Publications
Publications
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(4,574)
- Faculty Publications (1,404)
- Article
The Importance of Being Causal
By: Iavor I Bojinov, Albert Chen and Min Liu
Causal inference is the study of how actions, interventions, or treatments affect outcomes of interest. The methods that have received the lion’s share of attention in the data science literature for establishing causation are variations of randomized experiments.... View Details
- July 2020 (Revised September 2021)
- Case
Mr. Five Percent: Calouste Gulbenkian and the Origins of Global Oil
By: Geoffrey Jones and Yazeed Al-Rashed
This case describes the business career of Calouste Gulbenkian, a skilled intermediary who was able to secure 5 percent of a vast oil concession covering much of the Middle East that was signed in 1928. Gulbenkian was an ethnic Armenian born in the Ottoman Empire,... View Details
Keywords: Oil; Globalization; Energy Sources; History; Biography; Energy Industry; Turkey; Central Asia; Middle East
- Article
Active World Model Learning with Progress Curiosity
By: Kuno Kim, Megumi Sano, Julian De Freitas, Nick Haber and Daniel Yamins
World models are self-supervised predictive models of how the world evolves. Humans learn world models by curiously exploring their environment, in the process acquiring compact abstractions of high bandwidth sensory inputs, the ability to plan across long temporal... View Details
- July 2020
- Article
Who Should Select New Employees, Headquarters or the Unit Manager? Consequences of Centralizing Hiring at a Retail Chain
By: Carolyn Deller and Tatiana Sandino
We examine how changing the allocation of hiring decision rights in a multiunit organization affects employee-firm match quality, contingent on a unit’s circumstances. Our research site, a U.S. retail chain, switched from a decentralized hiring model (hiring by... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Cephalosporins—Fighting Hospital Infections: Case Histories of Transformational Advances
By: Amar Bhidé, Srikant Datar and Katherine Stebbins
This case history describes the development of three generations of cephalosporins – antibiotics that have significantly reduced hospital infections. Specifically, we chronicle how: 1) Early (pre-cephalosporin) antibiotics were developed in the first half of the 20th... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Prozac—Controversial Blockbuster: Case Histories of Transformational Advances
By: Amar Bhidé, Srikant M. Datar and Katherine Stebbins
This case history describes the development of Prozac, a blockbuster drug that transformed
the treatment of depression – and became a cultural phenomenon in the United States. Specifically, we
chronicle the: 1) prior treatments for depression and the research that... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Tamoxifen—Reducing Breast Cancer Risks: Case Histories of Transformational Advances
By: Amar Bhidé, Srikant Datar and Katherine Stebbins
We describe the development of tamoxifen, considered a “gold standard” treatment for
millions of breast cancer patients. Specifically, we describe breast cancer treatments before tamoxifen’s
development; the initial development of tamoxifen from 1960 to 1973;... View Details
- June 2020
- Case
Recovering Trust After Corporate Misconduct at Wells Fargo
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Jonah S. Goldberg
The case describes widespread misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank in the period leading up to 2017 and the company’s subsequent attempts to improve internal controls, company culture, and corporate governance. The case examines the potential causes of large scale... View Details
- June 2020 (Revised February 2021)
- Case
Accounting for Leases at American Airlines (A)
By: Jonas Heese, Gerardo Pérez Cavazos and Julia Kelley
In March 2020, as coronavirus reduced demand for air travel, an analyst was forecasting American Airlines’ (American’s) first quarter financial results. To develop a forecast, she needed to familiarize herself with Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2016-02, “Leases... View Details
Keywords: Accounting; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Finance; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leasing; Accounting Industry; Air Transportation Industry; North and Central America; United States
- June 2020 (Revised February 2021)
- Supplement
Accounting for Leases at American Airlines (B)
By: Jonas Heese, Gerardo Pérez Cavazos and Julia Kelley
This is a supplement to the “Accounting for Leases at American Airlines (A)” case. The (B) case describes American Airlines’ financial results for the first quarter of 2020, as well as the continuing effects of coronavirus on the airline industry. View Details
Keywords: Accounting; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Finance; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leasing; Health Pandemics; Accounting Industry; Air Transportation Industry; North and Central America; United States
- June 2020
- Article
How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections
By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel
Accuracy and consistency are critical for inspections to be an effective, fair, and useful tool for assessing risks, quality, and suppliers—and for making decisions based on those assessments. We examine how inspector schedules could introduce bias that erodes... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
How Should U.S. Bank Regulators Respond to the COVID-19 Crisis?
By: Michael Blank, Samuel G. Hanson, Jeremy C. Stein and Adi Sunderam
Drawing on lessons from the 2007–2009 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and a simple conceptual framework, we examine the response of U.S. bank regulators to the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the current regulatory strategy of “watchful waiting”—the same strategy that... View Details
- June 2020
- Article
Informing Dissent
By: Hillary Greene and Dennis Yao
The first part of this commentary argues that because the production of dissent depends on the availability of information, greater attention should focus on government restrictions on access to official information. At no time is this more important than when... View Details
- May 21, 2020
- Editorial
Primary Care Is Hurting: Why Aren't Private Insurers Pitching In?
By: Leemore S. Dafny and J. Michael McWilliams
Primary care clinicians are the front line for patients with suspected infection. We rely on them to diagnose, triage, and manage patients with potential or confirmed COVID infections. They are also responsible for keeping non-COVID medical conditions under control... View Details
- May 2020
- Teaching Note
Baskits Inc.
By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 217-001. Robin Kovitz (MBA 2007) acquired Baskits, a Canadian gift basket company, in October of 2014. The business was highly seasonal with two-thirds of its sales occurring in November and December. Baskits dealt with its seasonality... View Details
- May 2020
- Article
Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Inter-Generational Investment
By: Nava Ashraf, Natalie Bau, Corinne Low and Kathleen McGinn
Using a randomized control trial, we examine whether offering adolescent girls nonmaterial resources—specifically, negotiation skills—can improve educational outcomes in a low-income country. In so doing, we provide the first evidence on the effects of an intervention... View Details
- April 2020
- Supplement
Oaktree: Pierre Foods Investment
By: Victoria Ivashina and Terrence Shu
This case is a setting to discuss “loan to own” investment strategy that is often pursued by distressed investors. The aftermath of the 2007 financial crisis left many companies with poor liquidity and limited ability to obtain credit. One of these companies was Pierre... View Details
- April 2020
- Teaching Note
Oaktree: Pierre Foods Investment
By: Victoria Ivashina, Michael Harmon and Terrence Shu
Teaching Note for HBS No. 219-018. This case is a setting to discuss “loan to own” investment strategy that is often pursued by distressed investors. The aftermath of the 2007 financial crisis left many companies with poor liquidity and limited ability to obtain... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Sticky Capital Controls
By: Miguel Acosta-Henao, Laura Alfaro and Andres Fernandez
There is much ongoing debate on the merits of capital controls as effective policy instruments. The differing perspectives are due in part to a lack of empirical studies that look at the intensive margin of controls, which in turn has prevented a quantitative... View Details
- March 2020
- Case
China's Management of COVID-19 (A): People's War or Chernobyl Moment?
By: Meg Rithmire and Courtney Han
In late 2019, a novel respiratory virus appeared in a province in central China. Government officials in Wuhan, Hubei province had to respond to the new virus in the shadow of the 2002–2003 outbreak of SARS in China and within the context of the country’s public health... View Details