Takuma Habu

Biography

Takuma Habu is an assistant teaching professor in strategy and business economics at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and an MPhil in economics from the University of Oxford. He brings industry and management experience from a leading European economics consultancy, where he advised public- and private-sector clients on regulation, competition and valuation.

Habu’s research applies game theory to examine how information and communication shape incentives. One line of work draws on his experience managing multi-billion-dollar disputes to show how cross-examinations help courts make better-informed decisions and to propose institutional designs that strengthen judicial effectiveness. His current research studies how employers’ efforts to retain workers can distort human resource policies in ways that harm employees, a dynamic made more relevant by recent technological changes that affect how firms value workers’ skills.

His teaching spans undergraduate, Ph.D., MBA and executive MBA levels, covering macroeconomics, microeconomics, game theory, organizational economics and mathematics. He emphasizes collaboration and equips students with analytical tools to understand the mechanisms behind business phenomena, enabling them to make better real-world decisions after their studies.

Education

PhD Department of Economics, University of Chicago, 2023
MA Department of Economics, University of Chicago, 2023
MPhil Somerville College, University of Oxford, 2012
BS University of Warwick, 2010

Research

• Habu, Takuma; Lipnowski, Elliot; Ravid, Doron. "Knowing the informed player's payoffs and simple play in repeated games"Journal of Economic Theory. 221 (2024): e105888