Publications

June 2004
Article

A Catering Theory of Dividends

By: Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler

We propose that the decision to pay dividends is driven by prevailing investor demand for dividend payers. Managers cater to investors by paying dividends when investors put a stock price premium on payers, and by not paying when investors prefer nonpayers. To test... View Details

Keywords: Dividends; Catering; Financial Instruments; Investment Return; Business and Shareholder Relations

01 Oct 1997
News

Theory & Practice

Whether or not game theory has applications for business strategy remains unclear - to date, empirical studies have been too limited to yield any definitive conclusions. In Games Businesses Play: Cases and Modules, HBS professor Pankaj... View Details

January 2005 (Revised March 2007)
Background Note

Game Theory and Business Strategy

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Dennis A. Yao

Provides a brief introduction to the application of game theory to business settings. Sets up and analyzes a minicase involving commitment. View Details

Keywords: Game Theory; Trust; Business Strategy

Educators

Purchase

04 Jun 2012
News

Applying Business Theories to Your Life

19 Aug 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice

Keywords: by N. Gregory Mankiw, Matthew Weinzierl & Danny Yagan

2019
Book

Chicago Price Theory

By: Sonia Jaffe, Robert Minton, Casey B. Mulligan and Kevin M. Murphy

Purchase

2020
Working Paper

A General Theory of Identification

By: Iavor Bojinov and Guillaume Basse

What does it mean to say that a quantity is identifiable from the data? Statisticians seem to agree on a definition in the context of parametric statistical models — roughly, a parameter θ in a model P = {Pθ : θ ∈ Θ} is identifiable if the mapping θ 7→ Pθ is injective.... View Details

Keywords: Identification; Econometric Models; Analytics and Data Science; Theory

08 Oct 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Developing Theory Using Machine Learning Methods

Keywords: by Prithwiraj Choudhury, Ryan Allen, and Michael G. Endres

2010
Chapter

A Contingency Theory of Leadership

By: Jay W. Lorsch

The idea of a contingency theory of leadership is not novel. In the 1960s several scholars conducted research and proposed such an approach arguing that the style of leadership that would be most effective depended upon the situation (Fiedler, Tannenbaum and Schmidt,... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Style; Situation or Environment; Behavior; Theory

Article

Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice

By: N. Gregory Mankiw, Matthew C. Weinzierl and Danny Yagan

We highlight and explain eight lessons from optimal tax theory and compare them to the last few decades of OECD tax policy. As recommended by theory, top marginal income tax rates have declined, marginal income tax schedules have flattened, redistribution has risen... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Theory; Practice; Policy

2013
Working Paper

Imprinting: Toward A Multilevel Theory

By: Christopher Marquis and Andras Tilcsik

The concept of imprinting has attracted considerable interest in numerous fields—including organizational ecology, institutional theory, network analysis, and career research—and has been applied at several levels of analysis, from the industry to the individual. This... View Details

Keywords: History; Situation or Environment; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure

SSRN

The concept of imprinting has attracted considerable interest in numerous fields—including organizational ecology, institutional theory, network analysis, and career research—and has been applied at several levels of analysis, from the industry to the individual.... View Details

Teaching Interest

DESIGN THEORY AND PRACTICE ES285

By: Roberto Verganti

Any organization, business or venture grounds its value on how “meaningful” are its products (functionally, symbolically and emotionally). Design Theory and Practice (DTP) empowers students to create products that are meaningful, to people who use them and to... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Design; Leadership; User Experience Design; Design; Strategy; Technology; Product Design

06 Apr 2020
Working Paper Summaries

A General Theory of Identification

Keywords: by Iavor Bojinov and Guillaume Basse

Research Summary

Game Theory for Business Strategy

Game theory--the mathematical study of strategic interactions--came of age, in a sense, when three of the field's pioneers were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994. Yet despite the development of the theory and the widespread use of game-theoretic jargon in... View Details

24 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

Value Maximization and Stakeholder Theory

communities, governmental officials, "and, under some interpretations, the environment, terrorists, blackmailers, and thieves.") But by failing to specify how managers should make the necessary tradeoffs among competing interests, writes Jensen, advocates of... View Details

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen

February 2013
Article

An Activity-Generating Theory of Regulation

By: Joshua Schwartzstein and Andrei Shleifer

We propose an activity-generating theory of regulation. When courts make errors, tort litigation becomes unpredictable and as such imposes risk on firms, thereby discouraging entry, innovation, and other socially desirable activity. When social returns to activity are... View Details

Keywords: Courts and Trials; Lawsuits and Litigation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Theory

2024
Working Paper

What Is Newsworthy? Theory and Evidence

By: Luis Armona, Matthew Gentzkow, Emir Kamenica and Jesse M. Shapiro

We study newsworthiness in theory and practice. We focus on situations in which a news outlet observes the realization of a state of the world and must decide whether to report the realization to a consumer who pays an opportunity cost to consume the report. The... View Details

Keywords: News; Mathematical Methods; Prejudice and Bias; Media and Broadcasting Industry