Publications

January 2021
Article

Chain Stability in Trading Networks

By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers, Alexandru Nichifor, Michael Ostrovsky and Alexander Westkamp

We show that in general trading networks with bilateral contracts, a suitably adapted chain stability concept (Ostrovsky, 2008) is equivalent to stability (Hatfield and Kominers, 2012; Hatfield et al., 2013) if all agents' preferences are fully substitutable and... View Details

Keywords: Matching; Trading Networks; Chain Stability; Stability; Competitive Equilibria; Full Substitutability; Laws Of Aggregate Supply And Demand; Contracts; Market Design; Balance and Stability

23 Aug 2011
First Look

First Look: August 23

that exposure to informational advertising can decrease the consumer's tendency to purchase the promoted product. The structural estimates imply that an exposure to a single advertisement decreases the consumer's probability of not choosing her best alternative View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Jul 2016
First Look

July 12, 2016

on preventing them. She outlines five tactics that research has shown to be effective: encourage reciprocity. You can build trust and prompt other parties to disclose strategic information by sharing information yourself. Ask the right... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2015
Working Paper

Configurations of Extremal Type II Codes

By: Noam D. Elkies and Scott Duke Kominers

We prove configuration results for extremal Type II codes, analogous to the configuration results of Ozeki and of the second author for extremal Type II lattices. Specifically, we show that for n∈{8,24,32,48,56,72,96} every extremal Type II code of length n is... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods

Article

Improved Bounds on the Sizes of S.P Numbers

By: Paul Myer Kominers and Scott Duke Kominers

A number which is S.P in base r is a positive integer which is equal to the sum of its base-r digits multiplied by the product of its base-r digits. These numbers have been studied extensively in The Mathematical Gazette. Recently, Shah Ali... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods

Winter 2022
Article

Vaccines and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons from Failure and Success

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Alex Tabarrok

The losses from the global COVID-19 pandemic have been staggering—trillions in economic costs, on top of significant losses of life, health, and well-being. The world made significant and successful investments in vaccines to mitigate the pandemic, yet there were... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Vaccination; Market Design; Health Pandemics; Loss; Outcome or Result; Opportunities; Crisis Management

June 2007 (Revised January 2009)
Case

Nextel Partners: Put Option

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and Douglas Scott

Nextel Partners' shareholders have voted to exercise a put option that will require the company's largest shareholder, Sprint Nextel Corp., to purchase all the shares it does not already own. However, the put option does not stipulate a price to be paid, but rather a... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Stock Options; Price; Public Ownership; Valuation

June 2002
Case

"One Country, Two Systems"? Italy and the Mezzogiorno (B)

By: Bruce R. Scott and Jamie Matthews

In 1992, a corruption investigation and two assassinations created a crisis that prompted the Italian government to dispatch 7,000 troops to Sicily to "retake the island" from the Mafia. This case examines the crisis and the efforts of both the Italian state and the... View Details

Keywords: History; National Security; Crime and Corruption; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Italy

14 Nov 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas: November 14, 2017

experts to discuss how researchers can impact a broader audience, by lending their scientific expertise to pressing social issues, current events, and public debates. The landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, in which the Supreme... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

November 2011 (Revised November 2012)
Case

L'Occitane en Provence

By: Bo Becker, Daniela Beyersdorfer, Scott Mayfield and Mayuka Yamazaki

Cosmetics company L'Occitane en Provence must decide if it is the right time to go public, and, if so, where to list. The firm could list on Euronext in Paris, close to the firm's headquarters in southern France, on one of the large exchanges in the U.S., or perhaps in... View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; France

18 Apr 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, April 18, 2018

investigated how an organization’s heightened focus on political ideology impacts employees. We address this gap by exploring how an individual’s political ideological misfit with an organization’s prevailing ideology impacts mobility.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2023
Article

How New Ideas Diffuse in Science

By: Mengjie Cheng, Daniel Scott Smith, Xiang Ren, Hancheng Cao, Sanne Smith and Daniel A. McFarland

What conditions help new ideas spread? Can knowledge entrepreneurs’ position and develop new ideas in ways that help them take off? Most innovation research focuses on products and their reference. That focus ignores the ideas themselves and the broader ideational... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Adoption; Natural Language Processing; Knowledge; Science; Innovation and Invention; Knowledge Sharing; Analytics and Data Science

Article

Matching in Networks with Bilateral Contracts

By: John William Hatfield and Scott Duke Kominers

We introduce a model in which firms trade goods via bilateral contracts which specify a buyer, a seller, and the terms of the exchange. This setting subsumes (many-to-many) matching with contracts, as well as supply chain matching. When firms' relationships do not... View Details

Keywords: Contracts; Market Design; Marketplace Matching; Supply Chain

September 2010 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Ze-gen: Commercializing Clean Tech

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Kaitlyn Lyons and Scott Prozeller

The Ze-gen case covers the first five years in the life of a clean-tech start-up. Ze-gen had developed an innovative technology that converted solid waste into synthesis gas (called syngas). This technology was in testing at the company's pilot plant, built next to the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Renewable Energy; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Environmental Sustainability; Commercialization; Green Technology Industry; New Bedford

14 Jun 2016
First Look

June 14, 2016

Behavior and Impact of Patent Trolls: A Survey By: Cohen, Lauren, Umit Gurun, and Scott Duke Kominers Abstract—We survey the empirical literature on non-practicing entity (NPE) litigation behavior and its consequences. We document both... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2014
Article

Convergence of Position Auctions under Myopic Best-Response Dynamics

By: Matthew Cary, Aparna Das, Benjamin Edelman, Ioannis Giotis, Kurtis Heimerl, Anna Karlin, Scott Duke Kominers, Claire Mathieu and Michael Schwarz

We study the dynamics of multi-round position auctions, considering both the case of exogenous click-through rates and the case in which click-through rates are determined by an endogenous consumer search process. In both contexts, we demonstrate that the dynamic... View Details

Keywords: Sponsored Search; Advertising; Google; Equilibrium Selection; Online Advertising; Advertising Industry