Publications

2005
Article

The Rise in Firm-Level Volatility: Causes and Consequences

By: Diego Comin and Thomas Philippon

We document that the recent decline in aggregate volatility has been accompanied by a large increase in firm level risk. The negative relationship between firm and aggregate risk seems to be present across industries in the US, and across OECD countries. Firm... View Details

Keywords: Volatility; Risk Management; Relationships; Research and Development; Financing and Loans; Industry Growth; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Economy; Outcome or Result; United States

January 2019
Case

Understanding the Brand Equity of Nestlé Crunch Bar: A Market Research Case

By: Jill Avery and Gerald Zaltman

In early 2018, Nestlé announced the sale of its U.S. candy-making division and a select collection of 20 of its confectionery brands, including the Nestlé Crunch Bar, to Ferrero SpA for $2.8 billion. Under the terms of the Nestlé acquisition, each of the purchased... View Details

Keywords: Brand Equity; Marketing; Market Research; Qualitative Research; Marketing Communication; Customer Satisfaction; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; North America; Italy

Educators

September 2020 (Revised July 2022)
Teaching Note

Algorithmic Bias in Marketing

By: Ayelet Israeli and Eva Ascarza

Teaching Note for HBS No. 521-020. This note focuses on algorithmic bias in marketing. First, it presents a variety of marketing examples in which algorithmic bias may occur. The examples are organized around the 4 P’s of marketing – promotion, price, place and... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Race; Ethnicity; Gender; Diversity; Prejudice and Bias; Decision Making; Ethics; Customer Relationship Management; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

14 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

Clay Christensen’s Milkshake Marketing

Updated to clarify a failure rate figure included in an earlier version. When planning new products, companies often start by segmenting their markets and positioning their merchandise accordingly. This segmentation involves either... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail; Service; Consumer Products; Food & Beverage

July 2021
Article

Augmenting Markets with Mechanisms

By: Samuel Antill and Darrell Duffie

We explain how the common practice of size-discovery trade detracts from overall financial market efficiency. At each of a series of size-discovery sessions, traders report their desired trades, generating allocations of the asset and cash that rely on the most recent... View Details

Keywords: Mechanism Design; Price Impact; Size Discovery; Allocative Efficiency; Workup; Dark Pool; Financial Markets; Market Design; Performance Efficiency

April 2020
Article

Technological Leadership (de)Concentration: Causes in Information and Communication Technology Equipment

By: Yasin Ozcan and Shane Greenstein

Using patent data from 1976 to 2010 as indicators of inventive activity, we determine the concentration level of where inventive ideas originate and then examine how and why those concentrations change over time. The analysis finds pervasive deconcentration in every... View Details

Keywords: Deconcentration; Technological Innovation; Innovation Leadership; Patents; Market Entry and Exit; Telecommunications Industry

July 2005
Article

Price Improvement in Dealership Markets

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

Price improvement refers to the practice whereby dealers order executions that improve on quoted prices. Why are these improvements given? Standard thinking is that competition causes dealers to give better prices to customers with less information. This paper... View Details

Keywords: Price; Markets; Competition; Information; Customers; Negotiation; Mission and Purpose; Practice; Theory; Performance Improvement; Bids and Bidding; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

29 Apr 2008
News

How to Revive Securitization Markets

20 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Getting the Marketing Mix Right

models—logit, nested logit, and probit, for example—are flawed because they make it appear as if all marketing activities produce the same results, the researchers contend. In reality, differences between various View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

August 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Supplement

The Dannon Company: Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility (B)

By: Christopher Marquis and Bobbi Thomason

Details Dannon's decision to initiate a cause marketing program focused on breast cancer to directly compete with Yoplait. View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Food and Beverage Industry

2009
Working Paper

Gray Markets and Multinational Transfer Pricing

By: Romana L. Autrey and Francesco Bova

Gray markets arise when a manufacturer's products are sold outside of its authorized channels, for instance when goods designated for a foreign market are resold domestically. One method multinationals use to combat gray markets is to increase internal transfer prices... View Details

Keywords: Price; Multinational Firms and Management; Demand and Consumers; Distribution Channels; Business and Government Relations; Sales; Competitive Strategy

07 Jan 2002
Research & Ideas

How Marketing Can Reduce Worldwide Poverty

On the face of it, social marketing is a cinch. Here's one scenario. You as a marketer want people who are living in poverty to take better care of their health. So, given your profession, what do you do?... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Article

Does 'Liking' Lead to Loving? The Impact of Joining a Brand's Social Network on Marketing Outcomes

By: Leslie K. John, Oliver Emrich, Sunil Gupta and Michael I. Norton

Does “liking” a brand on Facebook cause a person to view it more favorably? Or is “liking” simply a symptom of being fond of a brand? We disentangle these possibilities and find evidence for the latter: brand attitudes and purchasing are predicted by consumers’... View Details

Keywords: Brands; Marketing Effectiveness; Brand Evaluation; Peer Influence; Brands and Branding; Social and Collaborative Networks; Social Media

19 Sep 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Strategic Interactions in Two-Sided Market Oligopolies

Keywords: by Emmanuel Farhi & Andrei Hagiu

July 2009
Article

Bad Riddance or Good Rubbish? Ownership and Not Loss Aversion Causes the Endowment Effect

By: C. K. Morewedge, L. L. Shu, D. T. Gilbert and T. D. Wilson

People typically demand more to relinquish the goods they own than they would be willing to pay to acquire those goods if they didn't already own them (the endowment effect). The standard economic explanation of this phenomenon is that people expect the pain of... View Details

Keywords: Value; Judgments; Consumer Behavior; Attitudes

30 Nov 2016
Working Paper Summaries

The Stock Market and Bank Risk-Taking

Keywords: by Antonio Falato and David Scharfstein; Financial Services; Banking

2024
Working Paper

Internal and External Capital Markets of Large Banks

By: Lina Lu, Marco Macchiavelli and Jonathan Wallen

Despite regulatory restrictions, large U.S. bank holding companies have sizable and dynamic internal capital markets. They raise long-term debt at the holding company and deposits at the commercial bank to internally make unsecured loans to affiliated broker-dealers.... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; International Finance; Financial Markets

August 2015
Article

Pricing and Efficiency in the Market for IP Addresses

By: Benjamin Edelman and Michael Schwarz

We consider market rules for transferring IP addresses, numeric identifiers required by all computers connected to the Internet. Transfers usefully move resources from lowest- to highest-valuation networks, but transfers tend to cause socially costly growth in the... View Details

Keywords: Externalities; Intermediaries; Market Design; Internet; Web Services Industry; Telecommunications Industry