Robert Weber
Professor Emeritus of Managerial Economics & Decision Sciences at Kellogg School of Management
Schools
- Kellogg School of Management
Links
Biography
Kellogg School of Management
Robert J. Weber is the Frederic E. Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Decision Sciences at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Educated at Princeton and Cornell, he was a faculty member of the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics at Yale, and taught in the Yale School of Organization and Management, prior to joining the Kellogg faculty in 1979.
His general area of research is game theory, with a primary focus on the effects of private information in competitive settings. Much of his research has been centered on the theory and practice of competitive bidding and auction design. His 1982 paper, "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding" (Econometrica 50, co-authored with P.R. Milgrom), is considered a seminal work in the field. He served as an external consultant on a 1985 project leading to revisions in the procedures used to auction petroleum extraction leases on the U.S. outer continental shelf, and he co-organized (with representatives of the Federal Reserve Board and the U.S. Treasury) the 1992 public forum which led to changes in the way the Treasury auctions its debt issues. Since 1993, he has represented private clients during both the rule-making and bidding phases of the FCC's sale of licenses of spectrum for the provision of personal communications services.
In the early 1970s, Professor Weber proposed an alternative to the traditional "plurality rule" for elections involving more than two candidates. This alternative, "approval voting", has generated a substantial body of research, has been adopted by a number of professional organizations, and has been used in several public elections. Recent work in this area includes "A Theory of Voting Equilibria" (American Political Science Review 87, 1993, co-authored with R. Myerson), and "Approval Voting" (Journal of Economic Perspectives 9(1), 1995).
Professor Weber has also conducted research on negotiation and arbitration. Among his activities have been preparation of a research survey for the American Arbitration Association, and development of classroom materials for the National Institute for Dispute Resolution. He is a founding member of the Center for Research on Dispute Resolutionat Northwestern University, and has served on the editorial board of the International Journal of Game Theory. In 1990 he was designated the outstanding professor of the year by the students in Kellogg's Managers' Program, and in 1998 he received the Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award. In 2008, he was chosen as Alumni Professor of the Year.
Education PhD, 1974, Operations Research, Cornell University
MS, 1972, Operations Research, Cornell University
AB, 1969, Mathematics, Princeton University
Academic Positions Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 1982-present
Associate Professor, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 1979-1982
Honors and Awards Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award, Kellogg School of Management, 2008-2009, 1997-1998
Kellogg Alumni Professor of the Year Award, Kellogg School of Management, 2008
Part-Time MBA Program Professor of the Year Award, Kellogg School of Management, 1990
Education Academic Positions Honors and Awards
Read about executive education
Cases
Milgrom, Paul R. and Robert Weber. 1982. The value of information in a sealed-bid auction. Journal of Mathematical Economics. 10(1): 105-114. Reprinted in:
The Economic Theory of Auctions, edited by Paul Klemperer, vol. 10, Cheltenham Glos: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2000.
In this paper, we explore bidders' incentives to gather information in auctions, when there is one bidder with only public information and another with some private information. We find that the bidder with only public information makes no profit at equilibrium, while the bidder with private information generally makes positive profits. Moreover, the informed bidder's profits rise when he gathers extra information, and the increase in greater when the information is collected overtly than when it is collected covertly. When the uniformed bidder can observe some of the better-informed bidder's information, he prefers to make his observations covertly. If the seller has access to some of the better-informed bidder's information, or if he has affiliated information of his own, he can raise the expected price by adopting a policy of making that information public. However, there are cases where a policy of publicizing his information would lower the expected price. The distinguishing feature of these latter cases seems to be that the seller's information is complementary to the information of the better-informed bidder.
Billera, Louis J and Robert Weber. 1979. Dense families of low-complexity attainable sets of markets. Journal of Mathematical Economics. 6(1): 67-73.
The complexity of the attainable set of utility outcomes of a market (with finitely many traders) is defined as the least number of commodities involved in any market giving the same set. This notion is investigated both for the case of quasiconcave and concave utility functions. It is shown that, in either case, there is a dense collection of attainable sets, each having complexity at most n(n-1)/2.
Other experts
Jia Lin Xie
Jia Lin Xie is Magna Professor in Management and Professor of Organizational Behaviour and HR Management at Rotman. Her research focuses on the fit between employees and their work environment (P-E fit) and the effects of such fit and misfit on employee well-being. Another area of her research ex...
Pekka Heikkinen
Peer-reviewed scientific articlesJournal article-refereed, Original researchValoisaa, vaaleaa ja viimeisteltyä - Seppo Häkli: Metla toimisto- ja laboratoriorakennus - Metla office and laboratory buildingHeikkinen, Pekka2009 in ArkkitehtiISSN: 0783-3660Puun voimaa - The power of wood - Die Kraft d...
Scott Forsysth
A vastly experienced consultant and trainer, Scott Forsyth specialises in strategic management, business development and marketing. He operates as an independent consultant and trainer and as the Strategy Director of a full-service agency based in North West England. Over the past 15 years, Sc...
Looking for an expert?
Contact us and we'll find the best option for you.