHK-Shenzhen; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

2019-2020: JKU Linz; Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics

2018-2019: Columbia Junior Faculty Workshop in Organizational Economics; LSE Capabilities, Competition, and Innovation Seminar; LSE CEP Labour Market Workshop; NBER Organizational Economics Workshop; University of Hong Kong; Madrid Workshop on Relational Contracts; Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics

2017-2018: Workshop on Relational Contracts and Dynamics (Discussant); Princeton Microeconomic Theory Seminar; ASSA Winter Meeting (Discussant); Harvard Contracts and Organizations Lunch; MIT Organizational Economics Workshop; MIT Organizational Economics Lunch; BU Occasional Theory Workshop; CSIO-IDEI Conference; Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics; SITE Dynamic Games, Contracts, and Markets

2016-2017: Warwick Theory Seminar; UCLA Theory Workshop; Miami Economic Theory Conference; ASSA Winter Meeting (Discussant); Cornell Strategy and Business Economics Workshop; CSIO-IDEI Conference (Discussant)

2015-2016: Queen's Economics Microeconomics Workshop; Purdue Economics Seminar; CSIO-IDEI Conference (Discussant); MIT Organizational Economics Workshop; Chile Workshop on Industrial Organization, Keynote Speaker; Columbia IO & Strategy Workshop; Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics

2014-2015: Clemson Economics Seminar; CEPR Workshop on Incentives, Management and Organisation; NBER Organizational Economics Conference (Discussant); University of Hong Kong; HKUST; European School on New Institutional Economics; Munich Workshop on Relational Contracts; International Society for New Institutional Economics; Western Economics Association International Conference; NBER Personnel Economics Conference; Econometric Society World Congress

2013-2014: CEPR Workshop on Incentives, Management and Organisation; Chicago Booth Applied Theory Workshop; MIT Sloan Organizational Economics Lunch; Toronto Rotman Business Economics Seminar; NBER Organizational Economics Conference (Discussant); University of Zurich; LMU Munich; University of Regensburg; Utah Winter Business Economics Conference; International Industrial Organization Conference (Presenter and Discussant); Society of Labor Economics Meeting; Foundations of Business Strategy Conference; CSIO-IDEI Conference; International Society for New Institutional Economics Conference; European Health Economics Workshop (Discussant); Goethe University Frankfurt; Organizational Economics Workshop Sydney Keynote Speaker

2012-2013: NYU Stern Industrial Organization Seminar; USC Marshall Applied Economics Workshop; Haas-Sloan Conference on the Law and Economics of Organizations; NBER Organizational Economics Conference; North American Winter Meetings of the Econometric Society (Discussant); Northwestern Economics Industrial Organization Seminar; Queen's School of Business Economics of Organizations Workshop; International Conference on Contracts, Procurement, and Public-Private Arrangements; International Society for New Institutional Economics Conference; European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (Presenter and Discussant)

2011 - 2012: University of Rochester (Simon); University of Pennsylvania (Wharton BPP); Northwestern University (Kellogg M&S); Caltech (HSS); LSE (Economics); Duke University (Fuqua Strategy); Columbia Business School (Microeconomics); Stanford University (GSB)

 

Advising

Theo Durandard, 2023. Committee. Initial Placement: University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

Ruozhou Yan, 2022. Committee. Initial Placement: Analysis Group.

Henrique Castro-Pires, 2022. Committee. Initial Placement: University of Surrey.

Rafayal Ahmed, 2018. Chair. Initial Placement: London School of Economics, Fellow in Economics.

Colin Shopp, 2018. Committee. Initial Placement: Boston Consulting Group.

Can Urgun, 2017. Committee. Initial Placement: Princeton Economics Department.

Tongtong Shi, 2016. Committee. Initial Placement: Analysis Group.

 

Teaching

Summer 2024 - STRT 431: Business Strategy (MBA)

Winter 2024 - MECS 570-1: Organizational Economics (PhD)

Fall 2022 - MECS 570-1: Organizational Economics (PhD)

Fall 2021 - STRT 431: Business Strategy (MBA); MECS 570-1: Organizational Economics I (PhD)

Spring 2021 - STRT 452: Strategy and Organization (MBA)

Winter 2021 - MECS 570-1: Organizational Economics I (PhD)

Fall 2020 - STRT 431: Business Strategy (MBA)

Fall 2019 - STRT 431: Business Strategy (MBA); MECS 570-1: Organizational Economics I (PhD)

Spring 2019 - STRT 452: Strategy and Organization (MBA)

Winter 2019 - MECS 570-1: Organizational Economics I (PhD)

Winter 2018 - Economics 2010B: Economic Theory (PhD)

Fall 2017 - STRT 452: Strategy and Organization (MBA); MECS 570-1: Organizational Economics I (PhD)

Spring 2017 - STRT 452: Strategy and Organization (MBA)

Winter 2017 - MECS 570-1: Organizational Economics I (PhD)

Spring 2016 - MECS 475: The Economics of Organizations (PhD)

Winter 2016 - STRT 452: Strategy and Organization (MBA)

Spring 2015 - MECS 475: The Economics of Organizations (PhD)

Winter 2015 - STRT 452: Strategy and Organization (MBA)

Spring 2014 - MGMT 452: Strategy and Organization (MBA); MECS 475: The Economics of Organizations (PhD) 

Spring 2013 - MGMT 452: Strategy and Organization (MBA)