Publications

04 May 2020
News

How locked-down adventurers are climbing Mount Everest, and dancing at Kiss concerts, all from the comfort of their couch

22 Jun 2021
Blog Post

Why Many Businesses Are Becoming More Vocal In Support of LGBTQ Rights

approval of same-sex relationships is emerging as a predictor of competitiveness and innovation in cities. All this to say, LGBTQ inclusion is good for the economy, and as more... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

March 2024
Case

Hippo: Weathering the Storm of the Home Insurance Crisis

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Sophia Pan

Rick McCathron, CEO of Hippo, considered how the firm’s underwriting model could account for the effects of climate change. Along with providing smart home packages, targeting risk-friendly customers, and using data-driven pricing, the Insurtech used technologically... View Details

Educators

Forthcoming
Article

Sixty Years of the Voting Rights Act: Progress and Pitfalls

By: Andrea Bernini, Giovanni Facchini, Marco Tabellini and Cecilia Testa

We review the literature on the effects of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), which removed formal restrictions to Black political participation. After a brief description of racial discrimination suffered by Black Americans since Reconstruction, we introduce the... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Equality and Inequality; Race; Political Elections; Voting; Policy; Outcome or Result; Government Legislation

2022
Working Paper

What's My Employee Worth? The Effects of Salary Benchmarking

By: Zoë B. Cullen, Shengwu Li and Ricardo Perez-Truglia

While U.S. legislation prohibits employers from sharing information about their employees’ compensation with each other, companies are still allowed to acquire and use more aggregated data provided by third parties. Most medium and large firms report using this type... View Details

Keywords: Information Sharing; Wages; Policy; Compensation and Benefits

December 2003 (Revised October 2006)
Case

Globalizing the Cost of Capital and Capital Budgeting at AES

By: Mihir A. Desai and Douglas Kurt Schillinger

With electricity generating businesses around the world, AES Corp. is seeking a methodology for calculating the cost of capital for its various businesses and potential projects. In the past, AES used the same cost of capital for all of its capital budgeting, but the... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Risk Management; Globalized Firms and Management; Cost of Capital; Valuation; Emerging Markets; Foreign Direct Investment; Capital Budgeting; Energy Industry; South America

Educators

December 2014
Article

When to Sell Your Idea: Theory and Evidence from the Movie Industry

By: Hong Luo

I study a model of investment and sale of ideas and test its empirical implications using a novel data set from the market for original movie ideas. Consistent with the theoretical results, I find that buyers are reluctant to meet unproven sellers for early-stage... View Details

Keywords: Market For Ideas; Information Asymmetry; Expropriation Risk; Intermediary; Intellectual Property Protection; Strategy; Intellectual Property; Film Entertainment; Sales; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

2021
Working Paper

Exclusive Dealing and Entry by Competing Two-Sided Platforms

By: Cristian Chica, Kenneth Chuk and Jorge Tamayo

We study competition between horizontally differentiated platforms offering exclusive and non-exclusive contracts to one side of the market (content providers). The introduction of non-exclusive contracts in addition to exclusive contracts softens the competition for... View Details

Keywords: Two-Sided Markets; Platform Price Competition; Network Externalities; Exclusive Contracts; Multi-homing; Digital Platforms; Price; Competition; Contracts

31 Mar 2010
Working Paper Summaries

When Open Architecture Beats Closed: The Entrepreneurial Use of Architectural Knowledge

Keywords: by Carliss Y. Baldwin

2014
Contribution

Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets: Contextual Intelligence for the Study of Two Thirds of the World's Population

By: Tarun Khanna

In this paper, I review the concept of "institutional voids" that provides a way to understand the structure of emerging markets. These voids impede would-be buyers from getting together with would-be sellers, and hence compromise the functioning of markets.... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship

01 Mar 2004
News

HBS Alumni Association Board of Directors

program that draws on the latest research and thinking of HBS faculty. A new program, called Innovations in Management, covers five topics in individual sessions spread over a five-month period in New York... View Details

Keywords: Ted Fischer; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

16 Jun 2017
News

Does Amazon’s Acquisition of Whole Foods Check Out?

June 2008
Article

Current State of Fellowship Hiring: Is a Universal Match Necessary? Is It Possible?

By: Christopher D. Harner, Anil S. Ranawat, Muriel Niederle, Alvin E. Roth, Peter J. Stern, Shepard R. Hurwitz, William Levine, G. Paul DeRosa and Serena S. Hu

Currently, approximately ninety percent of the six hundred twenty graduating orthopaedic residents are planning on entering a post-graduate fellowship. Since January of 2005, two of the largest fellowship match programs, Sports Medicine and Spine Surgery, were... View Details

Keywords: Medical Specialties; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Employment; Market Timing; Marketplace Matching; Health Industry

16 Jun 2023
News

On the Move: Adam Laitsas (MBA 2016)

Our “On the Move” series highlights HBS alumni who are taking on new roles and responsibilities. Here we speak with Adam Laitsas (MBA 2016), who was announced as EVP of International Strategy & Business Operations for the Professional Fighters League (PFL) MENA region... View Details

Keywords: marketing; career changes; mixed martial arts; sports; MENA; Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries; Arts, Entertainment

01 Mar 2015
News

Case Study: The Speed of Light

(Photo courtesy of KDC Solar) Launched in 2011, QE solar is an operations and maintenance company focused on servicing large-scale, commercial solar energy structures—the kind typically owned by large utility companies. The company is... View Details

Keywords: Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution; Utilities

2017
Working Paper

The Importance of Unemployment Insurance as an Automatic Stabilizer

By: Marco Di Maggio and Amir Kermani

We assess the extent to which unemployment insurance (UI) serves as an automatic stabilizer to mitigate the economy's sensitivity to shocks. Using a local labor market design based on heterogeneity in local benefit generosity (defined as the percentage of household... View Details

Keywords: Unemployment Insurance; Automatic Stabilizers; Bartik Shocks; Aggregate Demand; System Shocks; Employment; Balance and Stability; Insurance; Volatility; Insurance Industry

September 2023
Case

The Rise and Fall of FTX

By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese, Joseph Pacelli and Max Hancock

In November 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried's multi-billion-dollar crypto exchange, FTX, collapsed, wiping out investors and throwing the crypto industry into disarray. As FTX's founder and CEO, Bankman-Fried developed a reputation for his unerring business sense and... View Details

Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Crime and Corruption; Financial Statements; Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Failure; Restructuring; United States; Hong Kong; Bahamas

Educators

February 2006
Case

Millions of Customers and the Search for a Business: the Challenge of IRC-Hispano

Like many online services, IRC-Hispano, the world's largest Spanish-language chat organization, has many customers but sees few revenues. As an association, its structure presents many limitations and hurdles to overcome involving investing in technology platform... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Decision Choices and Conditions; Digital Platforms; Technology Adoption; Internet and the Web; Organizational Structure; Technological Innovation; Revenue; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry; Spain