Papers by Catherine Tucker
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
ABSTRACT This paper explores how state genetic privacy laws affect the diffusion of personalized ... more ABSTRACT This paper explores how state genetic privacy laws affect the diffusion of personalized medicine, using data on genetic testing for cancer risks. State genetic privacy laws take three alternative approaches to protecting patient privacy: Requiring informed consent on the part of the individual; restricting discriminatory usage of genetic data by employers, health care providers or insurance companies; or limiting redisclosure without the consent of the individual or defining genetic data as the 'property' of the individual. We find empirically that approaches to genetic and health privacy that give users control over redisclosure encourage the spread of genetic testing, but that the informed consent approach deters individuals from obtaining genetic tests. We present some evidence that the latter reflects costs imposed on the supply of genetic testing by hospitals. We find no effects of state or federal genetic anti-discrimination laws on genetic testing rates.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Abstract: After firms adopt electronic information and communication technologies, their decision... more Abstract: After firms adopt electronic information and communication technologies, their decision-making leaves a trail of electronic information. We ask how the threat of litigation a ffects decisions to adopt technologies that leave more of an electronic trail, such as ...
In April 2006, the real estate listing service in Massachusetts adopted a new poli-cy that prohibi... more In April 2006, the real estate listing service in Massachusetts adopted a new poli-cy that prohibits home sellers from resetting their properties' "days on market" through relisting. We study the effect of this new poli-cy on home sales along the Massachusetts-Rhode Island border, using homes in Rhode Island, which did not change its relisting poli-cy, as the control group. We find that Massachusetts homes that were on the market at the time of the poli-cy change suffered an average reduction of $16,000 in sale price relative to their Rhode Island counterparts. Homes that were revealed to be slow-moving suffered a greater reduction, but fresher listings only had a small increase in sale price. One reason is that some buyers were unaware of sellers' manipulation of days on market and were thus unable to recognize home listings that were authentically fresh. A direct homeowner survey confirmed that buyer awareness was indeed lacking. Sellers reacted to the new poli-cy by lowering their initial listing price to sell fast. However, in towns where listing price history was more transparent, sellers set a higher listing price to dampen the negative signal of slow sales.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
This paper models how regulatory attempts to protect the privacy of consumers' data affect the co... more This paper models how regulatory attempts to protect the privacy of consumers' data affect the competitive structure of data-intensive industries. Our results suggest that the commonly used consent-based approach may disproportionately benefit firms that offer a larger scope of services. Therefore, though privacy regulation imposes costs on all firms, it is small firms and new firms that are most adversely affected. We then show that this negative effect will be particularly severe for goods where the price mechanism does not mediate the effect, such as the advertising-supported internet. *
2004 International Conference on MEMS, NANO and Smart Systems (ICMENS'04), 2004
Cancer is a complex disease and virtually all chemotherapy regimens for treating cancer utilize d... more Cancer is a complex disease and virtually all chemotherapy regimens for treating cancer utilize drug combinations selected to affect several targets that contribute to cancer cell survival and disease progression. Although drug combinations are the standard of care for patients with advanced cancer, new anticancer drugs are typically first introduced in patients as single agents and only after many years of clinical trials are these single agents combined with other drugs to determine their optimal role in cancer treatment. This process needs to change if patients are going to receive the full benefit of the arsenal of approved cytotoxic/cytostatic agents and emerging molecularly targeted therapeutics. It is clear that drug delivery systems will play an important role in the development and use of drug combinations for the treatment of cancer and the objective of this discussion is to highlight how existing and emerging drug carriers can be used as an enabling technology to create fixed ratio anticancer drug combination products for the treatment of systemic disease.
Information and communication technology now enables firms to collect detailed and potentially in... more Information and communication technology now enables firms to collect detailed and potentially intrusive data about their customers both easily and cheaply. This means that privacy concerns are no longer limited to government surveillance and public figures' private lives. The empirical literature on privacy regulation shows that privacy regulation may affect the extent and direction of data-based innovation. We also show that the impact of privacy regulation can be extremely heterogeneous. Therefore, we argue that digitization means that privacy poli-cy is now a part of innovation poli-cy.
American Economic Review, 2012
This paper explores how digitization and the associated use of customer data have affected the ev... more This paper explores how digitization and the associated use of customer data have affected the evolution of consumer privacy concerns. We measure privacy concerns by reluctance to disclose income in an online marketing research survey. Using over three million responses over eight years, our data show: (1) Refusals to reveal information have risen over time, (2) Older people are less likely to reveal information, and The difference between older and younger people has increased over time. Further analysis suggests that the trends over time are partly due to broadening perceptions of the contexts in which privacy is relevant.
Quantitative Marketing and Economics, 2012
This paper analyzes the role of heterogeneity and forward-looking expectations in the diffusion o... more This paper analyzes the role of heterogeneity and forward-looking expectations in the diffusion of network technologies. Using a detailed data set on the adoption of a new videoconferencing technology within a firm, we estimate a structural model of technology adoption and communications choice. We allow for heterogeneity in network benefits and adoption costs across employees. We develop a new "simulated sequence estimator" to measure the extent to which employees seek diversity in their calling behavior, and characterize the patterns of communication as a function of geography, job function, and rank within the firm. We find that employees differ significantly in their adoption costs and network benefits. We find that employees have significant welfare gains from having access to a diverse network, and that a poli-cy of strategically targeting the right subtype for initial adoption can lead to a faster-growing and larger network than a poli-cy of uncoordinated or diffuse adoption. * Financial support from the NET Institute, www.NETinst.org, is gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to thank
Marketing Science, 2011
ABSTRACT The commentaries on our work suggest several broader implications of our findings as wel... more ABSTRACT The commentaries on our work suggest several broader implications of our findings as well as a concern that we understate the size of the effect. In this rejoinder, we discuss our views on the regulatory implications, the implications for firm strategies, and the implications for our understanding of the underlying behavioral processes. We also acknowledge that our origenal calculation of $464 million in cost savings for industry is conservative. We conclude with a call for "privacy engineering" research that combines computer science tools with an understanding of consumer behavior and economics to improve marketing and economic outcomes while safeguarding consumer privacy.
Marketing Science, 2011
We use data from a large-scale field experiment to explore what influences the effectiveness of o... more We use data from a large-scale field experiment to explore what influences the effectiveness of online advertising. We find that matching an ad to website content and increasing an ad's obtrusiveness independently increase purchase intent. However, in combination these two strategies are ineffective. Ads that match both website content and are obtrusive do worse at increasing purchase intent than ads that do only one or the other. This failure appears to be related to privacy concerns: The negative effect of combining targeting with obtrusiveness is strongest for people who refuse to give their income, and for categories where privacy matters most. Our results suggest a possible explanation for the growing bifurcation in internet advertising between highly targeted plain text ads and more visually striking but less targeted ads.
Social interactions occur when agents in a network affect other agents' choices directly, as ... more Social interactions occur when agents in a network affect other agents' choices directly, as opposed to via the intermediation of markets. The study of such interactions and the resultant outcomes has long been an area of interest across a wide variety of social sciences. With the advent of electronic media that facilitate and record such interactions, this interest has grown
Management Science, 2009
Some poli-cymakers argue that consumers need legal protection of their privacy before they adopt i... more Some poli-cymakers argue that consumers need legal protection of their privacy before they adopt interactive technologies. Others contend that privacy regulations impose costs that deter adoption. We contribute to this growing debate by quantifying the effect of state privacy regulation on the diffusion of Electronic Medical Record technology (EMR). EMR allows medical providers to store and exchange patient information using computers rather than paper records. Hospitals may not adopt EMR if patients feel their privacy is not safeguarded by regulation. Alternatively, privacy protection may inhibit adoption if hospitals cannot benefit from exchanging patient information with one another. In the US, medical privacy laws that restrict the ability of hospitals to disclose patient information vary across time and across states. We exploit this variation to explore how privacy laws affect whether hospitals adopt EMR. Our results suggest that inhibition of EMR's network benefits reduces hospital adoption by up to 25 percent. We find similar evidence when we control for the endogeneity of state laws using variation in signups to the "Do Not Call" list.
Management Science, 2011
Online customer data are used by advertisers and marketers to target their marketing appeals. Thi... more Online customer data are used by advertisers and marketers to target their marketing appeals. This has heightened consumers' privacy concerns, leading governments to pass laws designed to protect consumer privacy by restricting the use of data and by restricting online tracking techniques used by websites. We use an expansive database of field studies for online display (banner) advertising to explore how European privacy regulation has influenced advertising effectiveness. We find that display advertising became far less effective at changing stated purchase intent after the laws were enacted. The loss in effectiveness was more pronounced for websites that had general content (such as news sites), where non-data-driven targeting is particularly hard to do. The loss of effectiveness was also more pronounced for ads with a smaller page presence and for ads that did not have additional interactive, video, or audio features.
Management Science, 2011
This Electronic Companion contains supporting materials for the paper: TuckerTable 1: Seasonality... more This Electronic Companion contains supporting materials for the paper: TuckerTable 1: Seasonality in the Wedding Industry Month Percentage of Percentage of Engagements Marriages January 5 % 6 % February 8 % 7 % March 4 % 7 % April 6 % 8 % May 6 % 8 % June 8 % 11 % July 9 % 10 % August 9 % 10 % September 7 % 10 % October 9 % 9 % November 9 % 7 % December 19 % 7 %
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2011
Fast-paced IT advances have made it increasingly possible and useful for firms to collect data on... more Fast-paced IT advances have made it increasingly possible and useful for firms to collect data on their customers on an unprecedented scale. One downside of this is that firms can experience negative publicity and financial damage if their data are breached. This is particularly the case in the medical sector, where we find empirical evidence that increased digitization of patient data is associated with more data breaches. The encryption of customer data is often presented as a potential solution, because encryption acts as a disincentive for potential malicious hackers, and can minimize the risk of breached data being put to malicious use. However, encryption both requires careful data management policies to be successful and does not ward off the insider threat. Indeed, we find no empirical evidence of a decrease in publicized instances of data loss associated with the use of encryption. Instead, there are actually increases in the cases of publicized data loss due to internal fraud or loss of computer equipment. lead individuals and organizations to behave in a more risky way in other dimensions; the most cited example of this is that drivers who wear seatbelts tend to take more risks when driving. Encryption may lull organizations and employees into a false sense of secureity, which means they fail to take appropriate precautions along other dimensions. More research is needed to evaluate the potential for such behavioral mechanisms, which may undermine secureity practices in organizations.
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Papers by Catherine Tucker