Publications

2018
Working Paper

Opportunistic Returns and Dynamic Pricing: Empirical Evidence from Online Retailing in Emerging Markets

By: Chaithanya Bandi, Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and Zhiji Xu

We investigate how dynamic pricing can lead to higher operational costs through more product returns in the online retail industry. Dynamic pricing has been widely applied by many online retailers. Research has shown that, in response to dynamic pricing, some customers... View Details

Keywords: Price; Policy; Consumer Behavior; Cost Management; Emerging Markets; Retail Industry

October 2015
Article

Managing the Performance Tradeoffs from Partner Integration: Implications of Contract Choice in R&D Projects

By: Alan MacCormack and Anant Mishra

Formal contracts represent an important governance instrument with which firms exercise control of and compensate partners in R&D projects. The specific type of contract used, however, can vary significantly across projects. In some, firms govern partnering... View Details

Keywords: ＂＂Partner Integration; Contract Choice; R＆D Project Management; Relational Contracts; Partnering Performance; Research and Development; Projects; Partners and Partnerships; Performance; Contracts

01 Apr 2025
HBS Seminar

Eric Bradlow, University of Pennsylvania

Web

Research - Managing the Future of Work

Apprenticeships By: Joseph B. Fuller and Matthew Sigelman MAY 2019 Report Future Positive: How Companies Can Tap Into Employee Optimism to Navigate Tomorrow’s Workplace By: Joseph B. Fuller, Judith K. Wallenstein, Manjari Raman, and Alice... View Details

Web

Marketing Curriculum - Faculty & Research

Ecosystem (also listed under Strategy) Ramon Casadesus-Masanell , Tomomichi Amano January 2026 J 3.0 Innovation and Renovation: Optimizing Product Line Architecture Tomomichi Amano Spring 2026 Q4 1.5 Managing Customers for Growth Eva... View Details

Article

The Role of Interactivity in Local Differential Privacy

By: Matthew Joseph, Jieming Mao, Seth Neel and Aaron Leon Roth

We study the power of interactivity in local differential privacy. First, we focus on the difference between fully interactive and sequentially interactive protocols. Sequentially interactive protocols may query users adaptively in sequence, but they cannot return to... View Details

February 2018
Article

Retention Futility: Targeting High-Risk Customers Might Be Ineffective.

By: Eva Ascarza

Companies in a variety of sectors are increasingly managing customer churn proactively, generally by detecting customers at the highest risk of churning and targeting retention efforts towards them. While there is a vast literature on developing churn prediction models... View Details

Keywords: Retention/churn; Proactive Churn Management; Field Experiments; Heterogeneous Treatment Effect; Machine Learning; Customer Relationship Management; Risk Management

07 Oct 2015
HBS Seminar

Florian Ederer, Assistant Professor of Economics, Yale School of Management

24 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

Value Maximization and Stakeholder Theory

of decisions regarding any of a firm's constituencies. The world may be complex and difficult to understand. It may leave us in deep uncertainty about the effects of any decisions we may make. It may be governed by complex dynamic systems that are difficult to View Details

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen

17 Jan 2023
In Practice

8 Trends to Watch in 2023

As 2023 begins, businesses and employees face an uncertain economy and labor market, as the twin dilemmas of inflation and interest rates weigh on forecasts. Harvard Business School faculty share the top trends that they believe will shape the workplace and markets... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

29 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 29

strategist to develop the optimal strategy without a comprehensive optimization. And it derives some broader organizational implications. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/12-102.pdf Cases & Course MaterialsHeavy... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

27 Oct 2016
HBS Seminar

Andrea Pratt, Richard Paul Richman Professor of Business and Professor of Economics, Columbia University

21 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

HBS Faculty Debate Financial Reform Legislation

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act slated to be signed this week by U.S. President Barack Obama has been called the most sweeping set of rules for banks and Wall Street since the Great Depression. But what do several Harvard Business School... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

2023
Working Paper

Distributionally Robust Causal Inference with Observational Data

By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Kosuke Imai and Michael Lingzhi Li

We consider the estimation of average treatment effects in observational studies and propose a new framework of robust causal inference with unobserved confounders. Our approach is based on distributionally robust optimization and proceeds in two steps. We first... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Mathematical Methods

June 2017
Article

Is Operating Flexibility Harmful under Debt?

By: Nikolaos Trichakis, Dan A. Iancu and Gerry Tsoukalas

We study the inefficiencies stemming from a firm's operating flexibility under debt. We find that flexibility in replenishing or liquidating inventory, by providing risk-shifting incentives, could lead to borrowing costs that erase more than a third of the firm's... View Details

Keywords: Covenants; Risk-shifting; Inventory; Agency Costs; Debt Financing; Risk Management; Borrowing and Debt

September 1990
Article

Competition on Many Fronts: A Stackelberg Signaling Equilibrium

By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont

An economic agent, the incumbent, is operating in many environments at the same time. These may be locations, markets, or specific activities. He is informed of the particular conditions relevant to each situation. His action in each case is observable by another... View Details

12 Mar 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Allocating Marketing Resources

Keywords: by Sunil Gupta & Thomas J. Steenburgh

February 2018
Article

Maintaining Beliefs in the Face of Negative News: The Moderating Role of Experience

By: Bradley R. Staats, Diwas S. KC and F. Gino

Many models in operations management involve dynamic decision making that assumes optimal updating in response to information revelation. However, behavioral theory suggests that rather than updating their beliefs, individuals may persevere in their prior beliefs. In... View Details

Keywords: Information; Announcements; Service Operations; Decision Making; Medical Specialties; Experience and Expertise; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

2012
Working Paper

Unobserved State Fragility and the Political Transfer Problem

By: Faisal Z. Ahmed and Eric Werker

Autocrats experiencing a windfall in unearned income may find it optimal to donate to other countries some of the windfall in order to make the state a less attractive prize to potential insurgents. We put forward a model that makes that prediction, as well as the... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Non-Renewable Energy; International Relations; Economics