Publications

December 2012
Article

Grand Innovation Prizes: A Theoretical, Normative, and Empirical Evaluation

By: Alan MacCormack, Fiona Murray, Scott Stern and Georgina Campbell

This paper provides a systematic examination of the use of a Grand Innovation Prize (GIP) in action—the Progressive Automotive Insurance X PRIZE—a $10 million prize for a highly efficient vehicle. Following a mechanism design approach we define three key dimensions for... View Details

Keywords: Design; Motivation and Incentives; Goals and Objectives; Performance; Auto Industry

30 Oct 2014
Working Paper Summaries

The Nobel Prize: A ‘Heritage-based’ Brand-oriented Network

Keywords: by Mats Urde & Stephen A. Greyser

11 Oct 2013
Other Presentation

The New Competitive Advantage: Creating Shared Value

By: Michael E. Porter

Video conference on Creating Shared Value for the Porter Prize India Award Ceremony View Details

Keywords: Society; India

Article

Choosing Between Lotteries: Remarkable Coordination Without Communication

By: Yoella Bereby-Meyer, Simone Moran, Brit Grosskopf and Dolly Chugh

The current research examines tacit coordination behavior in a lottery selection task. Two hundred participants in each of three experiments and 100 in a fourth choose to participate in one of two lotteries, where one lottery has a larger prize than the other.... View Details

02 Apr 2019
Research Event

Women Pay a Higher Career Price in Today's Always-On Work Culture

Top leaders of a global consulting firm longed to add more women to its partner ranks, if women would just put in the hours necessary to compete. But mothers would always prioritize their children’s needs over those of clients, they reasoned. There was probably nothing... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Consulting; Service

01 Nov 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Marie Curie: A Case Study in Breaking Barriers

Keywords: Re: Robert Simons

24 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 24

responsibility. Working PapersInducement Prizes and Innovation Authors:Liam Brunt, Josh Lerner, and Tom Nicholas Abstract We examine the effect of prizes on innovation using data on awards for... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

When Feeling Skillful Impairs Coordination in a Lottery Selection Task

By: Anna Dorfman, Yoella Bereby-Meyer and Simone Moran

Choosing a major field of study to secure a good job after graduation is a tacit coordination problem that requires considering others' choices. We examine how feeling skillful, either induced (Experiment 1) or measured (Experiment 2), affects coordination in this type... View Details

August 2020 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Skillz: Esports and Skill-Based Mobile Gaming

By: Andy Wu, David B. Yoffie and George Gonzalez

Founded in 2012, Skillz offered a platform for mobile app developers to monetize skill-based games via prized tournaments. Skillz had over 20,000 registered developers that had created thousands of Skillz-powered games played by over 30 million registered users... View Details

Keywords: Video Games; Mobile; Esports; Applications and Software; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology; Digital Platforms; United States

2011
Working Paper

Matthew: Effect or Fable?

In a market context, a status effect occurs when actors are accorded differential recognition for their efforts depending on their location in a status ordering, holding constant the quality of these efforts. In practice, because it is very difficult to measure... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Status and Position; Measurement and Metrics; Quality

December 2018
Case

DraftKings and the Future of Fantasy Sports

By: Robert F. Higgins and Julia Kelley

Founded in 2012, DraftKings helped change the fantasy sports landscape by popularizing daily fantasy sports (DFS), or short-term fantasy sports tournaments that offered big cash prizes to winners. The company’s valuation exceeded $1 billion by 2015, but DraftKings soon... View Details

2014
Article

Children Develop a Veil of Fairness

By: Alex Shaw, Natalia Montinari, Marco Piovesan, Kristina Olson, Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton

Previous research suggests that children develop an increasing concern with fairness over the course of development. Research with adults suggests that the concern with fairness has at least two distinct components: a desire to be fair and a desire to signal to others... View Details

Keywords: Inequity Aversion; Social Signaling; Social Cognitive Development; Communication Intention and Meaning; Fairness; Age; Reputation; Growth and Development; Cognition and Thinking

Research Summary

Can Gambling Increase Savings? Empirical Evidence on Prize-linked Savings Accounts

This paper studies whether prize-linked savings (PLS) accounts, which offer random, lottery-like payouts to account holders in lieu of risk-free interest, can aid individuals in increasing savings levels by adding the chance to “win big.” Using micro-level data from... View Details

Keywords: Lottery; Banking; Saving; Commercial Banking; Africa

July 2021
Article

Discovering Auctions: Contributions of Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson

By: Alex Teytelboym, Shengwu Li, Scott Duke Kominers, Mohammad Akbarpour and Piotr Dworczak

The 2020 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson for “improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats.” In this survey article, we review the contributions of the... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Auctions; Theory; Design

Article

Conveniently Upset: Avoiding Altruism by Distorting Beliefs About Others' Altruism

By: Rafael Di Tella, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, Andres Babino and Mariano Sigman

We present results from a “corruption game” (a dictator game modified so that recipients can take a side payment in exchange for accepting a reduction in the overall size of the pie). Dictators (silently) treated to be able to take more of the recipient’s tokens, took... View Details

Keywords: Convenient Beliefs; Cognitive Dissonance; Values and Beliefs; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking

October 2007 (Revised March 2008)
Case

First National Bank's Golden Opportunity

By: Shawn A. Cole, Peter Tufano, Daniel Schneider and Daryl Collins

Executives at First National Bank in South Africa are considering whether to launch a potentially exciting, but rather unorthodox, new savings product. Instead of paying interest, this product gives depositors the chance to win large cash prizes each month. Michael... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Banks and Banking; Investment; Innovation and Invention; Product Launch; Demand and Consumers; Banking Industry; South Africa

Research Summary

Game Theory for Business Strategy

Game theory--the mathematical study of strategic interactions--came of age, in a sense, when three of the field's pioneers were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994. Yet despite the development of the theory and the widespread use of game-theoretic jargon in... View Details

July 2020 (Revised April 2022)
Case

Paris Saint-Germain: Building One of the World's Top Sports Brands

By: Anita Elberse and David Moreno Vicente

In March 2020, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the president of French soccer club Paris Saint-Germain (‘PSG’) sees his team clinch a spot among the last eight clubs to compete in the UEFA Champions League. Established in 1970 and initially a club with only moderate success, PSG’s... View Details

Keywords: Soccer; Football; Superstars; Talent; Talent Development; General Management; Sports; Entertainment; Media; Talent and Talent Management; Globalization; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Strategy; Sports Industry; Europe

Spring 2016
Article

Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design

By: Kevin J. Boudreau, Karim R. Lakhani and Michael E. Menietti

Tournaments are widely used in the economy to organize production and innovation. We study individual contestant-level data from 2,796 contestants in 774 software algorithm design contests with random assignment. Precisely conforming to theory predictions, the... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Innovation Strategy