Manel Baucells

Manel Baucells

David M. LaCross Associate Professor of Business Administration

Office

FOB 293B

Academic Area

Areas of Expertise

Decision Analysis, Consumer Behavior, Game Theory, Business Models

Education: M.S. Mechanical Engineer, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya; MBA, IESE Business School; Ph.D., the Anderson School at UCLA.

Manel Baucells teaches quantitative analysis courses in Darden's MBA and Executive Education programs. Prior to joining Darden in 2015, he held positions at the Rand Corporation in California, the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, and IESE Business School. He completed his Ph.D. on game theory, with applications to management, under the supervision of Steve Lippman and of Lloyd Shapley (2012 Nobel Prize laureate in economics).

Baucells' research focuses on incorporating psychological realism into consumer behavior models by considering factors such as reference point formation, mental accounting, psychological distance, anticipation, fatigue, and satiation; and examines how these factors influence risk and time preferences, consumer choices, and managerial decisions. He serves as department editor for the journal Management Science and associate editor for Operations Research.

Baucells has a broad international experience in business education. He has lectured MBAs and executives in North America, Europe, China, Russia, Latin America and Africa. He has held visiting research positions at Duke University, UCLA, London Business School, MIT and Erasmus University. While at IESE, he won the Excellence in Course Development Award as well as the Excellence in Research Award, both given by the Alumni Association; and while at Darden, he won the Dean's Award for Excellence, Multiyear Publication Award, 2015-2018.

Baucells and Rakesh Sarin (UCLA) published the book Engineering Happiness (UC Press), which received the 2014 Best Publication Award by the Decision Analysis Society. The book applies principles of behavioral economics to improve life outcomes. 

Selected Publications

It Is Time to Get Some Rest
Management Science (forthcoming)With Zhao Lin.

A Model of Mental Accounting and Reference Price Adaptation
Management Science (2016). With Woonam Hwang.

Behavioral Anomalies in Consumer Wait-or-Buy Decisions and Their Implications for Markdown Management
Operations Research (2016). With Nickolay Osadchiy, and Anton Ovchinnikov.

Temporal Profiles of Instant Utility during Anticipation, Event, and Recall
Management Science(2016) 63(3) 729-748. With Silvia Bellezza.

Determinants of Experienced Utility: Laws and Implications
Decision Analysis(2013) 10(2), 135-151. With Rakesh K. Sarin.

Probability and Time Trade-off
Management Science(2012) 58(4), 831-842. With Franz Heukamp.

Reference - Point Formation and Updating
Management Science(2011) 57(3), 506-519. With Martin Weber, and Frank Welfens.

Predicting Utility under Satiation and Habit Formation
Management Science (2010) 56(2), 286-301. With Rakesh K. Sarin.

Multiperson Utility
Games and Economic Behavior(2008) 62, 329-347. With Lloyd S. Shapley.

Cumulative Dominance and Heuristic Performance in Binary Multiattribute Choice
Operations Research(2008) 56 (5), 1289-1304. With Juan A. Carrasco and Robin M. Hogarth.