Lanier Benkard

Research Statement

Professor Benkard’s research is in the areas of industrial organization, applied microeconomics, and econometrics. His research involves applying microeconomic and game theoretic models to the study of individual markets. His recent work has focused on empirical applications of dynamic oligopoly, and he has recently studied the commercial aircraft and personal computer industries.

Bio

C. Lanier Benkard The Gregor G. Peterson Professor of Economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he teaches courses in Industrial Organization and Econometrics. Before coming to Stanford in 1998, he received his PhD in Economics from Yale University (1998). He has also been a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (2005-6) and the University of California at Berkeley (2006).

Professor Benkard’s research is in the areas of empirical industrial organization (I.O.), applied microeconomics, and econometrics, and concentrates on applying microeconomic and game theoretic models to the study of individual markets. His recent work has focused on developing methods that allow us to analyze I.O. models empirically. This includes theoretical work on how to estimate demand systems and dynamic oligopoly models, as well as empirical work that uses these techniques to analyze different industries. The recent empirical work includes studies of learning by doing in the commercial aircraft industry, and studies of the demand for personal computers, and of airline mergers

Professor Benkard is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and is a member of the American Economic Association and the Econometric Society, and has organized conferences for numerous other professional organizations, including the EEA, INFORMS, NBER, SCE, and SITE.

At Stanford, Benkard teaches a course on applied statistics and decision theory in the first year MBA core, as well as PhD courses in Econometrics and Industrial Organization. He also advises PhD students, and several of his former students are now faculty at leading economics departments and business schools.

Academic Degrees

• PhD in Economics, Yale University, 1998
• MPhil in Economics, Yale University, 1996
• MA in Economics, University of Toronto, 1991
• BSc in Economics & Math, University of Toronto, 1990

Academic Appointments

• At Stanford since 1998.
• Professor of Economics, Yale University, 2009-2011

Awards and Honors

• Graduate School of Business Trust Faculty Fellow, 2016-2017
• James & Doris McNamara Faculty Fellow, 2014-2015

Teaching

Degree Courses

2017-18

MGTECON 628: Reading Group in Industrial Organization

This course meets weekly on Tuesdays at Noon. The primary purpose of the course is to read and discuss current working papers in Industrial Organization and related fields (e.g., Econometrics, Marketing, and Labor). Students are required to...

OIT 274: Data and Decisions - Base (Flipped Classroom)

Base Data and Decisions is a first-year MBA course in statistics and regression analysis. The course is taught using a flipped classroom model that combines extensive online materials with a lab-based classroom approach. Traditional lecture...

2016-17

MGTECON 536: Data Driven Decision Making

This is a short course on data driven decision making. The purpose of the course is to help students become intelligent consumers and producers of data analytics in the business context. Each class meeting will consider a different case/caselet...

MGTECON 628: Reading Group in Industrial Organization

This course meets weekly on Tuesdays at Noon. The primary purpose of the course is to read and discuss current working papers in Industrial Organization and related fields (e.g., Econometrics, Marketing, and Labor). Students are required to...

OIT 274: Data and Decisions - Base (Lab-based Pilot)

Data and Decisions is a first-year MBA course in statistics and regression analysis. The base D&D lab-based pilot is a new version of the course that combines extensive online materials with a more lab-based classroom approach. Traditional...

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