Associate Professor, The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, The Johns Hopkins University (courtesy)
Research interests: Economic Theory, Social Networks, Trust and Cooperation, Influence, Digital Economy and User Generated Content, Marketing and AI, Privacy...
E-mail: i.p.fainmesser [at] gmail [dot] com
Twitter: @ItayFainmesser
9/9/2025
Happy to have joined The Center for Innovative Leadership (CIL) at The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School as an Affiliate Faculty. Looking forward to engaging with a wonderful group of interdisciplinary thinkers.
8/4/2025
Excited to share that I’ve joined the Future of Privacy Forum Advisory Board. Looking forward to contributing to the important conversations at the intersection of privacy, AI, and policy, and learning from such a thoughtful group of colleagues.
6/16/2025
Excited to be a part of a team awarded the 2025 Johns Hopkins Discovery Award for our project on Patient-Centered Biospecimen Market Design. Honored to collaborate with Mario Macis, Marielle Gross, Vivian Altiery De Jesus, Brandi Scully, Cayton Yates, Idris Leppla, and Cynda Rushton.
4/3/2025
I'm co-organizing (with Chen Cheng, Yujung Hwang, and Jessie Liu) the 6rd Conference on Social and Political Economics. This year's conference will be at The Hopkins Carey Business School on May 2-3 and titled Polarization in the Age of AI and the Post-Truth Era. The program and free registration are here.
12/6/2024
An article on our papers Consumer Profiling via Information Design and Digital Privacy (with Andrea Galeotti and Ruslan Momot) and other privacy related issues.
9/26/2024
I had the privilege to moderate a super interesting panel on The Regulation of Privacy in the US. Big thanks for our panelists: Alessandro Bonatti, Laura Brandimarte, Alejandro Rosenberg, and Daniel Sokol. And thanks to Christine Collins for following up with this article about the panel.
7/15/2024
A short post on our paper "Consumer Profiling via Information Design" (joint with Andrea Galeotti and Ruslan Momot):
6/18/2024
My student and co-author, Xudong Zheng, is on the academic market in Marketing. He is an applied theorist with interest in the digital economy, influencer marketing, and expert advice. His JMP is Strategic Conformity in Affiliated Marketing. Please don't hesitate to contact me for more information.
11/7/2023
A new blog post in The Management Science Review on our paper "Digital Privacy" (joint with Andrea Galeotti and Ruslan Momot):
10/9/2023
Our paper "Digital Privacy" (joint with Andrea Galeotti and Ruslan Momot) was selected to be one of the three finalists for the MSOM Service SIG Best Paper Award 2023.
8/20/2023
After a very long Covid hiatus, our Conference Series on Social and Political Economics is back. This year's conference will be in the Harbor East campus of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School on September 8-9 and is titled Data Markets & Privacy. The conference is open to faculty and interested students. The program and free registration are here.
3/23/2022
I sat with my co-author and friend, Ruslan Momot, and our host Debra Mao, for a conversation about digital privacy, incentives, and welfare. Much of the conversation is based on findings in our paper Digital Privacy (joint with Andrea Galeotti).
1/27/2022
I had a interesting conversation with Joshua Porterfield of the JHU Pandemic Data Initiative about health data, privacy, and social networks. Here's his coverage of it:
10/4/2021
An article by my co-author and friend, Ruslan Momot, who is also on the job market in OM, about our joint work with Andrea Galeotti on digital privacy:
8/19/2021
Korean media interview with my co-author, Ruslan Momot, about our joint work (also joint with Andrea Galeotti) on digital privacy:
12/4/2020
A nice article by my co-author, Ruslan Momot, about our joint work (also joint with Andrea Galeotti) on digital privacy:
7/24/2020
A byproduct of the COVID-19 pandemic and of social distancing is a sharp increase in online activity. This magnifies existing digital privacy challenges and introduces new ones. There is a lot that we don't yet understand, but some that we do. A short interview that I gave on the issue is available here. It is based on my paper Digital Privacy with Andrea Galeotti and Ruslan Momot.
3/21/2020
Thank you to Luohan Academy for covering our work in their Frontiers magazine. While it is correct that we recommend enforcement against online adversaries, our policy recommendations also include regulation of digital businesses, in particular, holding businesses liable for damage to users and a minimal level of data protection requirement. Scroll down for a video of a short talk in which I cover our main results and policy recommendations.
3/5/2020
Update: the Privacy Workshop at Princeton was a great learning experience. Here's a 25-minute video of my talk:
2/18/2020
Looking forward to this week's Privacy Workshop at Princeton, with a wonderful set of speakers that I hope to learn a lot from.
2/14/2020
The 4th Conference on Social and Political Economics is coming up. This year's conference will be at The Carey Campus on April 24-25 and will be titled The Sharing/Gig Economy. The program and free registration are here.
9/24/2019
My co-author, Ruslan Momot, is on the US market in Operations Management. In a new paper, Ruslan and I, together with Andrea Galeotti, develop a framework to study Digital Privacy. We find that—contrary to public opinion—advertisement-driven companies do not invariably retain more of their users’ data than do transaction-driven companies, and that measuring the direct damage inflicted by malicious parties on users significantly underestimates the welfare loss and the loss of consumer surplus due to adversarial activity.
5/6/2019
From La Réclame on my work with Andrea Galeotti on The Market for Online Influence (in French):
4/16/19
From the HUB on my work with Andrea Galeotti on The Market for Online Influence:
4/5/19
I'm co-organizing (with Chen Cheng, Marcelo Fernandez, and Yiqing Xing) the 3rd Conference on Social and Political Economics. This year's conference will be on Hopkins' Homewood Campus on May 3-4 and will be titled (De)centralization and Incentives. The program and free registration are here.
Econ conference 11 x 17 poster March 22.pdf2/19/19
In a new paper, joint with Dominique Lauga and Elie Ofek, we study a model of Ratings, Reviews, and the Marketing of New Products. We show that whether consumers share just ratings or full reviews online has implications to the firm's pricing and advertising efforts, and affects profits and welfare.
3/19/19
In a recent paper, joint with Andrea Galeotti, we develop a model of The Market for Online Influence and study the growing practice of Influencer Marketing. The paper was covered by Changing Business Magazine and by the London Business School Review. Here's a trailer:
