About

Timothy Feddersen is the Wendell Hobbs Professor of Managerial Politics at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, where he has been a faculty member since 1995. His research centers on how elections aggregate dispersed information, the linkage between information and participation in elections, modeling ethically motivated agents in games, bargaining in legislatures, and the informal role of activists in the economy. He is currently investigating the impact of money in politics on income inequality and the value of transparency in advisory committees. Professor Feddersen teaches courses including Leadership and Strategic Crisis Management, as well as Ethics and Leadership, focusing on how leaders must anticipate stakeholder reactions across various domains such as media, legislatures, courts, and public opinion. He has received recognition for his contributions, including membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award, and the Stanley Reiter Best Paper Award.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Computer Security
• Information Retrieval
• Computer network
• Telecommunications
• Microeconomics
• Law
• Business
• Economics

Selected publications

• Decentralized advice

  European Journal of Political Economy · 2020 · 6 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Security
  • Computer Science
  PublisherDOI

• References

  2018-08-24

  otherOpen access

  No Abstract. Note: These references and associated internet websites (if applicable) were current at the time they were accessed during this guideline's preparation (2013-2018).

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Saks Fifth Avenue and Transgender Rights

  Kellogg School of Management Cases · 2018-11-08

  article1st authorCorresponding

  In September 2014 Leyth Jamal, a transgender woman, filed suit against her employer, luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue. Jamal alleged that she experienced harassment from managers and other employees because of her gender identity while employed by Saks, including verbal abuse and threats of violence. At the time she filed suit, no federal, state, or local laws protected transgender employees from discrimination. However, some federal district courts had recently begun to allow such suits on the premise that discrimination based on gender identity was a form of sex discrimination. Other suits and amicus briefs brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) furthered this trend. The EEOC is the federal agency charged with investigating and supporting claims of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so district and appellate courts watched the EEOC's position on the application of Title VII. Socio-culturally, many Americans supported transgender rights, even as they voiced anxiety about transgender men in women's bathrooms. This case has students assume the role of a trusted member of the executive team of Hudson's Bay Company, which owns Saks Fifth Avenue. One Friday afternoon in late December 2014, the Hudson's Bay CEO sends an email to his executive team notifying them that he has approved corporate counsel's motion to dismiss Jamal's case based on the argument that transgender people are not a protected class according to Title VII. The motion will be filed in federal court on Monday. The CEO shares that he personally believes it is preposterous for anyone to think that Saks Fifth Avenue is anything but a strong advocate for LGBT rights, but he invites executive team members to call him if they have any concerns. Members of the executive team have a responsibility to consider the broader strategic implications for the company, so students must decide if and how to respond to the CEO.

  PublisherDOI

• Persuasion and Transparency

  The Journal of Politics · 2018-05-09 · 20 citations

  articleSenior author

  An advisory committee with common values and asymmetric information provides a recommendation to a decision maker facing a binary choice. We investigate the effect of a transparency requirement—requiring committee members’ actions to be observable—on the committee’s ability to influence the decision maker. We show that unless the preferences of the committee and decision maker are sufficiently close, requiring transparency eliminates the committee’s ability to provide any useful information. In contrast, if preferences are very close or if committee members are able to verifiably reveal their signals then transparency is beneficial.

  PublisherDOI

• Strategic Voting

  The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics · 2018-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Strategic voting in elections occurs when a voter submits a ballot in an election with the intention of maximizing the likelihood of a good election outcome given his expectation of how others are voting. Strategic voting is typically contrasted with sincere voting. When election rules permit ballots that amount to a rank ordering of alternatives, a voter is said to vote sincerely if his ballot ranks more preferred alternatives above less preferred ones. There is evidence of strategic voting in real elections, and an extensive theoretical literature demonstrates incentives for strategic voting under almost all election rules.

  PublisherDOI

• The Environmental Entrepreneur

  Kellogg School of Management Cases · 2017-01-20

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Because U.S. legislators are often most attentive to the issues raised by people who create jobs in their states, Bob Epstein, a local business owner, has been asked by activists to help lobby for a bill that would mandate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in California. Before deciding whether he should work to establish the business community's backing for this bill, Epstein must weigh the pros and cons of supporting measures that might put his business (and standing in the community) at risk. Use the 4 I's framework to evaluate the nonmarket environment, assess the political impact of the potential coalitions in favor of and opposed to the bill, identify the type of politics that characterizes the situation, and describe the strategies each side will likely use in contesting the bill.

  PublisherDOI

• Firestone Liberia’s Battle Against Ebola

  Kellogg School of Management eBooks · 2017-01-01

  book1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Nonmarket Action and the International Counter-Money Laundering Act (H.R. 3886)

  Kellogg School of Management Cases · 2017-01-20

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The case describes the international problem of money laundering and summarizes U.S. bank regulations aimed at reducing money laundering activities. The introduction of H.R. 3886 in 2000 was one in a series of attempts to formalize U.S. banks' monitoring of their customers. The bill was prompted by a government report that named and criticized U.S. banks for laundering billions of dollars linked to drug trafficking, fraud, and organized crime. Interest groups in favor of H.R. 3886 were predominantly law enforcement agencies that viewed current anti-money laundering laws as ineffective. Groups opposed to the bill included the American Civil Liberties Union, which believed that the collection of more information about bank customers' activities was an invasion of privacy, and the American Bankers Association, which claimed that the legislation would impose unnecessary costs on banks. The case can be used to introduce the distributive politics framework for analyzing non-market issues and formulating nonmarket strategies in the context of government institutions. The epilogue reveals that H.R. 3886 died before it ever reached the House floor, but that an expanded version of the legislation ultimately passed---with the support of stakeholders who originally fought it---as part of the USA PATRIOT Act after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This stance reversal provides an opportunity to explore how events, public opinion, and the media can create windows of policy opportunity Utilize a framework for analyzing options for non-market action – Formulate a strategy for nonmarket action – Recognize how public opinion influences the opportunity for non-market action through events and/or new information, political actors, media coverage, and policy windows

  PublisherDOI

• Disney Crisis Exercise

  Kellogg School of Management Cases · 2017-01-20

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The Disney Crisis Exercise is not revealed here because it is entirely an in-class experience; students should not have access to any details prior to the exercise. Complete information is available to instructors in the teaching note. In this real-time exercise, student teams will advise Disney how to respond to a crisis precipitated by vocal and well-organized influence groups that threaten its brand as part of their advocacy on behalf of social causes. The crisis occurs against a backdrop of dynamic industry and company changes, many of which have important consequences for Disney. After completing this exercise, students should be able to:

  PublisherDOI

• Firestone Liberia's Battle against Ebola

  Kellogg School of Management Cases · 2017-07-18

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This case puts students in the shoes of the Ebola response leadership teams of Firestone Liberia and its parent company, Bridgestone Americas, as they worked together to respond to the deadly 2014 Ebola epidemic. While the companies had received positive press for their containment of the virus on their rubber farm in Liberia, which was home to 8,000 employees and 80,000 Liberian citizens, the situation off the property was worsening. With death counts rising and hospitals across the nation closing as staff caught the virus, the Liberian government declared a national state of emergency. The teams now faced the possibility that the government might attempt to take control of the farm's medical center. How could they balance their duty to care effectively for employees against the demands of the Liberian government? Should they try to fend off the government or cooperate to meet the government's demands? Students will learn how to do a methodical situation analysis that considers ethical obligations and strategic implications, and to distill their recommendation into a briefing for senior leadership.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Wolfgang Pesendorfer

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  25 shared

• Alvaro Sandroni

  15 shared

• Daniel Diermeier

  Vanderbilt University

  9 shared

• David Austen‐Smith

  Kellogg's (Canada)

  6 shared

• Vadim Cherepanov

  Ural State University of Physical Culture

  5 shared

• Yuval Salant

  Kellogg's (Canada)

  4 shared

• Jennifer Jordan

  International Institute for Management Development

  4 shared

• Efe A. Ok

  New York University

  4 shared

Awards & honors

• Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award, Kellogg School of Management,…
• Stanley Reiter Best Paper Award, Kellogg School of Managemen…
• Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences