George Georgiadis Kellogg

CV  |  Publications  |  Working Papers |  Teaching 

Associate Professor of Strategy (with tenure)
Kellogg School of Management
Northwestern University


Curriculum Vitae       Orgs Insights LLM  (NEW!)

Research Interests
Microeconomic Theory, Organization Economics, Industrial Organization

Contact Information
Kellogg School of Management
Office 4223
2211 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208

E-mail: gjgeorgiadis@gmail.com



Short Bio

    I am an applied microeconomic theorist with a focus on organizational economics and industrial organization. At a broad level, my research studies how incentives—predominately financial ones—affect the behaviors of individuals and organizations. One line of research studies how firms can design effective incentive schemes to motivate their employees. Another line analyzes public good provision problems, and specifically, how inefficiencies such as freeriding can be attenuated.
     
    At Kellogg, I teach Strategy and Organizations (STRT 452), an elective MBA course on organizational economics, which offers a microeconomic approach to both the internal organization of firms and its relationship with their rivals' overall strategies. Topics include incentive pay, decentralization (e.g., transfer pricing and coordination issues), purpose-driven organizations, strategic communication, horizontal mergers, and vertical integration. I also teach Data-Driven Theory, a PhD course that familiarizes students with research at the interface of theory and empirics. Topics include contract theory under moral hazard and adverse selection, market design, reinforcement learning (algorithmic pricing), taxation, and social insurance.


Working Papers / Work in Progress

  • Incentives and Selection  (October, 2024)
    with Henrique Castro-Pires

    Abstract: Performance pay schemes influence not only workers' incentives to exert effort but also the composition of the workforce in terms of skill. Conventional wisdom suggests that steepening incentives should attract higher-skilled workers. However, we show that this is not universally true: under certain conditions, steeper incentives reduce the average skill level of the workforce. We identify sufficient conditions on observables such that a marginal adjustment to the pay scheme improves the skill composition of the workforce. Building on these insights, we determine the optimal adjustment to incentives that enhances performance without compromising worker selection.

  • Feedback Design in Dynamic Moral Hazard  [Slides]  [EC'24]  (December, 2024)
    with Jeffrey Ely and Luis Rayo
    Econometrica, Accepted

    Abstract: We study the joint design of dynamic incentives and performance feedback for an environment with a coarse (all-or-nothing) measure of performance, and show that hiding information from the agent can be an optimal way to motivate effort. Using a novel approach to incentive compatibility, we derive a two-phase solution that begins with a "silent phase" where the agent is given no feedback and is asked to work non-stop, and ends with a "full-transparency phase" where the agent stops working as soon as a performance threshold is met. Hiding information leads to greater effort, but an ignorant agent is also more expensive to motivate. The two-phase solution—where the agent's ignorance is fully frontloaded—stems from a "backward compounding effect" that raises the cost of hiding information as time passes.


Publications

  1. Contracting with Moral Hazard
    In the Elgar Encyclopedia on the Economics of Competition, Regulation and Antitrust (ed. Michael Noel)
  1. Robust Contracts: A Revealed Preference Approach  [Slides]  [EC'23]  
    with Nemanja Antic
    Review of Economics and Statistics, Forthcoming
  1. Flexible Moral Hazard Problems  [Slides]  
    with Doron Ravid and Balazs Szentes
    Econometrica, 2024, 92 (2), 387-409.
  1. Optimal Feedback in Contests  [Slides]  [EC'21]
    with Jeffrey Ely, Sina Moghadas Khorasani, and Luis Rayo
    Review of Economic Studies, 2023, 90 (5), 2370-2394.
    Featured in: Kellogg Insight
  1. Optimal Technology Design  [Slides]  [Online Appendix]
    with Daniel Garrett, Alex Smolin, and Balazs Szentes
    Journal of Economic Theory, 2023, 209, 105621.
  1. A/B Contracts  [Slides]  [Zoom Talk]  [Online Appendix]  [Matlab Code]
    with Michael Powell
    American Economic Review, 2022, 112 (1), 267-303.
    Featured in: Kellogg Insight
  1. The Absence of Attrition in a War of Attrition under Complete Information
    with Youngsoo Kim and Dharma Kwon
    Games & Economic Behavior, 2022, 131, 171-185.
  1. Working to Learn  [Slides]
    with Drew Fudenberg and Luis Rayo
    Journal of Economic Theory, 2021, 197, 105347.
  1. Optimal Monitoring Design  [Slides]  [Online Appendix]
    with Balazs Szentes
    Econometrica, 2020, 88 (5), 2075-2107.
    Featured in: Kellogg Insight
  1. Optimal Contracts with a Risk-Taking Agent   [Slides]  [Online Appendix]  [Matlab Code]
    with Daniel Barron and Jeroen Swinkels
    Theoretical Economics, 2020, 15 (2), 715-761.
    Featured in: Kellogg Insight, Bloomberg, and SmartBrief
  1. Collective Choice in Dynamic Public Good Provision   [Slides]
    with Renee Bowen and Nicolas Lambert
    American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2019, 11 (1), 243-298.
  1. Deadlines and Infrequent Monitoring in the Dynamic Provision of Public Goods  (Lead article)
    Journal of Public Economics, 2017, 152, 1-12.
  1. Project Contracting Strategies for Managing Team Dynamics  (Not peer-reviewed)
    in Information Exchange in Supply Chain Management (eds. Albert Ha and Christopher Tang), Springer.
  1. Achieving Efficiency in Dynamic Contribution Games    [Slides]
    with Jaksa Cvitanic
    American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2016, 8 (4), 309-342.
    Featured in: Kellogg Insight
  1. Projects and Team Dynamics   [Online Appendix]   [Slides]
    Review of Economic Studies, 2015, 82 (1), 187-218.
  1. Project Design with Limited Commitment and Teams   [Slides]
    with Steven Lippman and Christopher Tang
    RAND Journal of Economics, 2014, 45 (3), 598-623.
  1. Optimal Reservation Policies and Market Segmentation
    with Christopher Tang
    International Journal of Production Economics, 2014, 154, 81-99.

  1. The Retail Planning Problem Under Demand Uncertainty   [Slides]
    with Kumar Rajaram
    Production and Operations Management, 2013, 22 (5), 1200-1213.



Teaching & Lecture Notes