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Stephan Seiler
Stephan Seiler
Associate Professor, Marketing
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StephanSeiler
Associate Professor of Marketing
Academic Area: 
Marketing

Research Statement

Professor Stephan Seiler’s research focuses on analyzing consumer choice in various markets. He analyzes issues ranging from the choice of hospital for a bypass operation to the reaction of consumers to promotions on laundry detergent. He is particularly interested in understanding consumer search behavior, i.e., how informed consumers are about prices or other product characteristics when making a purchase decision. Another strand of research analyzes the production and impact of user-generated content on platforms such as Wikipedia and Twitter.

Bio

Professor Seiler received a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics and joined Stanford GSB in the summer of 2011. From 2008 to 2010 he served as a teaching fellow at the LSE. In this capacity he taught both Microeconomics and Industrial Organization and Competition Policy to graduate students. During his studies he worked at various think tanks such as Deutsche Bank Research. He also served a stint at the Office of Fair Trading, the UK-equivalent of the FTC, analyzing the effects of market power on productivity and innovation. At Stanford he teaches Data and Decisions and Applied Econometrics for Public Policy.

Academic Degrees

  • PhD in Economics, London School of Economics, 2011
  • MSc in Economics, London School of Economics, 2006
  • Diplom-Volkswirt, Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg, 2005

Academic Appointments

  • Associate Professor of Marketing, Stanford GSB, 2015-present
  • Assistant Professor of Marketing, Stanford GSB, 2011-2015
  • Chicago Booth, Kilts Center for Marketing, Faculty Fellow, April 2014
  • Associate, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, 2011-2015
  • Visiting Scholar, Institute for Fiscal Studies, London, 2008-2012

Awards and Honors

  • Fletcher Jones Faculty Scholars for 2016-2017
  • 25th Kenneth J. Arrow award for the Best Paper in Health Economics in 2016
  • Dick Wittink Award for the Best Paper in Quantitative Marketing and Economics (2014)

Publications

Journal Articles

Does Online Word-of-Mouth Increase Demand (and How?): Evidence from a Natural Experiment
Stephan Seiler, Song Yao, Wenbo Wang. Marketing Science (forthcoming). October 2017.
The Impact of Advertising Along the Conversion Funnel
Stephan Seiler, Song Yao. Quantitative Marketing & Economic. September 2017, Vol. 15, Issue 3, Pages 241-278.
Estimating Search Benefits from Path-tracking Data: Measurement and Determinants
Stephan Seiler, Fabio Pinna. Marketing Science. August 2017, Vol. 36, Issue 4, Pages 565-589.
Multi-Category Competition and Market Power: A Model of Supermarket Pricing
Øyvind Thomassen, Howard Smith, Stephan Seiler, Pasquale Schiraldi. American Economic Review. August 2017, Vol. 107, Issue 8, Pages 2308-2351.
Free to Choose? Reform, Choice and Consideration Sets in the English National Health Service
Stephan Seiler, Martin Gaynor, Carol Propper. American Economic Review. November 2016, Vol. 106, Issue 11, Pages 3251-3257.
Cumulative Growth in User-Generated Content Production: Evidence from Wikipedia
Stephan Seiler, Aleksi Aaltonen. Management Science. October 30, 2015, Vol. 62, Issue 7, Pages 2054-2069.
The Impact of Competition on Management Quality: Evidence from Public Hospitals
Stephan Seiler, Nicholas A. Bloom, Carol Propper, John Van Reenen. The Review of Economic Studies. January 2015, Vol. 82, Issue 2, Pages 457-489.
The Impact of Search Costs on Consumer Behavior: A Dynamic Approach
Stephan Seiler. Quantitative Marketing and Economics. June 2013, Vol. 11, Issue 2, Pages 155-203.

Other Publications

Comments On "Costly Search and Consideration Sets in Storable Goods Markets" by Tiago Pires
Stephan Seiler. Quantitative Marketing and Economics. September 1, 2016, Vol. 14, Issue 3, Pages 197-200.
In Defence of our Research on Competition in England's National Health Service
Stephan Seiler, NIcholas Bloom, Zack Cooper, Martin Gaynor, Stephen Gibbons, Simon Jones, Alistair McGuire, Rodrigo Moreno-Serra, Carol Propper, John Van Reenan. The Lancet. Eslevier, 2014, Vol. 378, Issue 9809, Pages 2064-2-65.

Teaching

Degree Courses

2017-18

MKTG 368: Consumer Search and Marketing: Business Models in the Information Economy

This class will explore the role of consumer search and firms' information provision with a focus on online markets and companies. Because the amount of information available to consumers has increased dramatically, it has become paramount for...

2016-17

MKTG 568: Consumer Search and Marketing: Business Models in the Information Economy

This class will explore the role of consumer search and firms’ information provision with a specific focus on online markets and companies. Because the amount of information available to consumers has increased dramatically, it has become...

In the Media

Free to Choose? The Impact of Healthcare Reform
CentrePiece Magazine, June 2013
Why Consumers Don't Always Take Advantage of Sales
GSB News, February 7, 2013
Free to Choose?
VOX, January 13, 2013
Management Practices in the NHS
CentrePiece Discussion Paper, 2010

Insights by Stanford Business

videoA Better Way to Track Shoppers Offline
October 9, 2017
Associate Professor Stephan Seiler shares how online tools can help track consumers in the real world.
writtenHow One-Stop Shopping Benefits Consumers
September 19, 2017
Retailers keep prices low across categories to avoid losing customers to competitors.
writtenFor Wikipedia’s Army of Volunteer Editors, Content Begets Content
August 22, 2016
A new study quantifies the “cumulative growth effect” in online content production platforms.
writtenYour Tweets Might Be the Key to Game of Thrones’ Success
August 12, 2016
Does a hit show drive social conversation, or is it really the other way around?
writtenStephan Seiler: Can Hospital Competition Save Lives?
June 9, 2015
Why market forces in healthcare are good for patient care.
writtenWhy Consumers Don't Always Take Advantage of Sales
February 7, 2013
Research from Stanford's Stephan Seiler says time constraints keep supermarket shoppers from finding best prices.

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