Ep. 31 - From Rejection to Recognition: The Story Behind Two JMR Award-Winning Papers

If you've submitted a paper, odds are that you’ve experienced rejection. Does that mean the idea is dead? Not necessarily. Sometimes it just needs the right angle, and the right review team, to become something bigger than you first imagined. Recorded during Summer AMA, this episode brings together the 2026 JMR award winners for a joint conversation with Karen Winterich and Brett Gordon. First, Shiri Melumad and Robert J. Meyer discuss their Paul E. Green/Vithala R. Rao Award–winning paper, "How Listening Versus Reading Alters Consumers' Interpretations of News", built without an existing playbook to follow. Then Stephan Seiler and Anna Tuchman join to talk about their Weitz-Winer-O'Dell Award–winning paper, "The Impact of Soda Taxes: Pass-Through, Tax Avoidance, and Nutritional Effects," co-authored with Song Yao, and why an interdisciplinary, policy-relevant paper found staying power across marketing, economics, and public health. Both teams reflect together on how a review process can develop a paper, the risks of racing the clock on a fast-moving topic, and what it takes to get research seen once it's published.