Jiajun Tian

Ph.D. Candidate in Economics, Stony Brook University
Email: jiajun.tian@stonybrook.edu
Queens, NY

About Me

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Stony Brook University, advised by Yiyi Zhou, Ting Liu, and Mark R. Montgomery. My research lies in Empirical Industrial Organization (IO), focusing on retail competition, consumer search, and promotion strategies in the U.S. pharmacy market.

My Job Market Paper, titled “Promotion and Consumer Search in the Retail Market: An Empirical Analysis of the U.S. Pharmacy Industry”, studies how retailers strategically use in-house product promotions to attract traffic and compete with third-party brands.

📄 Download CV (PDF)
📝 Draft and slides available upon request.

Research

Promotion and Consumer Search in the Retail Market: An Empirical Analysis of the U.S. Pharmacy Industry

Job Market Paper. Work in Progress.

Based on proprietary NielsenIQ scanner and household panel data, this paper analyzes how retailers strategically deploy promotions on private-label products to compete both against rival stores and third-party brands within the same store.
Integrates a sequential search model with a BLP-style demand system to quantify effects on store traffic, profits, and consumer welfare, and conducts counterfactual simulations to assess equilibrium outcomes.

Mixed Bundling in Two-Sided Markets

Work in Progress.

Builds a structural model using video game console industry data to study how two-sided pricing and bundling affect platform market power, third-party incentives, and consumer surplus.

Cross-Category Demand Spillovers and Loss-Leader Promotions

Work in Progress.

Uses large-scale NielsenIQ data to model cross-category spillovers and evaluate loss-leader strategies in retail competition.

Teaching

Stony Brook University, Department of Economics

Graduate Instructor — Introduction to Econometrics (Undergraduate), 2025–Present
Designed syllabus, delivered lectures, and evaluated student performance. Integrated active learning and econometric software (Excel, R).
Teaching Assistant (Undergraduate Courses), 2020–2025
Led recitations for Intermediate Microeconomic Theory, Introduction to Economics, Mathematical Statistics, and Money & Banking. Assisted in grading, tutoring, and holding office hours.

Research Fields

Empirical Industrial Organization; Applied Game Theory; Applied Microeconomics

Skills

Software: MATLAB, R, Stata, Python, SQL, Excel, LaTeX
Certifications: Wharton Business Analytics Specialization
Languages: English (Fluent), Mandarin (Native), Japanese (Basic)

References

Prof. Yiyi Zhou – Department of Economics, Stony Brook University
yiyi.zhou@stonybrook.edu
Prof. Ting Liu – Department of Economics, Stony Brook University
ting.liu@stonybrook.edu
Prof. Mark R. Montgomery – Department of Economics, Stony Brook University
mark.montgomery@stonybrook.edu