Bio

David McAdams is a Professor of Business Administration at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. He is also a Professor of Economics in the Economics Department at Duke. He earned a B.S. in Applied Mathematics at Harvard University, an M.S. in Statistics from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Business from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Before joining the faculty at Duke, he was an Associate Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has also worked as a Special Assistant to the Director, the Bureau of Economics, Federal Trade Commission. 

McAdams has broad research interests in microeconomic theory and game theory, with particular focus on (i) the epidemiology of information, with applications to infectious disease and misinformation, and (ii) auction theory, with applications to market design. His work has been published in the leading journals of economics, including Econometrica, American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Economic Theory, and Journal of Econometrics, as well as leading field journals outside of economics, including PLoS Biology and BMJ Global Health.

Professor McAdams is the author of "Game-Changer: Game Theory and the Art of Transforming Strategic Situations" (W.W. Norton, 2014). 

Professor McAdams teaches the economics elective "Art & Application of Game Theory" in the Daytime MBA program at Fuqua, as well as the PhD elective "Auction Theory" in the Economics Department.

Professor McAdams' consulting work focuses on two areas: (i) “market design/bidding strategy consulting” for those designing or participating in an auction market (e.g. FCC spectrum auctions, electricity procurement auctions, B2B exchanges); and (ii) “game-theory consulting” for firms (from startup to Fortune 50) facing mission-critical strategic challenges or opportunities.