Bo Cowgill
- Assistant Professor
- Management Division
- Areas of Expertise
- Decision Making & Negotiations, Leadership & Organizational Behavior, Marketplace Design, Microeconomics, Organizations & Markets, Strategy
- Contact
- Office: 955 Kravis
- Phone: (650) 4928252
- E-mail: [email protected]
Bo Cowgill is an Assistant Professor at Columbia Business School, a research affiliate at CESifo, and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His elective, People Analytics and Strategy, won The Aspen Institute's 2019 Ideas Worth Teaching Award. He was also named to Poets and Quants’ 2020 list of Best 40 Business School Professors Under 40.
He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, and won the Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellowship, the Robert Beyster Fellowship and the CESifo Prize. At Columbia, he also has affiliations with the Data Science Institute and Zuckerman Institute. His research interests are in applied microeconomics and strategy, particularly productivity, technological innovation, organizations and platforms.
- Education
-
Stanford University, BA, 2004; University of California, Berkeley, MS, 2011; University of California, Berkeley, PhD, 2015
- Joined CBS
- 2016
All Activities
Journal Article
Cowgill, Bo, Pablo Hernández-Lagos, and Nataliya Wright. “Does AI cheapen talk? Theory and evidence from global entrepreneurship and hiring.”
Management Science
(Forthcoming).
Journal Article
Cowgill, Bo and Patryk Perkowski. “Delegation in Hiring: Evidence from a Two-Sided Audit.”
Journal of Political Economy: Microeconomics
(Forthcoming).
Journal Article
Cowgill, Bo, Amanda Agan , and Laura Gee. “The Gender Disclosure Gap: Salary History Bans Unravel When Men Volunteer their Income.”
Organization Science
(Forthcoming).
Journal Article
Cowgill, Bo, Jonathan Davis, Pablo Montagnes, and Patryk Perkowski. “Stable Matching on the Job? Theory and Evidence on Internal Talent Markets.”
Management Science
(June 06, 2024): 1-19.
Journal Article
Cowgill, Bo. “Targeting versus Competition in Marketplace Design: Evidence from Geotargeted Internet Ads.”
Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth ACM Conference on Economics and Computation
vol. 2023,
(July 12, 2023): 511.
Journal Article
Cowgill, Bo, Jorge Guzman, and Dany Bahar. “Refugee Entrepreneurship: The Case of Venezuelans in Colombia.”
American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings
no.
113
(May 01, 2023): 352-356.
Journal Article
Cowgill, Bo, Fabrizio Dell'Acqua, Samuel Deng, Daniel Hsu, Nakul Verma, and Augustin Chaintreau. “Biased Programmers? Or Biased Data? A Field Experiment in Operationalizing AI Ethics.”
Proceedings of the 21st ACM Conference on Economics and Computation
vol. 2020,
(June 01, 2020): 679-681.
Journal Article
Agan, A., Bo Cowgill, and L. Gee. “Do Workers Comply with Salary History Bans? A Survey on Voluntary Disclosure, Adverse Selection, and Unraveling.”
American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings
vol. 110,
(May 01, 2020): 215-19.
Journal Article
Cowgill, Bo, Fabrizio Dell'Acqua, and Sandra Matz. “The Managerial Effects of Algorithmic Fairness Activism.”
American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings
vol. 110,
(May 01, 2020): 85-90.
Journal Article
Harrigan, Kathryn, Maria DiGuardo, and Bo Cowgill. “Multiplicative-Innovation Synergies: Tests in Technological Acquisitions.”
Journal of Technology Transfer
vol. 42,
no.
5
(October 20, 2017): 1212-1233.
Journal Article
Harrigan, Kathryn, Maria Chiara Di Guardo, and Bo Cowgill. “Multiplicative-innovation synergies: tests in technological acquisitions,.”
The Journal of Technology Transfer
vol. 42,
(October 20, 2017): 1212-1233.
Journal Article
Cowgill, Bo and Eric Zitzewitz. “Corporate Prediction Markets: Evidence from Google, Ford, and Firm X.”
Review of Economic Studies
vol. 82,
(October 01, 2015): 1309-1341.
Journal Article
Cowgill, Bo, Stephen Burks, Mitch Hoffman, and Michael Housman. “The Value of Hiring Through Employee Referrals.”
The Quarterly Journal of Economics
vol. 130,
(May 01, 2015): 805-839.
Journal Article
Cowgill, Bo, Mingyu Joo, Kenneth C. Wilbur, and Yi Zhu. “Television Advertising and Online Search.”
Management Science
vol. 60,
(January 01, 2014): 56-73.
Journal Article
Cowgill, Bo, Justin Wolfers, and Eric Zitzewitz. “Using Prediction Markets to Track Information Flows.”
International Conference on Auctions, Market Mechanisms and Their Applications
vol. 14,
(May 09, 2009): 3.
Working Paper
Cowgill, Bo, Brandon Freiberg, and Evan Starr.
Clause and Effect: Theory and Field Experimental Evidence on Noncompete Clauses. December 13, 2024.
Working Paper
Cowgill, Bo, Jorge Guzman, and Dany Bahar.
The Economic Effects of Immigration Pardons: Evidence from Venezuelan Entrepreneurs. November 01, 2022.
Working Paper
Cowgill, Bo and Dan Wang.
Agency and Homophily: Evidence from a Two-Sided Audit Study. January 01, 2019.
Newspaper/Magazine Article
Cowgill, Bo and M. Stevenson.
“Algorithmic Social Engineering.”
American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings.
Forthcoming.
Newspaper/Magazine Article
Cowgill, Bo, Jonathan M.V. Davis, B. Pablo Montagnes, Patryk Perkowski, and Bettina Hammer.
“How to Design an Internal Talent Marketplace: The employees you need are already on your team.”
Harvard Business Review.
June 16, 2026.
Course
B7590: People Analytics and Strategy
Course
B9528: Research Methods II
Course
B8590: People Analytics and Strategy
Course
B9521: Advanced Strategy: Topics and Methods
Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar Fellowship
Award Institution:
Russell Sage Foundation
Russell Sage Foundation
Marie Curie Prize
Award Institution:
University of Chicago Advances in Field Experiments Conference (organized by John List)
University of Chicago Advances in Field Experiments Conference (organized by John List)
Best Paper in Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Award Institution:
Industry Studies Association
Industry Studies Association
Stigler Center Affiliate Fellowship
Award Institution:
University of Chicago Stigler Center
University of Chicago Stigler Center
Network Formation through Mechanism Design
Granting Agency:
Stellar Development Foundation
Stellar Development Foundation
In the Media
In the Media
Article
Did AI Write That Pitch? The Impact of Generative AI on Hiring and Startup Evaluations
Article
AI’s Wrench in the Job Application Process: New Research Exposes the Global Hiring Dilemma
Article
Amnesty’s Impact on Entrepreneurship: Immigration Pardons Can Spur Economic Development
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