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Thomas Jungbauer

Thomas Jungbauer

  • Assistant Professor

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Faculty Area

Interdisciplinary Theme

Faculty Expertise

  • Economics
  • Strategy
  • Employment Relations
  • Industrial Organization
  • Antitrust
  • Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Contact

Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management

607.255.2501

tj268@cornell.edu

Cornell Directory Entry

Website

Biography

Thomas Jungbauer is Assistant Professor of Strategy and Business Economics at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. He applies economic theory to study how firms and industries are organized, with a particular focus on the role of information held by different entities. His research particularly centers on high-skill labor markets and the digital economy.

In his work on labor market power, Jungbauer shows that wage competition in high-skill sectors can lead to inefficient worker allocation when firms differ in their buyer power for labor. He also demonstrates that firms may want to delegate the task of bidding for vacant positions—either to internal or external agents—as they balance the trade-off between commitment and market power.

His research on information and signaling in labor markets emphasizes how, and to what extent, job seekers can shape their skill sets and their visibility to employers. Notably, he finds that lying or strategically misrepresenting oneself can sometimes reduce inefficient investments in low-value signals. To understand market outcomes, he argues, it is essential to recognize that labor market signals combine both unobservable characteristics (like innate ability) and unobservable actions (like effort or investment).

Another major area of Jungbauer’s research investigates how information and its ownership influence the strategic behavior of online platforms. He examines how property rights over consumer-specific data affect both the quality and quantity of personalized ads, how platforms like Amazon and Google use this data to rank search results, and how sponsored content shapes the usefulness of those results for consumers.

In the realm of innovation, Jungbauer explores how corporate espionage impacts firm organization and investment incentives. He also studies how the fear of self-cannibalization leads successful firms to avoid outsourcing R&D for new products.
His earlier research addresses optimal branding strategies for firms offering vertically differentiated product lines. Additionally, he critically reviews the literature on games under fundamental uncertainty and proposes an alternative benchmark aligned with the concept of rationalizable strategies under risk.

Currently, he is investigating how personnel-specific information—held by senior employees such as managers—affects labor market outcomes, and what drives referral patterns among horizontally differentiated specialists such as doctors and lawyers.

At Cornell, Professor Jungbauer teaches the core Business Strategy module in the Two-Year MBA and the Cornell-Tsinghua Dual Degree Finance MBA programs. He has also taught in the Cornell Tech MBA program and is scheduled to teach in the Americas Executive MBA program in 2025. During his graduate studies at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, he led sessions across various economics, statistics, and strategy courses at the undergraduate, graduate, MBA, and executive levels.

Jungbauer earned his PhD in Managerial Economics and Strategy from Kellogg in 2016. He also holds master’s degrees in Managerial Economics and Strategy from Northwestern University and in Economics from the Vienna Institute of Advanced Studies.

Selected Publications

Awards and Honors

  • Teaching Honor Roll (2023) Johnson School of Management, Cornell University
  • Best 40 under 40 Professors (2018) Poets & Quants
  • Teaching Appreciation Award (2016) Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
  • Executive Teaching Appreciation Medal (2015) Executive Manager's Program 99, Northwestern University
  • Award for Extraordinary Academic Achievements (2009) Republic of Austria

Recent Courses

  • NCCT 5090 - Strategy
  • NCC 5090/LAW 5091 - Strategy

Academic Degrees

  • PhD Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 2016
  • MS Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 2013
  • MS Vienna Institute of Advanced Studies (IHS) & Vienna University of Technology (TU), 2011
  • BS Vienna University of Economics & Business Administration (WU), 2009

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