Hi, I'm Chaoran Liu
PhD Candidate in Quantitative Marketing at London Business School.
I am passionate about evolving technologies and their impact on marketing.
About me.
I am currently a fifth-year PhD candidate in Marketing at London Business School. My research is dedicated to understanding the interaction between evolving technologies and marketing strategies, specifically focusing on their impacts on digital platforms and market participants.
I employ rigorous empirical methods to establish causal evidence of technology's impact on marketing fields. Methodologically, I obtain and analyze large amounts of structured and unstructured data to create quasi-experimental conditions and use reduced-form methods to robustly estimate causal effects. Substantively, I study emerging technologies, including blockchain and generative AI, and their transformative effects on marketing. I am currently on the job market and expect to graduate in the spring of 2025.
Prior to academia, I spent six years as a consultant in marketing analytics in New York, London and Hamburg where I worked with my clients to improve marketing effectiveness.
Outside of research, I’m passionate about food, wine, and yoga. I founded the first Chongqing Noodle Bar in London and hold a WSET Diploma in Wine & Spirits.
- Education:
- PhD, London Business School (Expected Jun 2025)
- MS, Columbia Business School
- BA, Peking University
Research.
Seller Experience and Transaction Prices on a Blockchain-Enabled Marketplace
with Xu Zhang and Anja Lambrecht
Seller experience drives demand and impacts transaction prices in a diverse set of markets ranging from the traditional art market to e-commerce platforms. We investigate whether seller experience still affects transaction prices in blockchain-enabled marketplaces that aim to reduce information asymmetry and transaction uncertainty. Our empirical focus is on generative art non-fungible tokens (NFTs). We find that, unlike on traditional e-commerce platforms, seller experience does not serve as a quality signal that attracts more demand in the NFT market. However, more experienced sellers still sell at higher transaction prices -- an outcome of more experienced sellers making more profitable selling decisions. They hold items for longer before listing, set higher initial prices, and are less likely to adjust list prices. Together, these insights suggest that blockchain technology is effective in reducing information asymmetry and transaction uncertainty, thereby creating a more equal environment for sellers regardless of their experience level, while at the same time, despite a more level playing field, experience still affects earnings on such marketplaces.
Sales Manipulation on a Blockchain-Enabled Marketplace
with Anja Lambrecht
We study a typical sales manipulation strategy: artificially manipulate the number of sales in order to boost future sales. The significance of this issue in e-commerce and beyond has led platforms and regulators to implement bans, enforce hefty fines, and mandate the exit of offenders from the market. In this study, we propose a new way to tackle this issue that leverages the transparency offered by blockchain technology, empowering the market participants to self regulate with real-time information. We empirically examine the impact of such sales manipulation within the market of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), enabled by blockchain technology. Our results demonstrate that manipulated products do not sell more often, nor at higher prices, as compared to the control group, suggesting that blockchain technology could successfully circumvent the intention of the sales manipulation. Our study provides supporting evidence that increasing market transparency can help limit the damage of sales manipulation and the implications go beyond the blockchain-enabled marketplaces alone.
How Gen AI Affects Marketing Content: Evidence from the Restaurant Industry
with S.Alex Yang and Tong Wang
Generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) has revolutionized the production of marketing content, especially for small business owners who are often faced with significant time and budget constraints. This study examines how the adoption of Gen AI, especially large language models, influences the quality and distinctiveness of marketing content. Specifically, I ask whether Gen AI enhances content quality while also leading to content homogenization within market segments.