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- October 2022
- Case
Weapons of Self Destruction: Zak Pym Williams and the Cultivation of Mental Wellness
By: Lauren Cohen, Ronnie Stangler and Grace Headinger
Zak Pym Williams, mental health advocate, grappled with the question of how to create a proactive mental health family environment for his children. Having witnessed how mental health challenges such as addiction and depression had impacted the past four generations of... View Details
- June 2022
- Article
A New Initiative to Track HIV Resource Allocation and Costs
By: Ryan McBain, AK Nandakumar, Michael Ruffner, Carlyn Mann, Mai Hijazi, Susanna Baker, Linden Morrison, Kalipso Chalkidou, Shufang Zhang, Iris Semini, Fern Terris-Prestholt, Steven Forsythe, Sarah Byakika, Joshua Musinguzi and Robert S. Kaplan
In early 2020, several global health institutions – including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS); United States Agency for International Development; and Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator at... View Details
- September 2022
- Background Note
On CUE: The Quest for Optimal Customer Unit Economics
By: Elie Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller
Startups are often evaluated by how well they perform on unit economics, defined as the ratio of a customer’s lifetime value (LTV) to acquisition costs (CAC). A common target for unit economics, advocated by many VCs and analysts, is 3:1 (i.e., LTV/CAC=3). While there... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
Slowly Varying Regression under Sparsity
By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Vassilis Digalakis Jr, Michael Lingzhi Li and Omar Skali Lami
We consider the problem of parameter estimation in slowly varying regression models with sparsity constraints. We formulate the problem as a mixed integer optimization problem and demonstrate that it can be reformulated exactly as a binary convex optimization problem... View Details
Keywords: Mathematical Methods
- August 2022
- Exercise
Joy4Home Brands: Pricing Matters
By: Elie Ofek, Oded Koenigsberg and Marco Bertini
Joy4Home Brands, the maker of novel houseware items, was gearing up for its launch. The company would be introducing two lines: kitchenware products and storage containers. The initial go-to-market plan called for a direct to consumer (DTC) channel strategy. While... View Details
- August 2022 (Revised August 2023)
- Case
NOW PT (A): Should We Invest?
By: George A Riedel, Amy Klopfenstein and Mel Martin
In fall 2021, a team of students from the HBS Impact Investing Fund considered Neurologic Optimal Wellness Physical Therapy (NOW PT) for a potential investment. Dr. Banks, the founder of NOW PT, drove to visit patients. She sought an investment from the fund to open a... View Details
- August 2022
- Supplement
NOW PT (B): Should We Invest?
By: George A. Riedel, Amy Klopfenstein and Mel Martin
This (B) case examines the results of the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team’s diligence on Neurologic Optimal Wellness Physical Therapy (NOW PT). After examining Springfield’s demographics, anticipated PT demand, local competition, and NOW PT’s financial... View Details
- August 2022
- Article
What Makes a Good Image? Airbnb Demand Analytics Leveraging Interpretable Image Features
By: Shunyuan Zhang, Dokyun Lee, Param Vir Singh and Kannan Srinivasan
We study how Airbnb property demand changed after the acquisition of verified images (taken by Airbnb’s photographers) and explore what makes a good image for an Airbnb property. Using deep learning and difference-in-difference analyses on an Airbnb panel dataset... View Details
- July 2022
- Supplement
Solution for E-Commerce Analytics for CPG Firms (B): Optimizing Assortment for a New Retailer
By: Ayelet Israeli
Keywords: Data; Data Analysis; Data Analytics; Data Sharing; CPG; Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG); Delivery Planning; Customer Lifetime Value; Online Channel; Retail; Retail Analytics; Retailing Industry; Ecommerce; Grocery; Optimization; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Customer Value and Value Chain; Marketing Channels; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- July 2022
- Supplement
Solution for E-Commerce Analytics for CPG Firms (C): Free Delivery Terms
By: Ayelet Israeli
Keywords: Data; Data Analysis; Data Analytics; Data Sharing; CPG; Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG); Delivery Planning; Customer Lifetime Value; Online Channel; Retail; Retail Analytics; Retailing Industry; Ecommerce; Grocery; Optimization; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Customer Value and Value Chain; Marketing Channels; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- July 2022
- Teaching Note
eGrocery and the Role of Data and E-Commerce Analytics for CPG Firms
By: Ayelet Israeli
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 521-077. View Details
Keywords: Data; Data Analysis; Data Analytics; Data Sharing; CPG; Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG); Delivery Planning; Customer Lifetime Value; Online Channel; Retail; Retail Analytics; Retailing Industry; Ecommerce; Grocery; Optimization; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Customer Value and Value Chain; Marketing Channels; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States
- April–June 2022
- Other Article
Commentary on 'Causal Decision Making and Causal Effect Estimation Are Not the Same... and Why It Matters'
There has been a substantial discussion in various methodological and applied literatures around causal inference; especially in the use of machine learning and statistical models to understand heterogeneity in treatment effects and to make optimal decision... View Details
- 2022
- Chapter
Prioritarianism and Optimal Taxation
By: Matti Tuomala and Matthew Weinzierl
Prioritarianism has been at the center of the formal approach to optimal tax theory since its modern starting point in Mirrlees (1971), but most theorists’ use of it is motivated by tractability rather than explicit normative reasoning. We characterize analytically and... View Details
Keywords: Prioritarianism; Optimal Taxation; Utilitarianism; Redistribution; Inverse-optimum; Taxation; Theory; Policy
- March 2022 (Revised March 2023)
- Case
Commercial Space Stations, Chickens and Eggs, and Demand for Activity in Low-Earth Orbit
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Brendan L. Rosseau
With the International Space Station set to retire in January 2031, NASA has made clear its desire to transition to commercially-led space stations in low-earth orbit (LEO). But the history of commercial station attempts has been fraught, characterized by a lack of... View Details
- March 2022
- Article
Learning to Rank an Assortment of Products
By: Kris Ferreira, Sunanda Parthasarathy and Shreyas Sekar
We consider the product ranking challenge that online retailers face when their customers typically behave as “window shoppers”: they form an impression of the assortment after browsing products ranked in the initial positions and then decide whether to continue... View Details
- March 2022
- Article
Where to Locate COVID-19 Mass Vaccination Facilities?
By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Vassilis Digalakis Jr, Alexander Jacquillat, Michael Lingzhi Li and Alessandro Previero
The outbreak of COVID-19 led to a record-breaking race to develop a vaccine. However, the limited vaccine capacity creates another massive challenge: how to distribute vaccines to mitigate the near-end impact of the pandemic? In the United States in particular, the new... View Details
- February 9, 2022
- Article
What's the Optimal Workplace for Your Organization?
By: Maria P. Roche and Andy Wu
More than two years in the COVID-19 pandemic, companies are struggling with how to reimagine their workspaces for their strategic needs. Too often, leaders push the decision down the road when, in fact, taking decisive action now can pay off later. But how do you... View Details
- 8 Feb 2022
- Interview
Episode 109: Former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly
By: Hubert Joly and Adam Mendler
A former Fortune 100 CEO, Hubert Joly was the leader of America's largest consumer electronics retailer. As CEO of Best Buy, Hubert led the company’s turnaround by implementing a distinct leadership philosophy and contrarian strategic decisions. Hubert joins Adam to... View Details
- January 2022
- Article
Global Behaviors, Perceptions, and the Emergence of Social Norms at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic
By: Lukas Hensel, Marc Witte, Stefano Caria, Thiemo Fetzer, Stefano Fiorin, Friedrich M. Goetz, Margarita Gomez, Johannes Haushofer, Andriy Ivchenko, Gordon T. Kraft-Todd, Elena Reutskaja, Christopher Roth, Erez Yoeli and Jon M. Jachimowicz
We conducted a large-scale survey covering 58 countries and over 100,000 respondents between late March and early April 2020 to study beliefs and attitudes towards citizens' and governments' responses at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most respondents reported... View Details
- Article
A Prescriptive Analytics Framework for Optimal Policy Deployment Using Heterogeneous Treatment Effects
By: Edward McFowland III, Sandeep Gangarapu, Ravi Bapna and Tianshu Sun
We define a prescriptive analytics framework that addresses the needs of a constrained decision-maker facing, ex ante, unknown costs and benefits of multiple policy levers. The framework is general in nature and can be deployed in any utility maximizing context, public... View Details