Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,904)
- Faculty Publications (459)
Optimism
→
- 2012
- Chapter
Problem Solving and Search in Networks
By: David Lazer and Ethan Bernstein
This chapter examines the role that networks play in facilitating or inhibiting search for solutions to problems at both the individual and collective levels. At the individual level, search in networks enables individuals to transport themselves to a very different... View Details
- Article
The Stock Selection and Performance of Buy-Side Analysts
We examine the selection and performance of stocks recommended by analysts at a large investment firm relative to those of sell-side analysts during the period mid-1997 and 2004. The buy-side firm's analysts issued less optimistic recommendations for stocks with larger... View Details
- February 2, 2012
- Article
Is There an Optimal Degree of Sustainability?
By: Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim
Corporate sustainability is not a one size fits all concept. A successful strategy balances all business pressures. View Details
- 2012
- Working Paper
~Why Do We Redistribute so Much but Tag so Little? Normative Diversity, Equal Sacrifice and Optimal Taxation
Tagging is a free lunch in conventional optimal tax theory because it eases the classic tradeoff between efficiency and equality. But tagging is used in only limited ways in tax policy. I propose one explanation: conventional optimal tax theory has yet to capture the... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in Preferences and Optimal Redistribution
By: Benjamin B Lockwood and Matthew Weinzierl
The prominent but unproven intuition that preference heterogeneity reduces redistribution in a standard optimal tax model is shown to hold under the plausible condition that the distribution of preferences for consumption relative to leisure rises, in terms of... View Details
- January–February 2012
- Article
Do You Need a New Product-Development Strategy?
By: Alan MacCormack, W. Crandall, P. Toft and P. Henderson
Many firms rely on a single new-product development process for all projects. But designing new products for different business contexts requires that a firm deploy different new-product development processes. Products designed for stable and mature end-user markets... View Details
- December 2011
- Case
Peace, Non-Aligned: The Pragmatic Optimism of Lakhdar Brahimi
By: James K. Sebenius and Laurence A. Green
Describes the background and career of Lakhdar Brahimi in numerous roles ranging from Algeria's ambassador to Indonesia and the Arab League, to serving as that country's foreign minister, and to his many years at the United Nations, with special emphasis on his actions... View Details
- November 2011
- Case
Celeritas, Inc.: Leadership Challenges in a Fast-Growth Industry
By: Michael Beer and Ingrid Vargas
In 2011, Celeritas is a leading data communications company in the crowded, highly competitive, and ever-evolving enterprise-network optimization market. Having experienced rapid growth since its founding in 2003, Celeritas has recently seen sales decline and has begun... View Details
- October 2011
- Article
The Surprising Power of Age-Dependent Taxes
This article provides a new, empirically driven application of the dynamic Mirrleesian framework by studying a feasible and potentially powerful tax reform: age-dependent labor income taxation. I show analytically how age dependence improves policy on both the... View Details
- September 2011 (Revised July 2012)
- Case
Building Watson: Not So Elementary, My Dear!
By: Willy Shih
This case is set inside IBM Research's efforts to build a computer that can successfully take on human challengers playing the game show Jeopardy! It opens with the machine named Watson offering the incorrect answer "Toronto" to a seemingly simple question during the... View Details
- September – October 2011
- Article
The Manufacturer's Incentive to Reduce Lead Times
By: Santiago Kraiselburd, Richard Pibernik and Ananth Raman
It is generally a well acknowledged fact that, ceteris paribus, reducing the lead times between downstream and upstream parties in a supply chain is desirable from an overall system perspective. However, an upstream party (e.g., a manufacturer) may have strong... View Details
- July 2011
- Article
Mixed Source
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Gaston Llanes
We study competitive interaction between a profit-maximizing firm that sells software and complementary services and a free open source competitor. We examine the firm's choice of business model between the proprietary model (where all software modules are... View Details
- Article
An Exploration of Optimal Stabilization Policy
By: N. Gregory Mankiw and Matthew C. Weinzierl
This paper examines the optimal response of monetary and fiscal policy to a decline in aggregate demand. The theoretical framework is a two-period general equilibrium model in which prices are sticky in the short-run and flexible in the long-run. Policy is evaluated by... View Details
- January 2011
- Case
AIC Netbooks: Optimizing Product Assembly
By: Steven C. Wheelwright and Sunru Yong
AIC Systems, located in Taichung, Taiwan, is a manufacturer of printed circuit boards, primarily for motherboards and video cards for personal computers. The firm is considered an original design manufacturer (ODM) and takes an active role in innovating and designing... View Details
- January 2011
- Teaching Note
AIC Netbooks: Optimizing Product Assembly (Brief Case)
By: Steven C. Wheelwright and Sunru Yong
Teaching Note for 4245. View Details
- January 2011
- Supplement
AIC Netbooks: Optimizing Product Assembly, Faculty Spreadsheet Supplement (Brief Case)
By: Steven C. Wheelwright and Sunru Yong
- January 2011
- Supplement
AIC Netbooks: Optimizing Product Assembly, Spreadsheet Supplement (Brief Case)
By: Steven C. Wheelwright and Sunru Yong
- January 2011
- Case
Clean Edge Razor: Splitting Hairs in Product Positioning
By: John A. Quelch and Heather Beckham
After three years of development, Paramount Health and Beauty Company is preparing to launch a new technologically advanced vibrating razor called Clean Edge. The innovative new design of Clean Edge provides superior performance by stimulating the hair follicles to... View Details
- January 2011
- Article
Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time
By: Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely
Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. We attempt to insert the desires of "regular" Americans into these debates, by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current... View Details
- January – February 2011
- Article
Creating Shared Value
By: Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer
The capitalist system is under siege. In recent years business has been criticized as a major cause of social, environmental, and economic problems. Companies are widely thought to be prospering at the expense of their communities. Trust in business has fallen to new... View Details