Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(790)
- Faculty Publications (158)
- October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
KOKO Networks: Bridging Energy Transition and Affordability with Carbon Financing
By: George Serafeim, Siko Sikochi and Namrata Arora
The problem was massive: two million hectares of African forests were lost annually to charcoal production for cooking, an area equivalent to 13 times Greater London, resulting in one billion tons of carbon emissions yearly. At the same time, an estimated 700,000... View Details
Keywords: Clean Tech; Digital; Carbon Credits; Carbon Offsetting; Africa; Emerging Markets; Energy; Climate Change; Entrepreneurship; Energy Sources; Environmental Sustainability; Health; Market Design; Business Startups; Transition; Environmental Regulation; Policy; Energy Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Africa; Kenya; Rwanda
- 2023
- Working Paper
Interest-Rate Risk and Household Portfolios
By: Sylvain Catherine, Max Miller, James Paron and Natasha Sarin
How are households exposed to interest-rate risk? When rates fall, households face lower future expected returns but those holding long-term assets—disproportionately the wealthy and middle-aged—experience capital gains. We study the hedging demand for long-term assets... View Details
- September 2023
- Article
Measuring Time Use in Rural India: Design and Validation of a Low-Cost Survey Module
By: Erica Field, Rohini Pande, Natalia Rigol, Simone Schaner, Elena Stacy and Charity Troyer Moore
Time use data can help us understand individual labor supply choices, especially
for women who often provide unpaid care and home production. Although
enumerator-assisted diary-based time use data collection is suitable for
low-literacy populations, it is costly and... View Details
- August 2023
- Article
Can Security Design Foster Household Risk-Taking?
By: Laurent Calvet, Claire Célérier, Paolo Sodini and Boris Vallée
This paper shows that securities with a non-linear payoff design can foster household risk-taking. We demonstrate this effect empirically by exploiting the introduction of capital guarantee products in Sweden from 2002 to 2007. The fast and broad adoption of these... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Residential Battery Storage - Reshaping the Way We Do Electricity
By: Christian Kaps and Serguei Netessine
In this paper, we aim to understand when private households invest in behind-the-meter battery storage next to rooftop solar and how those batteries impact households, the electricity market, and emissions. We answer three main research questions: 1) When do customers... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Beyond the Hype: Unveiling the Marginal Benefits of 3D Virtual Tours in Real Estate
By: Mengxia Zhang and Isamar Troncoso
3D virtual tours (VTs) have become a popular digital tool in real estate platforms, enabling potential buyers to virtually walk through the houses they search for online. In this paper, we study home sellers’ adoption of VTs and the VTs’ relative benefits compared to... View Details
- June 2023
- Article
Why Is Dollar Debt Cheaper? Evidence from Peru
By: Bryan Gutiérrez, Victoria Ivashina and Juliana Salomao
In emerging markets, a significant share of corporate loans are denominated in dollars. Using novel data that enables us to see currency and the cost of credit, in addition to several other transaction-level characteristics, we re-examine the reasons behind dollar... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Translating Information into Action: A Public Health Experiment in Bangladesh
By: Reshmaan Hussam, Kailash Pandey, Abu Shonchoy and Chikako Yamauchi
While models of technology adoption posit learning as the basis of behavior change, information campaigns in public health frequently fail to change behavior. We design an information campaign embedding hand-hygiene edutainment within popular dramas using mobile... View Details
- January 2023 (Revised December 2023)
- Case
OhmConnect: Energizing the Future
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Jennifer Fonstad and Nicole Tempest Keller
Founded in 2013, OhmConnect was a free consumer web app that alerted customers about peak hours of electricity demand, and paid them to lower their energy use at home during these periods. The company sold the aggregated reductions generated by thousands of households... View Details
Keywords: App Development; Renewable Energy; Electricity Usage; Regulations; VC; Technology; Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC); Scalability; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business Model; Venture Capital; Energy Industry; United States; California; Texas; Europe
- 2022
- Working Paper
Credit and the Family: The Economic Consequences of Closing the Credit Gap of U.S. Couples
By: Olivia S. Kim
Marital property rights strengthen secondary earners’ economic power by giving them access to credit markets. I study how this crucial yet understudied feature of property laws influences household decision-making. The 2013 reversal of the Truth-in-Lending Act... View Details
- October 2022
- Supplement
The SAH Group: The Time is Right, Instructor Spreadsheet
By: Juan Alcacer and Alpana Thapar
In January 2021, Jalila Mezni, CEO of the SAH Group, was preparing to present the company’s future growth plans to its board of directors. The Tunisian company was a leading producer and distributor of personal care and packaged hygiene products. In 2019, it expanded... View Details
- October 2022
- Supplement
The SAH Group: The Time is Right, Spreadsheet Supplement
By: Juan Alcacer and Alpana Thapar
In January 2021, Jalila Mezni, CEO of the SAH Group, was preparing to present the company’s future growth plans to its board of directors. The Tunisian company was a leading producer and distributor of personal care and packaged hygiene products. In 2019, it expanded... View Details
- October 2022
- Case
EducationSuperHighway 2.0
By: William A. Sahlman, Allison M. Ciechanover and Emily Grandjean
In 2012, Evan Marwell launched EducationSuperHighway (ESH) to address a major problem: though most public K-12 schools in the US had access to the Internet, only roughly 30% had true broadband access that would enable every student to have high speed connectivity. ... View Details
- September 26, 2022
- Article
Is Your Family Office Built for the Future?
By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer
Family offices can provide a number of benefits, including privacy, customization, and having your own team to handle a wide range of services, such as guiding family philanthropy, managing shared properties, or even managing household help. Successful principals in... View Details
- July 2022
- Teaching Note
Arçelik (A), (B): From a Dealer Network to an Omnichannel Experience
By: Ayelet Israeli, Fares Khrais and Menna Hassan
Arçelik Turkey, the country’s market leader in household appliances, was at an omnichannel crossroads in January 2020. Arçelik was a B2B player utilizing a dealership network with an umbrella of brands and had one of the largest brick-and-mortar store networks in... View Details
Keywords: Digital Marketing; Bricks And Mortar; Franchise Management; Franchising; Dealer Network; Dealers; B2B; B2B2C; Tradition; Culture Change; Cultural Adaptation; Omnichannel; Omnichannel Retail; Omni-channel; Omnichannel Retailing; Sales Channels; Sales Channel Development; Channel Management; Channels Of Distribution; Marketplace; Platforms; Collaboration; Online Channel; Online Data; Online Sales; Online Shopping; Online; Retail; Retailing; Disruption; Transformation; Franchise Ownership; Change Management; Partners and Partnerships; Consumer Behavior; Sales; Internet and the Web; Marketing Strategy; Conflict and Resolution; Conflict Management; Organizational Culture; Distribution Channels; Digital Transformation; Electronics Industry; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Turkey
- 2022
- Working Paper
Social Protection and Social Distancing During the Pandemic: Mobile Money Transfers in Ghana
By: Dean Karlan, Matt Lowe, Robert Osei, Isaac Osei-Akoto, Benjamin N. Roth and Christopher Udry
We study the impact of mobile money transfers to a representative sample of low-income
Ghanaians during the COVID-19 pandemic. The announcement of the upcoming transfers
affects neither consumption, well-being, nor social distancing. Once disbursed,... View Details
- June 2022
- Case
The SAH Group: The Time is Right
By: Juan Alcacer and Alpana Thapar
In January 2021, Jalila Mezni, cofounder and CEO of the SAH Group, was preparing to present the company’s future growth plans to its board of directors. The Tunisian company was a leading producer and distributor of personal care and packaged hygiene products. In 2019,... View Details
- June 2022 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
Dollar Tree: Breaking the Buck
By: Jill Avery and Marco Bertini
For thirty-five years, Dollar Tree, a discount retail chain selling general merchandise, had held its fixed price point steady, pricing all of its household items, food, stationery, books, seasonal items, gifts, toys, and clothing that made up its diverse and... View Details
- May 2022
- Article
Can Gambling Increase Savings? Empirical Evidence on Prize-Linked Savings Accounts
By: Shawn A. Cole, Benjamin Iverson and Peter Tufano
This paper studies the adoption and impact of prize-linked savings (PLS) accounts, which offer lottery-like payouts to individual account holders in lieu of interest. Using microlevel data from a bank in South Africa, we show that PLS is attractive to a broad group of... View Details