Publications

March 2012
Article

The New Science of Viral Ads

By: Thales Teixeira

It's the holy grail of digital marketing: the viral ad, a pitch that large numbers of viewers decide to share with family and friends. Several techniques derived from new technology can help advertisers attain this. In our research, two colleagues and I use... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Information Technology; Research; System; Marketing; Emotions; Television Entertainment

Purchase

August 2019 (Revised April 2021)
Case

Zillow Offers: Winning Online Real Estate 2.0

By: Luis Viceira, Marco Di Maggio and Allison Ciechanover

Founded in 2005, Zillow had become the leading online real estate and home-related marketplace. The brand was recognized as a trusted resource for players in the real estate market, providing information and transparency on home prices. Revenue, which was historically... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; Corporate Culture; Intermediation; Brokerage; Startup; Evaluating Business Investments; Property; Information Technology; Business Model; Expansion; Business Startups; Real Estate Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

Educators

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2015
Working Paper

A Theory of Intergenerational Mobility

By: Gary Becker, Scott Duke Kominers, Kevin Murphy and Jorg L. Spenkuch

We develop a model of intergenerational resource transmission that emphasizes the link between cross-sectional inequality and intergenerational mobility. By drawing on first principles of human capital theory, we derive several novel results. In particular, we show... View Details

Keywords: Intergenerational Mobility; Inequality; Complementarities; Human Capital; Equality and Inequality; Income; Family and Family Relationships

SSRN

2010
Working Paper

Agency Revisited

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Daniel F. Spulber

The article presents a comprehensive overview of the principal-agent model that emphasizes the role of trust in the agency relationship. The analysis demonstrates that the legal remedy for breach of duty can result in a full-information efficient outcome eliminating... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Contracts; Agency Theory; Mathematical Methods; Behavior; Trust

2013
Chapter

Weighted Generating Functions for Type II Lattices and Codes

By: Noam D. Elkies and Scott Duke Kominers

We give a new structural development of harmonic polynomials on Hamming space, and harmonic weight enumerators of binary linear codes, that parallels one approach to harmonic polynomials on Euclidean space and weighted theta functions of Euclidean lattices. Namely, we... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods

September 1996 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Mobil USM&R (B): New England Sales and Distribution

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The general manager of a local gasoline/distillate sales and distribution business unit must communicate a new strategy to the unit's 300 employees. An initial strategic planning exercise identified a high-priority list of opportunities that blended the parent... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Adoption; Strategic Planning; Customization and Personalization; Management Practices and Processes; Growth and Development Strategy; Measurement and Metrics; Motivation and Incentives; Performance Evaluation; Energy Industry; Mining Industry; United States

Educators

Purchase

March–April 2024
Article

How Companies Should Weigh in on a Controversy: A Better Approach to Stakeholder Management

By: David M. Bersoff, Sandra J. Sucher and Peter Tufano

Executives need guidance about managing their organizations’ engagement with societal issues—including hot-button topics such as gender, climate, and racial discrimination. Success in this realm does not mean avoiding public controversy or achieving unanimous support... View Details

Keywords: Values and Beliefs; Social Issues; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Judgments; Management Practices and Processes

April 2011
Article

The Origins of Japanese Technological Modernization

By: Tom Nicholas

Explanations of Japanese technological modernization from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century have increasingly focused on domestic capabilities as opposed to the traditional emphasis on knowledge transfers from the West. Yet, the literature is mostly... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Body of Literature; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Patents; Measurement and Metrics; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Economic Growth; Developing Countries and Economies; Information Technology; Technology Industry; Japan; Germany; Great Britain; United States

September 2009
Article

Deterring Online Advertising Fraud Through Optimal Payment in Arrears

By: Benjamin Edelman

Online advertisers face substantial difficulty in selecting and supervising small advertising partners. Fraud can be well hidden, and limited reputation systems reduce accountability. But partners are not paid until after their work is complete, and advertisers can... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Profit; Online Advertising; Advertising Industry

November – December 2007
Article

Fundamentally Flawed Indexing

By: Andre F. Perold

A new theory of finance is being advanced as providing definitive proof that holding stocks in proportion to their market capitalizations is an inferior investment strategy. The claim is that capitalization weighting necessarily invests more in overvalued stocks and... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Capital Markets; Financial Strategy; Stocks; Financial Management; Valuation

June 2024
Article

Redistributive Allocation Mechanisms

By: Mohammad Akbarpour, Piotr Dworczak and Scott Duke Kominers

Many scarce public resources are allocated at below-market-clearing prices, and sometimes for free. Such "non-market" mechanisms sacrifice some surplus, yet they can potentially improve equity. We develop a model of mechanism design with redistributive concerns. Agents... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Welfare; Mathematical Methods; Market Design; Cost vs Benefits

SSRN

November 2021
Article

Panel Experiments and Dynamic Causal Effects: A Finite Population Perspective

By: Iavor Bojinov, Ashesh Rambachan and Neil Shephard

In panel experiments, we randomly assign units to different interventions, measuring their outcomes, and repeating the procedure in several periods. Using the potential outcomes framework, we define finite population dynamic causal effects that capture the relative... View Details

Keywords: Panel Data; Dynamic Causal Effects; Potential Outcomes; Finite Population; Nonparametric; Mathematical Methods

May 2014
Article

Information and Two-Sided Platform Profits

By: Andrei Hagiu and Hanna Halaburda

We study the effect of different levels of information on two-sided platform profits under monopoly and competition. One side (developers) is always informed about all prices and therefore forms responsive expectations. In contrast, we allow the other side (users) to... View Details

Keywords: Responsive Expectations; Passive Expectations; Wary Expectations; Information; Performance Expectations; Two-Sided Platforms; Monopoly

SSRN

2008
Working Paper

Deterring Online Advertising Fraud Through Optimal Payment in Arrears

By: Benjamin Edelman

Online advertisers face substantial difficulty in selecting and supervising small advertising partners. Fraud can be well-hidden, and limited reputation systems reduce accountability. But partners are not paid until after their work is complete, and advertisers can... View Details

Keywords: Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Online Advertising; Profit; Corporate Accountability; Partners and Partnerships; Mathematical Methods

August 2015
Article

A Comparative-Advantage Approach to Government Debt Maturity

By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson and Jeremy C. Stein

We study optimal government debt maturity in a model where investors derive monetary services from holding riskless short-term securities. In a setting where the government is the only issuer of such riskless paper, it trades off the monetary premium associated with... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Finance; Debt Securities