Nipun Thakurele
PhD Candidate, NYU Stern School of Business
I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Technology, Operations and Statistics at NYU Stern School of Business and am on the 2026–27 academic job market.
My research studies how information and visibility are controlled in digital markets, and how that control shapes competition, firm strategy, and consumer welfare. I examine these questions in settings involving online platforms, disclosure mandates, and AI intermediaries. Across my work, a common theme is that seemingly informational design choices—such as which seller is shown, what firms must disclose, or what an AI assistant reveals to consumers—can fundamentally change firms’ incentives and market outcomes.
Research
How platform rules and algorithmic ranking determine seller visibility and reshape competition within and across marketplaces.
How disclosure requirements change what firms reveal, how they reveal it, and whether transparency persists when mandates disappear.
How AI assistants and shopping agents change information acquisition, consumer delegation, platform incentives, and competition.
Online marketplaces can condition prominent seller visibility, as in Amazon’s Buy Box, on whether sellers keep their prices no higher than on rival platforms, creating an implicit price-parity rule. How such a rule affects competition and consumer welfare when sellers can choose whether to comply is an important question. We find that its effects depend critically on seller response and market structure, and need not be uniformly harmful to consumers.
Online platforms often use featured placement to direct consumer attention toward selected offers, as in Amazon’s Buy Box. In hybrid marketplaces, where the platform also competes as a retailer, how price-based visibility affects competition is less clear. We find that price-contingent featured placement can either intensify or soften price competition depending on market conditions, and can reduce both firm profits and consumer welfare despite increasing demand.