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Zachary Zhong

Associate Professor

Joseph L. Rotman School of Management

BIO

I am an Associate Professor of Marketing at Rotman. My research examines a wide range of substantive topics in digital marketing, including LLM-based AI shopping assistant, algorithmic targeting, platform search and recommendation systems, review systems, and push notifications. Many involve behavioral phenomena such as consumer left-digit bias and limited attention. I am also interested in the intersection of marketing with political and development economics, such as e-commerce trade and place-based policies, as well as the role of social and historical factors in household purchase decisions. Methodologically, I use both applied theory and a combination of natural and field experiments and modern causal-inference approaches applied to large-scale field data, often in collaboration with industry partners such as Alibaba and Ctrip.

At Rotman, I teach Pricing at the MBA, executive, and undergraduate levels, as well as Principles of Marketing, and have received multiple Rotman Teaching Awards. I serve as Associate Editor of Marketing Science and acting as a regular referee and grant reviewer for leading journals and funding agencies in marketing, economics, and related fields.

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Assistant Professor in Marketing
    University of Toronto, Canada1 Jul 2017 - 30 Jun 2025
  • Associate Professor of Marketing
    University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada1 Jul 2025 - present
  • Visiting Associate Professor
    City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China1 Jul 2025 - 30 Jun 2026

DEGREES

  • PhD in Business Administration
    University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
  • Master of Finance
    University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
  • Master of Management
    Peking University, Beijing, China
  • BSc in Chemistry
    Peking University, Beijing, China
  • BA in Economics
    Peking University, Beijing, China

AVAILABILITY

  • Industry Projects

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