Faculty and Research

Peter Coles is a member of the Negotiation, Organizations, and Markets Unit at Harvard Business School. He received his A.B. in mathematics from Princeton University and his PhD in economics in 2006 from Stanford University. 

Peter's research focuses on entrepreneurial market design - the study of creating for-profit marketplaces.  Such marketplaces often require innovations (market rules, information flows, timing adjustments, reputation mechanisms) to resolve longstanding inefficiencies (lack of market thickness, adverse selection, high transaction costs, etc).  These innovations can create significant value for market participants, and at the same time offer a promising business model for the entrepreneur.

Peter has recently written cases on prediction markets at Google, strategy at Microsoft's adCenter, pricing and the "market ecosystem" at TheLadders.com, and on several other topics.  Current projects include the design of a prediction market for drug clinical trials, as well as implementation and analysis of the American Economics Association signaling mechanism, a service intended to streamline the job market for new economists.

Along with Professor Ben Edelman, Peter teaches "Managing Networked Businesses," a second year course at Harvard Business School.  With Professor Al Roth he co-teaches a doctoral course in market design in the Harvard Economics Department.