Economics Of Competition - Publications - Faculty & Research

25 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

How Do Incumbents Fare in the Face of Increased Service Competition?

Keywords: by Ryan W. Buell, Dennis Campbell & Frances X. Frei; Banking

2010
Working Paper

Making the Numbers? 'Short Termism' and the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster

By: Nelson P. Repenning and Rebecca Henderson

Much recent work in strategy and popular discussion suggests that an excessive focus on "managing the numbers"—delivering quarterly earnings at the expense of longer-term investments—makes it difficult for firms to make the investments necessary to build competitive... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Performance Improvement; Competitive Advantage; Earnings Management; Management Practices and Processes; Revenue; Quality; Competency and Skills; Motivation and Incentives; Auto Industry; United States

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2024
Working Paper

How Real Is Hypothetical?: A High-Stakes Test of the Allais Paradox

By: Uri Gneezy, Yoram Halevy, Brian Hall, Theo Offerman and Jeroen van de Ven

Researchers in behavioral and experimental economics often argue that only incentive-compatible mechanisms can elicit effort and truthful responses from participants. Others argue that participants make less-biased decisions when the stakes are sufficiently high.... View Details

Keywords: Research; Behavioral Finance; Economics; Behavior; Prejudice and Bias

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April 1989 (Revised September 1989)
Case

CIBA-GEIGY AG: Impact of Inflation and Currency Fluctuations

By: Hugo Uyterhoeven

The chairman of the second-largest Swiss multinational company is preparing for a board discussion on the impact of a constantly strengthening Swiss franc. The case raises strategic issues in terms of international competitiveness, financial reporting issues of how to... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Currency; Financial Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Problems and Challenges; Risk and Uncertainty; Competitive Strategy; Switzerland

Citation

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01 Dec 2015
News

Sharing Knowledge of Innovation in India

Naveen Tewari (MBA 2005) When Naveen Tewari (MBA 2005) arrived on campus in 2003, his native India had not yet become the economic powerhouse it is today, a fact reflected in the limited number of HBS cases... View Details

01 Oct 1997
News

Class of 1997 Graduates with Distinction

Class of '99 Profile Number of applicants 7,467 Total size of class 880 September cohort 560 January cohort 320 Median age 26 Women 30% Minorities 17% International 26% Married... View Details

03 May 2017
HBS Seminar

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, The New York Times and Wharton, University of Pennsylvania

Working Paper

The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa

By: Stelios Michalopoulos and Elias Papaioannou

We examine the long-run consequences of a neglected aspect of colonization, the artificial drawing of borders during the Scramble for Africa and uncover the following empirical regularities. First, apart from the land mass and water area, no other pre-colonial trait... View Details

Keywords: Africa; Conflict; Development; Ethnicity; War; Development Economics; Geography; Africa

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25 Feb 2020
News

The Past Informs the Future of Work

“Number, please” was the oft-repeated request made by the more than 100,000 mostly female switchboard operators in the early 20th century. Anyone who had a telephone grew to know the familiar voices that connected them to the outside world. But in 1917, when AT&T began... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Gillespie; Telecommunications; Information

16 Mar 2018
News

Enabling The Pursuit of Entrepreneurial Dreams

Grace Ng (MBA 2019) Grace Ng (MBA 2019) Drawing on her left- and right-brain strengths, Grace Ng (MBA 2019) double-majored in economics and film at Rice University. “That might seem unusual to some, but I found having these two interests... View Details

July – August 2009
Article

Preferential Treatment: The New Face of Protectionism?

Free trade agreements have increased dramatically over the past decade. This forethought considers how they present global executives with thorny strategic and operational decisions, a piece of which has to do with China's entry into the FTA scene. View Details

Keywords: Agreements and Arrangements; Trade; Strategy; Operations; Decisions; Practice; China

Citation

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08 May 2013
Research & Ideas

A Company’s Evolving View of Gender Equity

identify, validate, and implement change. During analysis phases, outside experts provide credibility; during action phases, they offer accountability. The future of work As the authors suggest, technology and growing View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Accounting

2011
Working Paper

Cyclicality of Credit Supply: Firm Level Evidence

By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

Theory predicts that there is a close link between bank credit supply and the evolution of the business cycle. Yet fluctuations in bank-loan supply have been hard to quantify in the time-series. While loan issuance falls in recessions, it is not clear if this is due to... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Banks and Banking; Bonds; Financial Markets; Financing and Loans; Banking Industry

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18 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

The Bias of Wall Street Analysts

brokerages are working on repairing the tarnished image of the sell-side analyst profession while at the same time reconfiguring the economics of that function. Up until... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

2008
Other Unpublished Work

Accounting, Risk Management and the Aftermath of a Control Debacle

By: Anette Mikes

Despite the widespread adoption of risk management systems in the financial services industry, recent control debacles highlight the apparent lack of top managerial attention to risk controls. Yet in order to understand the workings and uses of risk controls (or any... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Governance Controls; Management Systems; Accounting; Conflict and Resolution; Trends; Financial Services Industry

Citation

December 2017 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Globalization Past, 1850–1914 (A)

By: Sophus A. Reinert and Federica Gabrieli

On the evening of 3 August 1914, British Foreign Secretary Lord Edward Grey contemplated whether to advise King and Parliament to declare war on Germany in the wake of the country’s invasion of Belgium or to stay out of what quickly was becoming a world war triggered... View Details

Keywords: The World; The Rise And Fall Of Globalization; World War; Globalization; War; Economics; Trade; Business Cycles; Economic Growth; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Society; History; Values and Beliefs; Macroeconomics

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10 Nov 2008
Research Event

Social Media Leads the Future of Technology

way for people in emerging markets to engage with the Internet, he said. "We think there's a lot of room for innovation here and a lot of room for richness and choices," Kim concluded. "There... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2012
Working Paper

When Do User Innovators Start Firms? A Theory of User Entrepreneurship

A rich and distinguished body of research has documented the importance of user innovations. For the most part, this literature has found that users innovate but do not commercialize their innovations. Instead, users benefit from using their innovations and allow... View Details

Keywords: Customers; Commercialization; Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention

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October 2023
Case

Taiwan After Globalization: Twilight of the Developmental State?

By: Debora L. Spar and Julia M. Comeau

In the last 70 years, the small island of Taiwan has achieved what many believe to be a “miracle”: its economy has grown at a record-setting pace, driven and guided by one of the world's most successful set of industrial policies, and it has become one of the richest... View Details