Weining Bao
Assistant Professor
Department of Marketing
School of Business
University of Connecticut
Education
Ph.D. in Economics, Johns Hopkins University, 2014
BEcon&Fin with Minor in Mathematics (First Class Honours), University of Hong Kong, 2008
Research Interests
Substantive: Societal impact driven marketing, AI-enabled markets, Information design and incentives, Financial services markets, Education markets
Methodological: Empirical and theoretical industrial organization, Applied game theory, Applied econometrics
Biography
Weining is a modeller who employs both empirical and analytical methods to investigate strategic interactions among consumers, firms, and policymakers. His primary research interests lie in societal impact driven marketing (e.g., consumer well-being, law and regulation, and inequality), with a focus on market design and strategic pricing in financial services and education markets. More recently, Weining has expanded his research to examine how (1) information technologies (e.g., AI) and (2) information design shape consumer decision-making, firm strategy, and social welfare. Weining's research is interdisciplinary, and his work has appeared in Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Management Science, Marketing Science, and Production and Operations Management. Weining currently serves as a member of the editorial boards of Decision Science and Journal of Business Research.
Weining has taught at universities in various countries, such as Australia and China. He has taught Marketing Research and Pricing at undergraduate level and Dynamic Methods at postgraduate level. At UConn, he teaches Digital Marketing Analytics and has previously taught Advanced Modeling.
Weining has been passionate about mathematics in his school years, actively engaging as a Mathematics Olympiad player (from 5th grade to 12th grade). In 11th grade, Weining outperformed his 12th-grade peers and received the first prize in the 2002 Chinese National Mathematics Olympiad in Senior. This success continued into 12th grade, where he once again claimed the first prize in the 2003 Chinese National Mathematics Olympiad in Senior. Weining was a finalist in the 2004 Chinese Mathematics Olympiad (CMO).
Selected Publications
(A: Analytical; E: Empirical; A&E: Both analytical and empirical)
[E] Gu, Zheyin Jane, Han Yue, Weining Bao, and Hongfu Liu (2025). "Using Consumption Emotional Features to Predict Web-show Viewership", Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, forthcoming. [SSRN]
[A] Bao, Weining, Jian Ni, and Shubhranshu Singh (2024). “Educational Inequality and Reservation Policy in Developing Markets”, Management Science, 70(5), 3162 – 3181. [SSRN]
[E] Xiao, Ping, Kai-Yu Hsieh, and Weining Bao (2024), “Donations by Disaster-Afflicted Firms and Changes in Firm Value: Self-Protection and Reputation-Building Perspectives”, Production and Operations Management, 33(1), 323 – 341. (Authors are listed in reverse alphabetical order) [SSRN]
[A&E] Xiao, Ping, Yuanyuan Chen, Anandhi Bharadwaj, and Weining Bao (2022) “The Effects of Information Nudges on Consumer Usage of Digital Services under Three-Part Tariffs”, Journal of Management Information Systems, 39(1), 130 – 158. [SSRN]
[A] Bao, Weining, Jian Ni, and Shubhranshu Singh (2018). “Informal Lending in Emerging Markets”, Marketing Science, 37(1), 123 – 137. [SSRN]
[E] Bao, Weining, and Jian Ni (2017). “Could Good Intentions Backfire? An Empirical Analysis of the Bank Deposit Insurance”, Marketing Science, 36(2), 301 – 319. [SSRN]
Current Teaching
Marketing and Digital Analytics (undergraduate)
✯ With disability inclusive course design
✯ Online and in-person
✯ University recognition of teaching excellence for Fall 2020
Contact Information
Department of Marketing
School of Business
University of Connecticut
2100 Hillside Road, Storrs, CT 06269
Tel: 8604863417
Email: weining.bao@uconn.edu