Pai-Ling Yin
1308 Oxford St, Redwood City, CA 94061 pailingy@gmail.com 650-387-1620
Pai-Ling's research focuses on the manner in which firms compete in the presence of network
effects. Pai-Ling Yin is a Social Science Research Scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic
Policy Research. She co-founded the Mobile Innovation Group (mig.stanford.edu) with Tim
Bresnahan of Stanford and Jason Davis of INSEAD, studying all the aspects of the mobile app
ecosystem, from industry evolution to platform competition to entrepreneurial strategy. Pai-Ling
received a PhD in Economics from Stanford and was a professor of strategy at both Harvard
Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management. She has written numerous cases on
technology and strategy and research papers on platform competition and diffusion of
innovation.
Pai-Ling holds a PhD in Economics from Stanford University, an MS from the London School of
Economics and Political Science and a BS and BA degrees from Indiana University.
Education
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Ph.D. Economics, 2005
Doctoral Thesis: “Using Surveys to Measure Information in Auctions: Evidence
for Rational Behavior, Informative Prices, and the Importance of Credibility in
eBay Computer Auctions.” Advisors: Tim Bresnahan, Susan Athey, Pat Bajari
London School of Economics and Political Science
M.S. Regulation, emphasis in Utilities & Telecommunications, 1997
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
B.A. Economics and French, summa sum laude, 1995
B.S. Mathematics, summa cum laude, 1995
Professional Experience
2013-presnt
Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Research Scholar
April-June
2014
Stanford Department of Economics
Assistant Visiting Professor
MIT Sloan School of Management
Pai-Ling Yin
2010-2013
Assistant Professor of Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Strategic
Management
2007-2010
MIT Sloan School of Management
Assistant Professor of Strategy
2004-2007
Harvard Business School
Assistant Professor of Strategy
1995-96
Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation
Resident Scholar
Honors and Professional Activities
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Best Paper Award at the Atlanta Competitive Advantage Conference, May 20-22,
2014 for “Experimentation Strategies and Entrepreneurial Innovation: Inherited
Market Differences from the iPhone Ecosystem.”
National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant 1431276, three-year-award for
“Strategy and Organization of Mobile Innovation and Entrepreneurship,” shared
with colleagues, Tim Bresnahan and Jason Davis.
Young Economists Essay Award, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2006
Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, Stanford University, 2001 and 2002
NSF Graduate Fellowship in Economics, 1998-2001
Outstanding Economics Thesis, Indiana University, 1995
Outstanding Mathematics Graduate, Indiana University, 1995
Certificate in Political Studies (Certificat d’Etudes Politiques) with high honors
from the Université de Strasbourg, 1994
Truman Scholar, 1994
Herman B. Wells Scholar, 1991
Associate Editor, Information Economics and Policy
Guest Editor, Special Issue on The Economics of Information and Communication
Technologies, International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2013
Scientific Committee, Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty’s RFP process
for “Applying Economic Theory to a New Industry: Mobile Banking in Developing
Countries”, Nov 2012
Scientific Committee, ICT Conference, Munich, Oct. 14-16, 2013
Referee for: ACM Transactions of Internet Technology, Applied Economics,
Australian Journal of Management, Communications of the ACM, Decision
Analysis, Information Economics and Policy, International Journal of Game Theory,
International Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of Business Economics
and Statistics, Journal of Cultural Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and
Organization, The Journal of Industrial Economics, Journal of Real Estate Finance
and Economics, Latin American Business Review, Management Science, The
Manchester School, MIS Quarterly, NSF (US. And Canada), Organization Science,
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Pai-Ling Yin
Review of Economics and Statistics, Review of Industrial Organization, Southern
Economic Journal
Publications
Yin, Pai-Ling, Jason P. Davis and Yulia Muzyra, “Entrepreneurial Innovation: Killer Apps in the
iPhone Ecosystem.” American Economic Review, 104:5 (May 2014) pp. 255-59.
“Competition between Exchanges: A Research Agenda” with Estelle Cantillon, International
Journal of Industrial Organization (May 2011) pp. 329-336.
“Reallocating innovative resources around growth bottlenecks” with Timothy F. Bresnahan,
Industrial and Corporate Change 19:5 (October 2010) pp. 1589-1627.
“Empirical Tests of Information Aggregation,” International Journal of Industrial Organization
Vol. 25, Issue 6 (December 2007) pp. 1179-1189.
“Economic and Technical Drivers of Technology Choice: Browsers” with Timothy F. Bresnahan,
Annales d'économie et de statistique No. 79:80 (2005) pp. 629-670.
“Building Firm Trust Online” with Detlef Schoder, Communications of the ACM 43:12 (December
2000) pp. 73-79.
In Progress or Under Review
“Mobile Developers and Platform Choice” with Timothy Bresnahan and Joe Orsini, 2014.
“Experimentation Strategies and Entrepreneurial Innovation: Inherited Market Differences from
the iPhone Ecosystem” with Jason Davis and Yulia Muzyrya, 2014 (R&R at Strategic
Management Journal).
“Economic Value Creation in Mobile Applications” with Timothy F. Bresnahan and J.P. Davis,
The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy, 2013 (forthcoming).
“Competition between Exchanges: Lessons from the Battle of the Bund” with Estelle Cantillon,
2013 (R&R at American Economic Review).
“Information Acquisition and Consumer Choice” with Timothy F. Bresnahan and Timothy
Landvoigt, 2013.
“Anticompetitive Price Effects of Competition and Uncertainty,” 2010.
“Uncertainty or Heterogeneity? Identifying the Source of Variation through Surveys,” 2008.
“Information Dispersion and Auction Prices,” 2009.
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Pai-Ling Yin
“Standard Setting in Markets: The Browser War” with Timothy F. Bresnahan, Standards and
Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
“Innovation and Incumbent Industry Structure: TiVo,” Industry and Firm Studies, 2007
“Lessons from the battle of the Bund” with Estelle Cantillon, Vox, September 2, 2008.
“What Are the Lessons of the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD Battle?” New York Times, Freakonomics Blog,
March 4, 2008.
HBS Course Materials
“Cellular Service” with Abigail Tinker, Harvard Business School Case 707-424 and Harvard
Business School Teaching Note 707-576.
“SAP: Industry Transformation (A)” with Andrei Hagiu, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Vincent Marie
Dessain," Harvard Business School Case 707-435 and Harvard Business School Teaching Note
707-578, with Andrei Hagiu.
“Online Auction Markets,” Harvard Business School Case 705-411 and Harvard Business School
Teaching Note 705-577.
“Bringing OTC back to the Exchange: Euronext.liffe's launch of ABC” with Estelle S. Cantillon,
Harvard Business School Case 706-489.
“Bringing OTC Back to the Exchange: Euronext.liffe's Launch of ABC (TN)” with Estelle S.
Cantillon, Harvard Business School Teaching Note 706-490
“Principles of Microeconomics for Strategists” with Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Elizabeth Raabe,
Harvard Business School Online Case Products 705-801.
“Principles of Microeconomics for Strategists Tutorial” with Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Elizabeth
Raabe, Harvard Business School Courseware 705-801.
“A Note on Applying Dimensional Analysis to Understand Cost Drivers,” Harvard Business
School Note 706-492.
“Interpretation of Elasticity Calculations,” Harvard Business School Note 705-412.
“Ice-Fili (Abridged)” with Michael G. Rukstad and John R. Wells, Harvard Business School case
705-441.
“QUALCOMM, Inc. 2004” with David B. Yoffie and Elizabeth Kind, Harvard Business School
Case 705-401.
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Pai-Ling Yin
“PalmSource, Inc.” with David B. Yoffie and Christina L. Darwall, Harvard Business School Case
704-473.
“Strategic Inflection: TiVo in 2005” with David B. Yoffie and Barbara J. Mack, Harvard Business
School Case 706-421.
“Strategic Inflection: TiVo in 2003 (A & B) TN” with David B. Yoffie, Harvard Business School
Teaching Note 704-497.
“Strategic Inflection: Tivo in 2003 (A)” with David B. Yoffie and Christina L. Darwall, Harvard
Business School Case 704-425.
“Strategic Inflection: TiVo in 2003 (B)” with David B. Yoffie and Christina L. Darwall, Harvard
Business School Case 704-429.
“Strategic Inflection: TiVo in 2003 (B)” with David B. Yoffie and Christina L. Darwall, Harvard
Business School Course Software 704-751.
Teaching
Stanford
Stanford
MIT
MIT
HBS
HBS
Economics and Strategy (undergraduate)
Stanford Economics Alumni Speaker Series
Competitive Strategy (MBA)
Doctoral Seminar in Technology and Strategy
Technology Strategy (MBA)
Strategy (MBA)
2014
2014
2008-2013
2010
2005-2007
2003-2005
Executive Education
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IBM Global Sales (Boston Toronto Group) 2012-present
Peking HSBC (bilingual) 2012
Next 36, University of Toronto, 2012
Advisees
Doctoral: Adam Juda, Merlina Manocaran
Masters: Kai Wei Chen, Dipak Shetty
Presentations
“Mobile Developers and Platform Choice” with Tim Bresnahan and Joe Orsini, at the NBER
Digitization Conference, Stanford, CA (February 2014); Wharton Mack Technology Conference,
Philadelphia, PA (April 2014); Stanford Social Science and Technology Seminar, Stanford, CA
(April 2014); Northwestern Searle Internet Search and Innovation Conference, Chicago, IL (June
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Pai-Ling Yin
2014) and Academia Sinica, Taipei (September 2014).
“Product-Level Innovation Processes: Killer Apps in the iPhone Ecosystem” with Jason Davis
and Yulia Muzyrya, at the AEA meetings in Philadelphia, PA, January 2014.
“Experimentation Strategies and Entrepreneurial Innovation: Inherited Market Differences from
the iPhone Ecosystem” with Jason Davis and Yulia Muzyra, at the West Coast Research
Symposium, Seattle, WA (September 2013); London Business School Seminar, London, (October
2013); ICT Conference, Munich (October 2013); HBS Digitization Seminar, Cambridge, MA
(February 2014); ACAC, Atlanta, GA (May 2014); ISNIE, Durham, NC (June 2014); AOM,
Philadelphia, PA (August 2014) and at the Academia Sinica, Taipei (September 2014).
“Information Acquisition and Consumer Choice” with Tim Bresnahan and Tim Landvoigt at
NBER Summer Institute in Cambridge, MA (July 2011); IIOC, Boston, MA (April 2011) and Yale
Marketing and IO Conference in New York City (April 2013).
“Anticompetitive Price Effects of Competition and Uncertainty” presentation at the Olin Strategy
Conference, Washington University in St. Louis, MO in May 2010.
“Asymmetric Network Effects” with Estelle Cantillon presentation at the American Economic
Association Conference IOS meetings in San Francisco, CA in January 2009 and at the NBER
Productivity Lunch in Cambridge, MA in November 2008.
“A Survey-Based Procedure for Measuring Uncertainty or Heterogeneous Preferences in Markets,
with Application to a New Test for Common Values in Auctions” presentation at the American
Economic Association Conference CEANA sessions in San Francisco, CA in January 2009; the
Org-Econ lunch, MIT Sloan, MA in April 2008, and at the IO lunch, MIT Department of
Economics, MA in March 2008.
“Strategy and Network Effects in Global Business” presented at the EPOCH Foundation, MIT ILP,
Taipei, Taiwan in January 2008.
“Reallocation on eBay: PS3 and Wii” with Chris Adams presentation at the International Industrial
Organization Conference in Savannah, Georgia in April 2007 and at the NBER productivity lunch
at Cambridge, MA in April 2007.
“(Why) Is There a Long Tail?” with Bharat Anand presentation at the Tuck Winter IO Conference,
Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth, NH in January 2007.
“Competition between Exchanges: Lessons from the Battle of the Bund” with Estelle Cantillon,
presentation at the IO seminar, University of California, Los Angeles, CA in October 2011;
Institute for Strategy, Technology and Organization, University of Munich, Germany in December
2010; IO seminar, University of Tennessee in November 2010; Harvard IO Seminar, Harvard
University in March 2010; American Economic Association Conference, Atlanta, GA in January
2010; Kellogg Strategy Seminar, Northwestern University in October 2009; Columbia Strategy
Seminar, Columbia Business School in March 2009; Atlanta Competitive Advantage Conference,
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Pai-Ling Yin
Emory University in June 2008; World Federation of Exchanges, MIT ILP event, MIT in
November 2007; Org-Econ lunch, MIT Sloan in November 2007; Marketing Seminar, MIT Sloan
Marketing in November 2007; Cornell Microeconomics Seminar, Cornell University in October
2007; IO lunch, MIT Department of Economics in October 2007; NBER productivity lunch,
NBER in November 2006; International Industrial Organization Conference, Northeastern
University in April 2006 and at the Economics & Computer Science Research Group, Harvard
University in November 2004.
“Economic and Technical Drivers of Technology Choice: Browsers” with Tim Bresnahan
presentation at the NYU-Stern & Beida University-Guanghua School of Management Summer
Institute at Beijing, China in July 2007; Strategy Department, MIT Sloan in January 2007;
Economics Department, Northeastern University in November 2006; U.S. Federal Trade
Commission, Washington, DC in November 2006; Strategy and International Management
Department, London Business School in November 2006; Entrepreneurial Management Unit,
Harvard Business School in October 2006; The 6th Annual Technology Mini-Conference, Wharton
Business School, University of Pennsylvania in April 2006; Economics Department, University of
Maryland in March 2006; The Fair Trade Commission, Tokyo, Japan in May 2005; The Standard
Setting and Public Policy Conference, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in May 2005; NBER
Productivity Seminar, Cambridge, MA in February 2005; Strategy Department, Rotman School of
Management, University of Toronto in November 2004, and at the IO Fest, Stanford University in
October 2004.
“Empirical Tests of Information Aggregation” presented at INFORMS Annual Meeting in San
Francisco, CA in November of 2005.
“Information Dispersion and Auction Prices” presented at the Department of Management, New
York University – Stern in April 2007; at EARIE 2006, Amsterdam, The Netherlands in
November 2006; a Roundtable on the Economics of Internet Auctions at the Federal Trade
Commission in Washington, DC in October 2005; at the ITM seminar, Harvard Business School
in May 2004; Harvard Economics Department, Harvard University in September 2003 and the
Department of Economics, Duke University in December 2003.
“French IPO Auctions 1964-1998: Historical and Comparative Institutional Analysis”
presentation at the Frontiers of Institutional Economics workshop, Max Planck Institute, Jena,
Germany in May 1999.
“Regulation vs. Technology: Internet Enters the Race” presented at the International
Telecommunications Society Conference, in Stockholm, Sweden in June 1998.
Discussant for “Materialistic Genius and Market Power: Uncovering the best innovations,”
presented by E. Glen Weyl & Jean Tirole at The Economics of Intellectual Property, Software
and the Internet in Toulouse, France in January 2011.
Discussant for “Leveraging Monopoly Power by Limiting Interoperability: Theory and
Evidence from the Computer Market,” presented by Christo Genakos, Kai-Uwe Kühn & John
Van Reenen at the FTC Microeconomics Conference, Washington, DC in November 2009.
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Pai-Ling Yin
Discussant for “Retail Advertising Works!” presented by Randall Lewis & David Reiley at the
FTC Microeconomics Conference in Washington, DC in October 2008.
Discussant for “Platform Pricing at Sportscard Conventions,” presented by Ginger Jin & Marc
Rysman at the Economic Perspectives on Scholarly Communication in a Digital Age, University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI in September 2008.
Discussant for “Entry, Exit and Patenting in the Software Industry,” presented by Iain M.
Cockburn & Megan J. MacGarvie at the Strategy Research Fellows Conference in Brewster, MA
in May 2007.
Discussant for “Goodbye Pareto Principle, Hello Long Tail: The Effect of Search Costs on the
Concentration of Product Sales,” presented by Erik Brynjolfsson, Yu (Jeffrey) Hu, and Duncan
Simester at the American Economic Association Conference in Chicago, IL in January 2007.
Discussant for “Formal Contributions to Foundational Issues in Strategy” and “Technological
Evolution” at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Atlanta, GA in
August of 2006.
Discussant for “The Design of Industry,” presented by Sharon Novak at the CRES-Foundations
of Business Strategy Conference, Olin School of Business, Washington University in St. Louis,
MO in May 2006.
Discussant for “Did Brokerage Mergers Improve Forecasts? Evidence from Earnings Estimates”
presented by Matt Shum at the Tuck Winter IO Conference, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth,
NH in January 2006.
Discussant for “Curb Your Innovation: Corporate Conservatism in the Presence of Imperfect
Intellectual Property Rights,” presented by Mariagiovanna Baccara and Ronny Razin at the CRESFoundations in Business Strategy Conference, Olin School of Business, Washington University in
St. Louis, MO in May 2005.
Discussant for “Local Government Competition for BUS: A Field Experiment,” presented by
Victor Canalog at the American Economic Association Conference in Philadelphia, PA in
January 2005.
Discussant for “...Plus Shipping and Handling: Revenue (Non) Equivalence in Field Experiments
on eBay” presented by John Morgan and Tanjim Hossain at the American Economic Association
Conference in San Diego, CA in January of 2004.
In the Press
Marketplace radio interviews on exchanges (2013, 2014) and technology (2011, 2014)
Cited in Salz, Peggy-Anne, and InMobi. Apponomic: The Insider’s Guide to a Million
Dollar App Business (London: Tyson Press, 2014)
WGBH “Innovation Hub” radio interview on online commerce, 2012
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New York Times Freakonomics invited blogger on Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD, 2008
Other Activities
Co-owner, FitLab Pilates, Cambridge, MA
2008-present
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