Anita Rao

Anita Rao is the Beyer Family Associate Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. Her research focuses on consumer reactions to deceptive marketing practices, including false claims, fake news, and misleading labels. She holds a PhD from Stanford University, an MS from MIT, and a BTech from IIT Madras.

Key research areas include empirical industrial organization, public policy implications of marketing, and the impact of voluntary labeling on consumer decisions. She has published in top journals like Marketing Science and Journal of Marketing Research, with recent work examining how ‘no HFCS’ labels influence sugary product purchases.

Rao serves as an associate editor for Marketing Science and Quantitative Marketing and Economics, and has held roles at the FTC Bureau of Economics. Her awards include the 2016 Bass Award and MSI Young Scholar distinction (2019).

Her work bridges marketing theory and policy, addressing issues like industry-funded research bias and the regulatory challenges posed by misinformation in digital markets.