Publications

January 1994
Case

National Convenience Stores, Inc.

By: Steven R. Fenster, Stuart C. Gilson and Roy Burstin

National Convenience Stores seeks to emerge from Chapter 11. Central to the nature of the reorganization plan is the company's determining enterprise value. The various constituencies (secured debt, unsecured debt, etc.) will seek to find an enterprise value that... View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Valuation; Restructuring; Strategic Planning; Borrowing and Debt; Food and Beverage Industry; Texas

March 2024
Module Note

Accounting Standards for the 21st Century

By: Jonas Heese

Over the past two decades, accounting standards have evolved to meet the demands of a rapidly changing business environment. This module note focuses on understanding the impact of these standards on measuring firm performance and financial position in the context of a... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Standards; Performance Evaluation; Change Management

July 1979 (Revised August 2019)
Background Note

Note on Taxation

By: William J. Poorvu, Arthur I Segel, Glenn S. Miller, Michael D. Kummer, Charles F. Wu, Po Sit and Joseph M. Gerstel

Every real-estate transaction is affected by the tax consequences that result from its form and substance. Structuring a transaction without a thorough understanding of its tax considerations is likely to reduce the transaction's potential value. The failure to utilize... View Details

Keywords: Property; Taxation; Investment

Research Summary

The Consumer-Direct Channel: "We've Come Full Spiral"

Professor Lemon is currently engaged in a field research project investigating the extent to which new "channels" such as the Internet and home grocery delivery represent a dramatic shift in consumer buying behavior. She is working with a consortium of global... View Details

23 Jan 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Overcoming Institutional Voids: A Reputation-Based View of Long Run Survival

Keywords: by Cheng Gao, Tiona Zuzul, Geoffrey Jones, and Tarun Khanna

20 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 20

Publication:Journal of Public Economics (forthcoming) Abstract 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... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

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

Keywords: Business Startups; Diasporas; Entrepreneurship; Globalized Markets and Industries; Social and Collaborative Networks

2009
Other Unpublished Work

Clusters and Economic Policy: Aligning Public Policy with the New Economics of Competition

By: Michael E. Porter

The fundamental goal of economic policy is to enhance competitiveness, which is reflected in the productivity with which a nation or region utilizes its people, capital, and natural endowments to produce valuable goods and services. High and rising productivity,... View Details

Keywords: Economics

December 2000 (Revised February 2002)
Case

Pine Street Capital

A technology hedge fund is trying to decide whether and/or how to hedge equity market risk. Its hedging choices are short-selling and options. The fund has just gone through one of the most volatile periods in NASDAQ's history, it is trying to decide whether it should... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Investment Funds

29 May 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Some Neglected Axioms in Fair Division

Keywords: by John W. Pratt

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

Keywords: Resource Allocation; Valuation; Price; Cost

August 2023
Case

Stay or Go? Sarah Reynolds at Kensington Partners

By: David G. Fubini, Amr Seifeldin and Patrick Sanguineti

Sarah Reynolds, a Partner at the global Kensington Partners strategy consulting firm, has headed the firm's Telecommunications Group for a few years. Thanks to her stellar track record with clients, she has brought the group, and herself, a range of accolades and... View Details

Keywords: Consulting; Consulting Firms; Client Service; Career Management; Success; Time Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Personal Development and Career

2024
Working Paper

Deregulation, Market Power, and Prices: Evidence from the Electricity Sector

By: Alexander MacKay and Ignacia Mercadal

We construct a novel dataset on electricity generation, wholesale transactions, and retail sales to assess the shift from cost-of-service regulation to deregulated, market-based prices in the context of the U.S. electricity sector. Consistent with earlier studies, we... View Details

Keywords: Deregulation; Market Power; Markups; Prices; Electricity; Energy; Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Price; Utilities Industry

SSRN

Research Summary

Dynamic Demand Estimation in Platform and Two-Sided Markets

This paper develops techniques to structurally estimate consumer demand in general platform-intermediated and two-sided markets. By estimating both sides of the market simultaneously, the methodology presented here is able to (1) endogenize the utility of a platform as... View Details

June 2025
Case

Power Struggles: Hydro-Quebec’s Energy Dilemma

By: Juan Alcacer and Danika Couture-Peck

In 2024, Maxime Aucoin, Executive Vice President and CFO of Hydro-Quebec, faced a series of compounding challenges as the utility confronted rapidly rising electricity demand, public pricing constraints, and strained stakeholder relationships. As the steward of... View Details

Keywords: Renewable Energy; Infrastructure; State Ownership; Vertical Integration; Energy; Energy Industry; Canada

26 Sep 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism

Keywords: by Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona

Article

Multilateral Matching

By: John William Hatfield and Scott Duke Kominers

We introduce a matching model in which agents engage in joint ventures via multilateral contracts. This approach allows us to consider production complementarities previously outside the scope of matching theory. We show analogues of the first and second welfare... View Details

Keywords: Matching; Stability; Competitive Equilibrium; Core; Networks; Competition; Joint Ventures; Balance and Stability; Groups and Teams; Entrepreneurship

Find at Harvard

June 2011
Background Note

It's a Social World

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Nancy Bartlett

Social media had fashioned the lives of individuals and communities by 2010, providing an opportunity and a challenge for companies of all sizes. This note provides background on various social media (e.g. social networks, forums, games and communication services) and... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Media; Service Operations; Sales; Opportunities; Corporate Strategy; Web

2019
Article

Can Big Data Improve Firm Decision Quality? The Role of Data Quality and Data Diagnosticity

By: Maryam Ghasemaghaei and Goran Calic

Anecdotal evidence suggests that, despite the large variety of data, the huge volume of generated data, and the fast velocity of obtaining data (i.e., big data), quality of big data is far from perfect. Therefore, many firms defer collecting and integrating big data as... View Details

Keywords: Big Data; Analytics and Data Science; Decisions; Quality