Publications

29 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

Hunting for a Hot Job in High Tech? Try 'Digitization Economist'

academic economics department. Amazon is far from alone in this trend. Some 50 tech companies “have been snapping up economists at a remarkable scale,” says Michael Luca, the Lee J. Styslinger III Associate Professor of Business... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Technology; Education

February 2018 (Revised June 2021)
Case

New Constructs: Disrupting Fundamental Analysis with Robo-Analysts

By: Charles C.Y. Wang and Kyle Thomas

This case highlights the business challenges associated with a financial technology firm, New Constructs, that created a technology that can quickly parse complicated public firm financials to paint a clearer economic picture of firms, remove accounting distortions,... View Details

Keywords: Fundamental Analysis; Machine Learning; Robo-analysts; Financial Statements; Financial Reporting; Analysis; Information Technology; Accounting Industry; Financial Services Industry; Information Technology Industry; North America; Tennessee

Educators

14 Nov 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas: November 14, 2017

academic psychologists, Harvard Business School professors, directors of organizations, and government officials. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51447 Winter 2017 Oxford Review of Economic Policy The... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

2005
Working Paper

Can Mutual Fund Managers Pick Stocks? Evidence from Their Trades Prior to Earnings Announcements

By: Malcolm Baker, Lubomir Litov, Jessica Wachter and Jeffrey Wurgler

We consider measures of stock-picking skill of mutual fund managers based on the earnings announcement returns of the stocks that they hold and trade. Relative to standard approaches, this approach focuses on an especially informative subset of the returns data,... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Asset Management; Business Earnings; Forecasting and Prediction; Competency and Skills

Article

Can Mutual Fund Managers Pick Stocks? Evidence from Their Trades Prior to Earnings Announcements

By: Malcolm Baker, Lubomir Litov, Jessica Wachter and Jeffrey Wurgler

We consider measures of stock-picking skill of mutual fund managers based on the earnings announcement returns of the stocks that they hold and trade. Relative to standard approaches, this approach focuses on an especially informative subset of the returns data,... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Stocks; Investment Return; Investment Funds; Earnings Management

Find at Harvard

April 2022
Article

National Customer Orientation: A Framework, Propositions and Agenda for Future Research

By: Ofer Mintz, Imran S. Currim and Rohit Deshpandé

Purpose: This paper aims to propose a new country-level construct, national customer orientation, to provide a benchmark for global headquartered managers’ decisions and scholars investigating cross-national research.
Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual... View Details

Keywords: International Marketing; Macro-marketing; Marketing; Financial Crisis; Customer Focus and Relationships; Economic Growth; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation

October 2023
Article

Product Variety, the Cost of Living, and Welfare Across Countries

By: Alberto Cavallo, Robert C. Feenstra and Robert Inklaar

We use the structure of the Melitz (2003) model to compute the cost of living and welfare across 47 countries, and compare these to conventional measures of prices and real consumption from the International Comparisons Project (ICP). The cost of living is inferred... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Trade

Find at Harvard

06 Sep 2007
Working Paper Summaries

The Excess Burden of Government Indecision

Keywords: by Francisco J. Gomes, Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Luis M. Viceira

2024
Working Paper

Scared Straight? Threat and Assimilation of Refugees in Germany

By: Philipp Jaschke, Sulin Sardoschau and Marco Tabellini

This paper examines the impact of local hostility on the assimilation of refugees. We leverage plausibly exogenous variation in refugees' allocation across German regions between 2013 and 2016, and combine representative survey data and administrative records with... View Details

Keywords: Assimilation; Threat Hypothesis; Migration; Cultural Change; Refugees; Culture; Identity; Germany

2007
Book

Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008

By: Augusto Lopez-Claros, Michael Porter, Xavier Sala-i-Martin and Klaus Schwab

The World Economic Forum continues its tradition of excellence with the 29th edition of the annual Global Competitiveness Report featuring the latest indicators from the Executive Opinion Survey. The Report assesses over 130 developed and... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Economies and Regions; Strength and Weakness; Competition

Find at Harvard

2008
Working Paper

Concentration Levels in the U.S. Advertising and Marketing Services Industry: Myth vs. Reality

By: Alvin J. Silk and Charles King III

This paper analyzes changes in concentration levels in the U.S. Advertising and Marketing Services (A&MS) industry using publicly released data that have been largely ignored in past discussions of the industrial organization of this industry, namely those available... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Mergers and Acquisitions; Revenue; Analytics and Data Science; Surveys; Marketing; Measurement and Metrics; Rank and Position; Competition; Advertising Industry; Service Industry; United States

2020
Discussion Paper

Acting Now While Preparing for Tomorrow: Competitiveness Upgrading Under the Shadow of COVID-19

By: Christian H.M. Ketels and Peter Clinch

This paper aims to provide policy makers, especially those focused on the longer-term growth potential of their countries, with an initial framework to think about their action priorities in the context of the overall COVID-19 response. Our focus is on the... View Details

Keywords: Competitiveness; COVID-19 Pandemic; Competition; Government Administration; Health Pandemics; Economy; Supply Chain; Safety

04 Dec 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Local Industrial Conditions and Entrepreneurship: How Much of the Spatial Distribution Can We Explain?

Keywords: by Edward L. Glaeser & William R. Kerr; Manufacturing

August 2018 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Fair Value Accounting at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (A)

By: Jonas Heese, Suraj Srinivasan, Francois Brochet and Christine Johnson

In May 2018, Berkshire Hathaway announced an unprecedented loss of more than $1 billion for the first quarter of 2018. Warren Buffett blamed this loss on the new accounting rules for equity securities which he criticized. In the case ‘Fair Value Accounting at Berkshire... View Details

Keywords: Equity Securities; FASB; Fair Value Accounting; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Financial Services Industry

Educators

26 Mar 2009
Working Paper Summaries

The Bloody Millennium: Internal Conflict in South Asia

Keywords: by Lakshmi Iyer

2022
Chapter

CIP Deviations, the Dollar, and Frictions in International Capital Markets

By: Wenxin Du and Jesse Schreger

The covered interest rate parity (CIP) condition is a fundamental arbitrage relationship in international finance. In this chapter, we review its breakdown during the Global Financial Crisis and its continued failure in the subsequent decade. We review how to measure... View Details

Keywords: Interest Rates; International Finance; Financial Crisis; Currency

2011
Working Paper

When Smaller Menus Are Better: Variability in Menu-Setting Ability

Are large menus better than small menus? Recent literature argues that individuals' apparent preference for smaller menus can be explained by choosers' behavioral biases or informational limitations. These explanations imply that absent behavioral or informational... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment; Investment Portfolio; Size; Quality