Ideas Made to Matter
Blockchain for marketing? Maybe, but privacy issues abound
Blockchain’s permanent record is one of its strengths, but it can cause problems for marketing strategies and consumer privacy.
Mar 20, 2023
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Catherine Tucker
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Catherine Tucker is the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management and a Professor of Marketing at MIT Sloan. She is the faculty director of the EMBA program. She has also been the Chair of the MIT Sloan PhD Program.
Her research interests lie in how technology allows firms to use digital data and machine learning to improve performance, and in the challenges this poses for regulation. Tucker has particular expertise in online advertising, digital health, social media, and electronic privacy. Her research studies the interface between marketing, the economics of technology, and law.
She has received an NSF CAREER Award for her work on digital privacy, the Erin Anderson Award for an Emerging Female Marketing Scholar and Mentor, the Garfield Economic Impact Award for her work on electronic medical records, the Paul E. Green Award for contributions to the practice of Marketing Research, the William F. O'Dell Award for most significant, long-term contribution to Marketing, and the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science Long Term Impact Award for long-run impact on marketing.
She is a cofounder of the MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab which studies the applications of blockchain. She has been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. She has testified to Congress regarding her work on digital privacy and algorithms, and presented her research to the OECD, World Bank, IMF and the ECJ.
Tucker is senior editor at Marketing Science. She has been coeditor at Quantitative Marketing and Economics and associate editor at Management Science, Marketing Science, and the Journal of Marketing Research. She is the codirector of the program on Digital Economics and Artificial Intelligence at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
She teaches MIT Sloan's course on Pricing and the EMBA course "Marketing Management for the Senior Executive." She has received the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching as well as being voted "Teacher of the Year" at MIT Sloan.
She holds a PhD in economics from Stanford University and a BA from the University of Oxford.
Honors
Tucker and Simester win AMA award
Tucker wins O’Dell Award
Tucker receives long term impact award
Catherine Tucker recognized by American Marketing Association Foundation
Publications
"Inequality, Privacy, and Digital Market Design."
Tucker, Catherine. In Fair by Design, edited by Alex Teyteboym and Scott Kominers. Forthcoming.
"What Blockchain Can and Can’t Do: Applications to Marketing and Privacy."
Marthews, Alexander and Catherine Tucker. International Journal of Research in Marketing. Forthcoming.
"Digital Hermits."
Miklós-Thal, Jeanine, Avi Goldfarb, Avery Haviv, and Catherine E. Tucker, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6877-23. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, April 2023.
"Algorithmic Exclusion: The Fragility of Algorithms to Sparse and Missing Data."
Tucker, Catherine, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6841-23. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, January 2023. Brookings Center on Regulation and Markets Working Paper.
"How Do Restrictions on Advertising Affect Consumer Search?"
Chiou, Lesley and Catherine Tucker. Management Science Vol. 68, No. 2 (2022): 866-882. SSRN .
"The Drivers and Virality of Hate Speech Online."
Ananthakrishnan, Uttara M., and Catherine E. Tucker, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6508-21. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, January 2022.
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Executive Education
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This online program will equip you with the skills and understanding to accurately and effectively price new or existing products or services, with a focus on providing economic value to the customer.
- Jul 5-Aug 22, 2023
- Sep 27-Nov 14, 2023
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This online program draws on the work of leading MIT faculty and cryptoeconomics expert, Professor Christian Catalini, to examine blockchain technology from an economic perspective. You’ll be offered a foundational overview of how blockchain technology works, in order to demystify the technology and to understand its possibilities and limitations. Over the course of six weeks, you’ll be guided to understand blockchain technology beyond the fundamentals, and to appreciate its application and promise in the context of your own organization.
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