Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,975)
- Faculty Publications (560)
- 2008
- Chapter
Matching and Market Design
By: Muriel Niederle, Alvin E. Roth and Tayfun Sonmez
Matching is the part of economics concerned with who transacts with whom and how. Models of matching, starting with the Gale-Shapley deferred acceptance algorithm, have been particularly useful in studying labour markets and in helping design clearinghouses to fix... View Details
- November 2007
- Background Note
Asset Allocation I
By: Joshua D. Coval, Erik Stafford, Rodrigo Osmo, John Jernigan, Zack Page and Paulo Passoni
The goal of these simulations is to understand the mathematics of mean-variance optimization and the equilibrium pricing of risk if all investors use this rule with common information sets. Simulation A focuses on five to 10 years of monthly sector returns that are... View Details
- November 2007
- Background Note
Bayesian Estimation & Black-Litterman
By: Joshua D. Coval and Erik Stafford
Describes a practical method for asset allocation that is more robust to estimation errors than the traditional implementation of mean-variance optimization with sample means and covariances. The Bayesian inspired Black-Litterman model is described after introducing... View Details
- October 2007 (Revised January 2009)
- Background Note
Analyzing Relative Costs
By: Hanna Halaburda and Jan W. Rivkin
Introduces students to the technique of relative cost analysis, a core technique of strategists. Among the intricate quantitative analyses that strategists undertake, relative cost analysis may be the most common. The goal of a relative cost analysis is simply to... View Details
- October 2007
- Case
The AtekPC Project Management Office
By: F. Warren McFarlan, Mark Keil and John Hupp
Presents one company's efforts to implement a project management organization, or PMO, and the challenges they faced in doing so. Issues brought out in the case include defining the PMO's purpose and mission, the structure and governance of the PMO, and how to... View Details
- Fourth Quarter 2007
- Article
Contingent Claims Approach to Measuring and Managing Sovereign Credit Risk
By: Dale . F. Gray, Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie
This paper proposes a new approach to measure, analyze, and manage sovereign risk based on the theory and practice of modern contingent claims analysis (CCA). The paper provides a new framework for adapting the CCA model to the sovereign balance sheet in a way that can... View Details
- October 2007
- Article
Methodological Fit in Management Field Research
By: A. C. Edmondson and S. E. McManus
Methodological fit, an implicitly valued attribute of high-quality field research in organizations, has received little attention in the management literature. Fit refers to internal consistency among elements of a research project--research question, prior work,... View Details
- October 2007
- Article
The Effectiveness of Pre-Release Advertising for Motion Pictures: An Empirical Investigation Using a Simulated Market
By: Anita Elberse and Bharat N. Anand
One of the most visible and publicized trends in the movie industry is the escalation in movie advertising expenditures over time. Yet, the returns to movie advertising are poorly understood. The main reason is that disentangling the causal effect of advertising on... View Details
- September 2007
- Article
(Noisy) Communication
By: Bharat Anand and Ron Shachar
Communication is central to many settings in marketing and economics. A focal attribute of communication is miscommunication. We model this key characteristic as a noise in the messages communicated, so that the sender of a message is uncertain about its perception by... View Details
- Article
Gross National Happiness As an Answer to the Easterlin Paradox?
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
The Easterlin Paradox refers to the fact that happiness data are typically stationary in spite of considerable increases in income. This amounts to a rejection of the hypothesis that current income is the only argument in the utility function. We find that the... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Mental Accounting and Small Windfalls: Evidence from an Online Grocer
By: Katherine L. Milkman, John Beshears, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman
We study the effect of small windfalls on consumer spending decisions by examining the purchasing behavior of a sample of online grocery shoppers over the course of a year. We compare the purchases customers make when redeeming a $10-off coupon they received from their... View Details
- Article
Reputation When Threats and Transfers Are Available
By: Ernesto Dal Bo, Pedro Dal Bo and Rafael Di Tella
We present a model where a long-run player is allowed to use both money transfers and threats to influence the decisions of a sequence of short-run players. We show that threats might be used credibly (even in arbitrarily short repeated games) by a long-lived player... View Details
- September – October 2007
- Article
Trading Patterns and Excess Comovement of Stock Returns
By: Robin Greenwood and Nathan Sosner
n April 2000, 30 stocks were replaced in the Nikkei 225 Index. The unusually broad index redefinition allowed for a study of the effects of index-linked trading on the excess comovement of stock returns. A large increase occurred in the correlation of trading volume of... View Details
- 2007
- Chapter
Collaborative R&D in Management: The Practical Experience of Fenix and TruePoint in Bridging the Divide Between Scientific and Managerial Goals
By: Michael Beer and Niclas Adler
The gap between theory and practice has been of concern to both practitioners and academics, yet other than pleas to close the gap with more accessible writing by academics and more interest in research by practitioners few systematic efforts have been made to close... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Deferred Acceptance Algorithms: History, Theory, Practice, and Open Questions
By: Alvin E. Roth
The deferred acceptance algorithm proposed by Gale and Shapley (1962) has had a profound influence on market design, both directly, by being adapted into practical matching mechanisms, and, indirectly, by raising new theoretical questions. Deferred acceptance... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Optimal Reserve Management and Sovereign Debt
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
Most models currently used to determine optimal foreign reserve holdings take the level of international debt as given. However, given the sovereign's willingness-to-pay incentive problems, reserve accumulation may reduce sustainable debt levels. In addition, assuming... View Details
- June 2007
- Article
Which Levers Boost ROI?
By: Margeaux Cvar and John A. Quelch
The article refers to ROI, or return on investment, and focuses on a rational strategy for financial markets that uses outside industry comparisons. The first step is to identify parallel businesses that have similar characteristics such as growth, capital, and market... View Details
- February 2007 (Revised January 2008)
- Supplement
Multifactor Models (CW)
By: Malcolm P. Baker
- November 2006
- Background Note
Technical Game Theory Note #6: Multiple-Round Games and Reputations
By: Dennis A. Yao
Provides a game theory-based interpretation of reputations and reputation building. View Details
- November 2006
- Case
Introducing Frequent Flyer Programs
By: Dennis A. Yao
Allows students to explore the value to American Airlines of introducing a frequent flyer program in 1981. View Details