Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,849)
- Faculty Publications (429)
- 2008
- Working Paper
Reality versus Propaganda in the Formation of Beliefs about Privatization
By: Rafael Di Tella, Sebastian Galiani and Ernesto Schargrodsky
Argentina privatized most public utilities during the 1990s but re-nationalized the main water company in 2006. We study beliefs about the benefits of the privatization of water services amongst low and middle income groups immediately after the 2006 nationalization.... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
PlanetTran
By: Lauren H. Cohen and Christopher J. Malloy
PlanetTran is an environmentally-friendly car service that utilizes a fleet of hybrid cars in providing livery service to corporations and individuals. The founder, Seth Riney, is evaluating outside funding options in order to expand the company, and has met several... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Some Neglected Axioms in Fair Division
By: John W. Pratt
Conditions one might impose on fair allocation procedures are introduced. Nondiscrimination requires that agents share an item in proportion to their entitlements if they receive nothing else. The "price" procedures of Pratt (2007), including the Nash... View Details
- April 2008
- Exercise
Exercise: Customer-Operator Letter Writing
By: Frances X. Frei
The exercise involves having students write letters to an organization of their choice describing their operating experience at a detailed level. The companies' responses are paired with the students' letters and the entire collection is made available to the class.... View Details
- April 2008
- Module Note
Improvement with Customer-Operators
By: Frances X. Frei and Dennis Campbell
Taught as the third module in a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations: Understanding the Customer Operating Role (606-092). Explores how firms can systematically leverage their customer-operators in the organizational improvement process is... View Details
- March 2008
- Exercise
Exercise: Challenging Operational Assumptions
By: Frances X. Frei
This exercise provides students with an opportunity to thoroughly test an operating assumption. Students state an assumption as a testable hypothesis, collect and analyze relevant data, and communicate the results. At HBS, it is incorporated in a second-year elective... View Details
- March 2008
- Article
Market Reactions to Export Subsidies
By: M. A. Desai and James R. Hines Jr.
This paper analyzes the economic impact of export subsidies by investigating stock price reactions to a critical event in 1997. On November 18, 1997, the European Union announced its intention to file a complaint before the World Trade Organization (WTO), arguing that... View Details
- February 2008 (Revised May 2011)
- Case
The Travails of Rubber: Goodyear or Badyear?
By: Tom Nicholas and Andrew Ferguson
Explores the reason why Charles Goodyear, inventor of rubber vulcanization, was unable to profit from his discovery despite securing international property rights over his invention through a patent in 1844. Considers the utility of patents as an incentive for... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Variance-Seeking for Positive (and Variance-Aversion for Negative) Experiences: Risk-Seeking in the Domain of Gains?
By: Jolie Mae Martin, Gregory M. Barron and Michael I. Norton
In contrast to research which has conflated losses with negative experiences and gains with positive experiences, we argue that because reference points are set by memories of extremely good and bad experiences, most outcomes are seen as losses in positive domains and... View Details
Keywords: Change; Experience and Expertise; Marketing; Research; Risk and Uncertainty; Loss; Perspective
- January 2009
- Article
Bank Debt and Corporate Governance
By: Victoria Ivashina, Vinay Nair, Anthony Saunders, Nadia Massoud and Roger Stover
In this paper, we investigate the disciplining role of banks and bank debt in the market for corporate control. We find that relationship bank lending intensity and bank client network have positive effects on the probability of a borrowing firm becoming a target. This... View Details
- December 2007
- Article
Fair (and Not So Fair) Division
By: John W. Pratt
Drawbacks of existing procedures are illustrated and a method of efficient fair division is proposed that avoids them. Given additive participants' utilities, each item is priced at the geometric mean (or some other function) of its two highest valuations. The... View Details
- November 2007 (Revised April 2008)
- Case
Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar: A Rural Business Initiative
By: David E. Bell, Nitin Sanghavi, Virginia Fuller and Mary L. Shelman
In rural India, farmers historically had limited access to quality input items for both their fields and homes. Indian conglomerate DSCL has undertaken a Rural Business Initiative to address this issue, establishing a chain of retail outlets throughout rural India... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Paths to Equality: Walking the Talk in Multi-party Negotiations
By: Kathleen L. McGinn, Katherine L. Milkman and Markus Nöth
Past research has shown that communication in negotiations heightens social awareness, facilitates coordination, increases the utility for the other's positive outcomes, and thereby leads to more equal payoffs. But the role of specific communication strategies in... View Details
- October 2007 (Revised March 2009)
- Case
Advanced Energy: Programs for Energy Conservation
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Brooke Barton
Describes the dilemma facing Advanced Energy (AE), a $6 million nonprofit engaged in energy conservation in North Carolina. Most of the money for its programs comes from a Public Benefits Fund (PBF) enacted by the state legislature. With renewed effort by activists in... View Details
- October 2007 (Revised October 2009)
- Case
Global Climate Change and BP
By: Forest L. Reinhardt and Mikell Hyman
Following the sudden resignation of Sir John Browne, Tony Hayward, BP CEO, must decide how global climate change management will figure into BP's corporate strategy. Climate change management was a major part of BP's strategy under Browne: In 1997 Browne broke from his... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Fair (and Not So Fair) Division
By: John W. Pratt
Drawbacks of existing procedures are illustrated and a method of efficient fair division is proposed that avoids them. Given additive participants' utilities, each item is priced at the geometric mean (or some other function) of its two highest valuations. The... 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
How to Capture Value from Innovation: Shaping Intellectual Property and Industry Architecture
By: Gary P. Pisano and David J. Teece
In making strategic decisions about how to capture value from innovation, managers often look at two critical domains—the intellectual property environment and the architecture of the industry—as beyond their control. Yet, the intellectual property environment and the... View Details
- August 2007 (Revised July 2008)
- Background Note
Take Advantage of Your Diaspora Network
By: William R. Kerr and Daniel J. Isenberg
Diaspora networks (DNs) are an important resource for global entrepreneurs. Discusses several features of DNs, combining both academic and practitioner perspectives. Describes the history and prevalence of DNs in many ethnicities, documents the broad resources DNs can... View Details
- August 2007
- Case
Satelite Distribuidora de Petroleo
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Andrea M.A.F. Minardi
Marcelo Alecrim, the owner of SAT, a gas distribution company in Brazil, envisioned many growth opportunities but lacked financial resources to pursue them. He was approaching an American private equity fund to raise money. Describes Alecrim's challenge in creating SAT... View Details