Publications

Educators

06 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

Updating a Classic: Writing a Great Business Plan

so entails committing to paper a vision of the factors that will affect the success or failure of the enterprise. People take the exercise very seriously and get emotionally invested in what they produce. In that context, the article was... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

07 Jun 2004
Research & Ideas

What Drives Supply Chain Behavior?

examination of behavioral dynamics in supply chains examining demand and supply planning processes. In particular we were interested in how behavioral biases, e.g., psychological, incentive related, etc., affect both the making of View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston

May 2012
Article

Complicated Firms

By: Lauren Cohen and Dong Lou

We exploit a novel setting in which the same piece of information affects two sets of firms: one set of firms requires straightforward processing to update prices, while the other set requires more complicated analyses to incorporate the same piece of information into... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Information; Price; Forecasting and Prediction; Complexity; Mathematical Methods

Research Summary

Competitive Dynamics of the Textile-Apparel-Retail Channel

By: Janice H. Hammond

Janice H. Hammond established in 1991 (with Frederick H. Abernathy and John Dunlop of Harvard University and David Weil of Boston University) the Harvard Center for Textile and Apparel Research. Funding provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has supported the... View Details

12 Jul 2016
First Look

July 12, 2016

Calibrating the model to data from the Financial Accounts of the U.S., the optimal capital requirement is around 20%. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51305 Bias in Official Fiscal Forecasts: Can Private View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

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

Educators

Purchase

March–April 2013
Article

Vaporware, Suddenware and Trueware: New Product Preannouncements under Market Uncertainty

By: Elie Ofek and Ozge Turut

A firm may want to preannounce its plans to develop a new product in order to stimulate future demand. But given that such communications can affect rivals' incentives to develop the same new product, a firm may decide to preannounce untruthfully in order to deter... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Announcements; Competition; Product Launch; Product Development

November 2015
Article

When Doing Good Is Bad in Gift-giving: Mis-predicting Appreciation of Socially Responsible Gifts

By: Lisa A. Cavanaugh, F. Gino and Gavan J. Fitzsimons

Gifts that support a worthy cause (i.e., "gifts that give twice"), such as a charitable donation in the recipient's name, have become increasingly popular. Recipients generally enjoy these gifts, which not only benefit others in need but also make recipients feel good... View Details

Keywords: Perception; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

15 Sep 2015
First Look

September 15, 2015

Operations Management Analytics for an Online Retailer: Demand Forecasting and Price Optimization By: Ferreira, Kris J., Bin Hong Alex Lee, and David Simchi-Levi Abstract—We present our work with an online retailer, Rue La La, as an... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

Investor Sentiment in the Stock Market

By: Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler

We examine how investor sentiment affects the cross-section of stock returns. Theory predicts that a broad wave of sentiment will disproportionately affect stocks whose valuations are highly subjective and are difficult to arbitrage. We test this prediction by... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Stocks; Investment Return; Valuation; Forecasting and Prediction; Volatility; Price; Risk and Uncertainty; Behavioral Finance

January–February 2021
Article

Cross‐firm Return Predictability and Accounting Quality

By: Wen Chen, Mozaffar Khan, Leonid Kogan and George Serafeim

We test the hypothesis that if poor accounting quality (AQ) is associated with poor investor understanding of firms’ revenue and cost structures, then poor AQ stocks likely respond more slowly than good AQ stocks to new non‐idiosyncratic information that affects both... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Quality; Earnings Quality; Stock Returns; Investment Strategy; Accounting; Business Earnings; Quality; Investment Return; Investment; Strategy

Register to Read

Forthcoming
Article

The Rise of Remote Work: Evidence on Productivity and Preferences from Firm and Worker Surveys

By: Alexander Bartik, Zoë Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca and Christopher Stanton

Drawing on surveys of small business owners and employees, we present three main findings about the evolution of remote work after the onset of COVID-19. First, uptake of remote work was abrupt and widespread in jobs suitable for telework according to the task-based... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Remote Work; Health Pandemics; Jobs and Positions; Demographics; Surveys

21 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 21

credit constraints do affect entrepreneurship but that the overall magnitudes are small. Moreover, the marginal individuals selecting into entrepreneurship when constraints are relaxed may well be starting businesses that are of lower... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

24 May 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Improving Store Liquidation

Keywords: by Nathan Craig & Ananth Raman; Retail

Forthcoming
Article

Reflexivity in Credit Markets

By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson and Lawrence J. Jin

Reflexivity is the idea that investors' biased beliefs affect market outcomes and that market outcomes in turn affect investors’ future biases. We develop a dynamic behavioral model of the credit cycle featuring this two-way feedback loop. Investors form beliefs about... View Details

Keywords: Reflexivity; Attitudes; Financial Markets; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment; Credit

15 May 2007
Working Paper Summaries

I’ll Have the Ice Cream Soon and the Vegetables Later: Decreasing Impatience over Time in Online Grocery Orders

Keywords: by Todd Rogers, Katherine L. Milkman & Max H. Bazerman; Food & Beverage

Article

Valuation Waves and Merger Activity: The Empirical Evidence

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, David Robinson and S. Viswanathan

To test recent theories suggesting that valuation errors affect merger activity, we develop a decomposition that breaks the market-to-book ratio (M/B) into three components: the firm-specific pricing deviation from short-run industry pricing; sector-wide, short-run... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Forecasting and Prediction; Price; Theory; Behavior

2016
Working Paper

The Impact of Supplier Inventory Service Level on Retailer Demand

By: Nathan Craig, Nicole DeHoratius and Ananth Raman

To set inventory service levels, suppliers must understand how changes in inventory service level affect demand. We build on prior research, which uses analytical models and laboratory experiments to study the impact of a supplier's service level on demand from... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Forecasting and Prediction; Learning; Consumer Behavior; Service Delivery; Performance Expectations; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Service Industry

SSRN

August 2006
Article

Investor Sentiment and the Cross Section of Stock Returns

By: Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler

We examine how investor sentiment affects the cross-section of stock returns. Theory predicts that a broad wave of sentiment will disproportionately affect stocks whose valuations are highly subjective and are difficult to arbitrage. We test this prediction by... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Finance; Stocks; Investment Return; Forecasting and Prediction; Motivation and Incentives; Risk and Uncertainty; Volatility