Takeaki Sunada

My research interests include Industrial organization, Econometric modeling, Quantitative marketing and Data analytics. In my dissertation, I develop an empirical framework to evaluate how information goods providers should design a trial version of their product. I focus on customer learning-by-using and build a model that embeds a customer’s durable goods adoption decision in a Bayesian learning framework. Using a data set of videogame users’ play records, I estimate factors that influence the trade-offs the firm faces in designing a trial and find the optimal trial configuration.

I plan to further explore managerial implications in areas such as subscription-based products and “freemium” strategies. I also envision using model-based analyses in other environments to study customers' strategic behavior and competitive strategy. Aside from information goods, I am well informed about airline, hotel, and credit card industries. I believe that applying economic models to typical observational data from marketing provides novel managerial implications.