Prof. Chellappa’s research examines the unintended consequences of digital technologies — how each wave of digitization, from piracy and personalization to platforms and now artificial intelligence, produces economic and social side effects that its designers did not anticipate.
Working Papers
- Decoupled Demand and Targeted Incentives in Digital Infrastructure: Drivers of Datacenter Deployment, with Chen Tian and Jonathan Gomez Martinez, working paper.
Nominated for the ICIS 2025 Best Paper Award. (Presented at ICIS 2025, CIST 2025, WISE 2025, and the INFORMS Annual Meeting 2025.) - Costless Degradation, Versioning and Competition, working paper.
- Automation, Augmentation, and Systemic Bias: Moderation of Social Media Interactions, with Jonathan Gomez Martinez, working paper.
Draft available on request.
Piracy and the Economics of Digital Goods
The first unintended consequence of digitization
- An Empirical Examination of Global Software Piracy: Pricing and Policy Implications, with Yuanyuan Chen and V. Sriram, working paper.
(part of this research was presented at WISE 2006: Workshop on Information Systems and Economics, Evanston, IL, December 9-10, 2006) - Chellappa, R. K., and Shivendu, S., Managing Piracy: Pricing and Sampling Strategies for Digital Experience Goods in Vertically Segmented Markets, Information Systems Research, Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2005, pp. 400–417.
(part of this research was accepted at WISE 2002: Workshop on Information Systems and Economics, Barcelona, Spain, December 14-15, 2002) - Chellappa, R. K., and Shivendu, S., Economic Implications of Variable Technology Standards for Optical Disc Piracy in a Global Context, Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 20 No. 2, Fall 2003 pp. 137 – 168.
Nominated for best paper award in the Internet and the Digital Economy Track in The Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences – 36, Big Island, HI, January 6-9, 2003. - Chellappa, R. K., and Mehra, A., Cost Drivers of Versioning: Pricing and Product Line Strategies for Information Goods, Management Science, Vol. 64, No. 5, pp. 2164-2190, 2018.
Best Paper Award, Conference on Information Systems & Technology (CIST) – INFORMS 2013, Minneapolis, MN, Oct. 5-6, 2013. - Chellappa, R. K., and Kumar, R., Examining the Role of Free Product-Augmenting Online Services in Pricing and Customer Retention Strategies, Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 355 – 377, Summer 2005.
Personalization and Privacy
The side effects of the data economy
- Chellappa, R. K., and Shivendu, S., Mechanism Design for “Free” but “No Free Disposal Services”: The Economics of Personalization under Privacy Concerns, Management Science, Vol. 56, No. 10, pp. 1766-1780, 2010.
- Chellappa, R. K., and Shivendu, S., An Economic Model of Privacy: A Property Rights Approach to Regulatory Choices for Online Personalization, Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 24, No. 3, (Winter 2007-2008) pp. 193-225.
Best Conference Theme Paper Award, 8th Conference on Information Systems & Technology (CIST) at INFORMS 2003, Oct. 18-19, Atlanta, GA. - Chellappa, R. K., and Sin, R., Personalization versus Privacy: An Empirical Examination of the Online Consumer’s Dilemma, Information Technology and Management, Vol. 6, No. 2-3, pp. 181-202, 2005.
- Chellappa, R. K., and Shivendu, S., A Model of Advertiser—Portal Contracts: Personalization Strategies under Privacy Concerns, Information Technology and Management, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2006, pp. 7-19.
- Chellappa, R. K., Consumers’ Trust in Electronic Commerce Transactions: The Role of Perceived Privacy and Perceived Security, unpublished manuscript.
Platforms, Pricing, and Competition
How digital markets actually compete
- Pricing Strategy and Technology Choices: An Empirical Investigation of “Everyday Low Price” in the Domestic US Airline Sector, with Ray Sin and S. Siddarth, working paper.
(part of this research was presented at ICIS 2006: International Conference on Information Systems, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, December 10-13, 2006.) - Chellappa, R.K., and Mukherjee, R., Ecosystem Competition: Platforms, Subsidiary Markets and Multihoming in the Videogames Industry, Information Systems Research, Articles in Advance, 2026.
Link to publisher version - Sheehan, D., Hamilton, R., and Chellappa, R.K., When Is Hilo Low? Price Image Formation Based on Frequency Versus Depth Pricing Strategies, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 49, No. 4, pp. 543-560, 2022.
- Chellappa, R.K., and Mukherjee, R., Platform Preannouncement Strategies: The Strategic Role of Information in Two-Sided Markets Competition, Management Science, Vol. 67, No. 3, pp. 1527-1545, 2021.
Link to Online Appendix
Runner-up, e-Business Section Best Paper Award, INFORMS Annual Meeting, Houston, TX October 22-25, 2017. - Chellappa, R. K., Sin, R., and Siddarth, S., Price-Formats as a Source of Price Dispersion: A Study of Online and Offline Prices in the Domestic US Airline Markets, Information Systems Research, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 83–98, March 2011.
(part of this research was presented at WISE 2005: Workshop on Information Systems and Economics, Irvine, CA, December 10-11, 2005) - Chellappa, R. K., and Saraf, N., Alliances, Rivalry and Firm Performance in Enterprise Systems Software Markets: A Social Network Approach, Information Systems Research, Vol. 21, No. 4, 2010, pp. 849-871.
(part of this research appeared earlier in the Organizations and Management Theory track at the Academy of Management, Denver, CO, August 9-14, 2002) - Chellappa, R. K., Sambamurthy, V., and Saraf, N., Competing in Crowded Markets: Multimarket Contact and the Nature of Competition in the Enterprise Systems Software Industry, Information Systems Research, Vol. 21, No. 3, 2010, pp. 614-630.
(part of this research appeared earlier in the Organizations and Management Theory track at the Academy of Management, Denver, CO, August 9-14, 2002)
From Cloud Computing (1997) to AI
The first known academic usage and definition of the term Cloud Computing appears to be provided by Prof. Chellappa in a talk titled Intermediaries in Cloud-Computing, presented at the INFORMS meeting in Dallas in 1997. He suggested that this would be a new “computing paradigm where the boundaries of computing will be determined by economic rationale rather than technical limits alone.” A follow-up paper in 2002 refers to this definition and proposes pricing models specifically for active intranets.
- Chellappa, R.K., Intermediaries in Cloud-Computing: A New Computing Paradigm, INFORMS Annual Meeting, Dallas, TX, October 26-29, 1997.
- Chellappa, R.K., and Gupta, A., Managing Computing Resources in Active Intranets, International Journal of Network Management, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp.117-128, March/April 2002.
Twenty-eight years later, that question — where the economics of computing lead — is the subject of the data center research listed above.