Publications

November 1994 (Revised September 1996)
Case

RiceSelect

By: Alvin J. Silk and Mary Shelman

In August 1994, Robin Andrews, President of RiceTec, Inc., faces a critical decision that will affect his firm's future: what policy should RiceTec follow for supplying grocery retailers with private label merchandise? RiceTec, a small privately owned firm engaged in... View Details

Keywords: Cash Flow; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Supply Chain Management; Private Ownership; Research and Development; Conflict Management; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry

17 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Money Isn’t Everything: The Dos and Don’ts of Motivating Employees

companies that add “a little juice” to restricted stock programs by rewarding outperformance only over direct competitors, regardless of broader market shifts. He says these outperformance shares, where more or fewer shares vest as... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

2022
Article

Pills in a World of Activism and ESG

By: Guhan Subramanian and Caley Petrucci

Easterbrook and Fischel’s The Economic Structure of Corporate Law advances their now famous passivity thesis, which posits that managers should remain passive in the face of an unsolicited tender offer for the company’s shares. Consistent with the broader... View Details

Keywords: Investment Activism; Governance Controls; Business and Shareholder Relations

2020
Working Paper

Social Interactions in Pandemics: Fear, Altruism, and Reciprocity

By: Laura Alfaro, Ester Faia, Nora Lamersdorf and Farzad Saidi

In SIR models, homogeneous or with a network structure, infection rates are assumed to be exogenous. However, individuals adjust their behavior. Using daily data for 89 cities worldwide, we document that mobility falls in response to fear, as approximated by Google... View Details

Keywords: Social Interactions; Pandemics; Mobility; Cities; SIR Networks; Social Preferences; Social Planner; Targeted Policies; Health Pandemics; Interpersonal Communication; Behavior; Policy

2019
Article

Pay-for-Monopoly?: An Assessment of Reverse Payment Deals by Pharmaceutical Companies

By: Sana Rafiq and Max Bazerman

Abstract Over the past eighteen years, pharmaceutical firms have developed a blueprint to impede competition in order to maintain their monopoly profits. This scheme, termed pay-for-delay, involves direct or indirect payment of money from a branded-drug manufacturer... View Details

Keywords: Monopoly; Policy; Competition; Agreements and Arrangements; Pharmaceutical Industry

2011
Book

Moving Forward: The Future of Consumer Credit and Mortgage Finance

By: Nicolas P. Retsinas and Eric Belsky

The recent collapse of the mortgage market revealed fractures in the credit market that have deep roots in the system's structure, conduct, and regulation. The time has come for a clear-eyed assessment of what happened and how the system should be strengthened and... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Capital Markets; Credit; Financial Markets; Mortgages; Personal Finance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Demand and Consumers; Financial Services Industry

November–December 2024
Article

Loss of Peers and Individual Worker Performance: Evidence From H-1B Visa Denials

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Kirk Doran, Astrid Marinoni and Chungeun Yoon

We study how restrictive immigration policies that result in the unexpected loss of co-workers affect the performance of skilled migrants employed in organizations. Specifically, we examine the impact of the loss of team members on their co-workers’ performance in... View Details

Keywords: Immigration; Performance Productivity; Employees; Human Capital; Ethnicity; Groups and Teams

Purchase

Article

Nudging: Progress to Date and Future Directions

By: John Beshears and Harry Kosowsky

Nudges influence behavior by changing the environment in which decisions are made, without restricting the menu of options and without altering financial incentives. This paper assesses past empirical research on nudging and provides recommendations for future work in... View Details

Keywords: Nudge; Choice Architecture; Behavioral Economics; Behavioral Science; Behavior; Change; Situation or Environment; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decision Making

March 2018
Teaching Note

Twine Health

By: Robert S. Huckman and Ariel D. Stern

In late 2014, Dr. John Moore (CEO), Frank Moss (chairman), and Scott Gilroy (CTO) of Twine Health (Twine) had to resolve several challenges that threatened to restrict the widespread dissemination of its sole product, Twine. Twine was a cloud-based platform that... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Chronic Disease; Digital Health; Health Acceleration Challenge; Strategy; Disease Management; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Adoption; Health Industry; United States; Massachusetts

Purchase

May 2006
Article

Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence from a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines

By: Nava Ashraf, Dean Karlan and Wesley Yin

We designed a commitment savings product for a Philippine bank and implemented it using a randomized control methodology. The savings product was intended for individuals who want to commit now to restrict access to their savings, and who were sophisticated enough to... View Details

Keywords: Information; Product; Philippines

28 Sep 2016
HBS Seminar

Benjamin Pugsley, Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of New York

The Comprehensive Effects of Sales Force Management: A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Selection, Compensation, and Training

This study provides a comprehensive model of an agent’s behavior in response to multiple sales management instruments, including compensation, recruiting/termination, and training. The model takes into account many of the key elements that constitute a realistic... View Details

Do Bonuses Enhance Sales Productivity? A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Bonus-Based Compensation Plans

We estimate a dynamic structural model of sales force response to a bonus based compensation plan. Substantively, the paper sheds insights on how different elements of the compensation plan enhance productivity. We find evidence that: (1) bonuses enhance productivity... View Details

19 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

$15 Billion in Five Years: What Data Tells Us About MacKenzie Scott’s Philanthropy

organizations from our analysis, including: Sponsored programs (initiatives of legally separate nonprofits or fiscal sponsors) Organizations registered outside the US Recipients of restricted gifts, donations with specific parameters... View Details

Keywords: by Matthew Lee, Brian Trelstad, and Ethan Tran

2024
Working Paper

Trade Policy in the Shadow of Conflict: The Case of Dual-use Goods

By: Maxim Alekseev and Xinyue Lin

Policymakers increasingly use trade instruments to address national security concerns. This paper studies optimal policy for dual-use goods, items with both military and civilian applications. We begin by documenting that regulation and trade flows of dual-use goods... View Details

Keywords: Policy; National Security; Trade; Taxation; Financial Instruments; Macroeconomics

February 2022
Case

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi: Leading Through the Fog of the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Tedards

As COVID-19 began to take lives, destroy healthcare systems, and shut down economies across the globe, Dr. Rakesh Suri, Chief Executive Officer of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, and his executive team adapted their leadership to instill the new levels of agility and... View Details

Educators

Purchase

2024
Working Paper

Old Moats for New Models: Openness, Control, and Competition in Generative AI

By: Pierre Azoulay, Joshua L. Krieger and Abhishek Nagaraj

Drawing insights from the field of innovation economics, we discuss the likely competitive environment shaping generative AI advances. Central to our analysis are the concepts of appropriability—whether firms in the industry are able to control the knowledge generated... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; AI and Machine Learning; Open Source Distribution; Policy

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06 Nov 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Extending Producer Responsibility: An Evaluation Framework for Product Take-Back Policies

Keywords: by Michael W. Toffel, Antoinette Stein & Katharine L. Lee; Chemical

2023
Working Paper

The Customer Journey as a Source of Information

By: Nicolas Padilla, Eva Ascarza and Oded Netzer

In the face of heightened data privacy concerns and diminishing third-party data access, firms are placing increased emphasis on first-party data (1PD) for marketing decisions. However, in environments with infrequent purchases, reliance on past purchases 1PD... View Details

Keywords: Customer Journey; Privacy; Consumer Behavior; Analytics and Data Science; AI and Machine Learning; Customer Focus and Relationships