Pinar Yildirim
@profyildirim.bsky.social
130 followers 270 following 30 posts
Marketing & Economics Professor the Wharton School of @UPenn. Scholar of digital economy, technology, media. @NBER.org Fellow. www.pinaryildirim.com
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profyildirim.bsky.social
Looking forward!
digitalecon.org
The next #VIDEseminar talk will be coming up tomorrow! 👇
digitalecon.org
🚨 Coming up at #VIDEseminar: Pinar Yildirim (Wharton School) @profyildirim.bsky.social

“Artificial Intelligence in Team Dynamics: Who Gets Replaced and Why?”

🔜 Wed, October 8, 11am New York, 5pm Berlin. Open to anyone!

Further information: www.digitalecon.org/seminar
profyildirim.bsky.social
UTD-FORMS Conference is a great conference for academics in marketing, economics, and related fields to share recent research and get useful feedback. Happy to be in the scientific committee this year. Send us your best papers!

jindal.utdallas.edu/20th-annual-...
20th Annual Bass FORMS Conference
Call for Papers: 20th Annual Frank M. Bass UTD-FORMS Conference February 26-February 28, 2026 We invite you to take part in the 20th Annual Frank M. Bass Frontiers of Research in Marketing Science Con...
jindal.utdallas.edu
profyildirim.bsky.social
Thanks, @nber.org, for the post on our recent working paper.

Yes, we find AI can lower wage inequality within teams.

Details in the paper.
nber.org
NBER @nber.org · 16d
Examining how managers should deploy AI in sequential team workflows finds that optimal AI deployment is stochastic, replaces early and late positions in the workflow, and results in lower wage inequality, from Cheng, Dogan, and @profyildirim.bsky.social https://www.nber.org/papers/w34259
profyildirim.bsky.social
I need you to slow down another 30 seconds so we can run :)
profyildirim.bsky.social
@aviceisza.bsky.social is a friend I gained over years of NBER meetings, with conversations on organizational economics and running. One NBER morning we tried to run together and he quickly dusted me off in 6min miles. If Angelino runs for this role as he runs in real life, no one stands a chance!
aviceisza.bsky.social
‼️Voting in the @aeainformation.bsky.social annual election of officers opens on August 1.

The electronic ballot will be sent on behalf of the AEA by Intelliscan, Inc., [email protected].

Read my statement of purpose and bio at www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/le....
profyildirim.bsky.social
This will be interesting to watch
financialtimes.com
The French government has launched a criminal investigation into Elon Musk’s X over 'the alleged manipulation of its algorithm' and 'fraudulent' data extraction, the social media platform said https://on.ft.com/4nZ9OcE
profyildirim.bsky.social
It will take a while to make Philly’s incoming WNBA team profitable.

And, not surprisingly, what will take it to sustainability will be good marketing and financial planning rather than great athletic capacity in the long term. (Of course, we want that too!)

Good luck to Philly’s new WNBA team!
profyildirim.bsky.social
Despite the growth projections, most WNBA teams currently generate annual losses.

Tennis and golf remain the two most profitable women’s sports, mostly thanks to the media deals, corporate sponsorships, and ticket sales.
profyildirim.bsky.social
As one dives into the operational reality of bringing a team to a city, it becomes clear that involvement of an NBA team is beneficial because a venue is required, and this is a big investment for any new team.

So 5 WNBA teams are owned by NBA owners, and others have various collaborations.
profyildirim.bsky.social
— avg team valuation
$3.5b vs 55m

— avg viewership per game
1.6m vs 456K (across various media)

— avg ticket cost
$94 vs 47
profyildirim.bsky.social
Some interesting numbers from this undertaking were as follows (pls take them with a grain of salt, as most numbers came from personal interviews):

NBA vs WNBA:

— Avg salary of a player: $9.6m vs $120K/yr

— highest paid player:
$54m vs $235K
profyildirim.bsky.social
But the moment you walk into women’s sports, you realize how challenging it is for these teams to make it. They need to be financially sustainable and compete with men’s sports for media/advertising dollars, sponsorships, fandom, and venues.

Otherwise investments become donations for a cause.
profyildirim.bsky.social
Over the past few years, I advised a group of @wharton executive MBA women who were devoted to bringing WNBA to Philadelphia.

I hoped to contribute to the transformation of the city’s economy. And I played basketball in various teams growing up, so this was a personally rewarding activity.
theathletic.com
BREAKING: The WNBA announced it is adding three more expansion teams in the coming years that will be located in Cleveland, Philadelphia and Detroit.
profyildirim.bsky.social
It is great to be part of SICSS (Summer Institute in Computational Social Science) Penn 2025, which brings together researchers from various fields. If you are a PhD student or a young faculty attending, please reach out before or after the events.

sicss.io/2025/penn/pe...
Summer Institute in Computational Social Science
sicss.io
profyildirim.bsky.social
The FCC has to consider viewpoint diversity for news media outlet mergers (for good reasons). But did we see other advertising holding companies subjected to viewpoint diversity? Should we treat media-buying ad companies as a force shaping the media industry? This is a new territory.
profyildirim.bsky.social
FTC's Daniel Guarnera says “Coordination among advertising agencies to suppress advertising spending on publications with disfavored political or ideological viewpoints threatens to distort not only competition between ad agencies, but also public discussion and debate.”
profyildirim.bsky.social
What is interesting about the FTC proposed order is its restrictions that prevent the parties from "engaging in collusion or coordination to direct advertising away from media publishers based on the publishers’ political or ideological viewpoints."
profyildirim.bsky.social
The FTC gave the green light for a merger between Omnicom Media Group and IPG Mediabrands, currently the third and the fourth largest advertising agencies, to form the largest global ad agency. How this merger will impact the advertising markets and media-buying behavior are to be seen.
profyildirim.bsky.social
(4) With optimal AI adoption, some wages within a homogenous team may increase, and intra-team wage inequality may decline.

If you read the paper, please share your feedback with us.
profyildirim.bsky.social
(3) The principal may choose not to fully exhaust the AI capacity at her discretion, that is, the rate of AI adoption is not necessarily defined by the technological resource constraints.
profyildirim.bsky.social
(2) Workers at the upper-most and the lower-most ends of the line network have higher risk of being replaced.

The middle worker, being essential for the information flow, keeps his full employment.
profyildirim.bsky.social
We offer four key insights.

(1) The optimal AI strategy involves the stochastic use of AI to replace workers — varying use of AI and workers across projects or shifts, for example.

So, AI may not reduce employment at the extensive margin, even if it may do so at the intensive margin.
profyildirim.bsky.social
We develop a model where a principal introduces an AI in a sequential team work setting.

An AI has lower moral hazard risk, but depending on which worker the AI replaces, its introduction can interrupt the information flow between workers and have negative externalities.
profyildirim.bsky.social
What is the optimal strategy of AI deployment?

What is the effect of AI on the wages of the workers by their position?

What is the effect of AI on intra-team wage inequality?