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- All HBS Web (304)
- Faculty Publications (78)
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- 2010
- Working Paper
Making the Numbers? 'Short Termism' and the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster
By: Nelson P. Repenning and Rebecca Henderson
Much recent work in strategy and popular discussion suggests that an excessive focus on "managing the numbers"—delivering quarterly earnings at the expense of longer-term investments—makes it difficult for firms to make the investments necessary to build competitive... View Details
Keywords: Investment; Performance Improvement; Competitive Advantage; Earnings Management; Management Practices and Processes; Revenue; Quality; Competency and Skills; Motivation and Incentives; Auto Industry; United States
Repenning, Nelson P., and Rebecca Henderson. "Making the Numbers? 'Short Termism' and the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 11-033, September 2010.
- 15 Jan 2013
- Working Paper Summaries
The Promise of Positive Optimal Taxation: A Generalized Theory Calibrated to Survey Evidence on Normative Preferences Explains Puzzling Features of Policy
Keywords: by Matthew Weinzierl
- January 2014
- Case
MIT Mystery Hunt: The Answer is Secondary
By: Willy Shih and Karen Robinson
The MIT Mystery Hunt is an annual puzzle-based scavenger hunt at MIT. It is run every year by a different team, and every year is slightly different as teams try new ideas and decide whether to keep or ignore new ideas from previous years. As the Mystery Hunt has... View Details
Keywords: Puzzle-solving; Puzzle Hunt; MIT Mystery Hunt; Innovation and Invention; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Education Industry; Massachusetts; Cambridge; United States
Shih, Willy, and Karen Robinson. "MIT Mystery Hunt: The Answer is Secondary." Harvard Business School Case 614-050, January 2014.
- October 2014
- Article
Sovereigns, Upstream Capital Flows and Global Imbalances
By: Laura Alfaro, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Vadym Volosovych
We construct measures of net private and public capital flows for a large cross-section of developing countries considering both creditor and debtor side of the international debt transactions. Using these measures, we demonstrate that sovereign-to-sovereign... View Details
Keywords: Current Account; Aid/government Debt; Reserves; Puzzles; Productivity; Sovereign Finance; Developing Countries and Economies; Macroeconomics
Alfaro, Laura, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, and Vadym Volosovych. "Sovereigns, Upstream Capital Flows and Global Imbalances." Journal of the European Economic Association 12, no. 5 (October 2014): 1240–1284. (Also NBER Working Paper 17396. Online Appendix.
See International capital flows database for the data on measures of net private and public capital flows for a large cross-section of developing countries.)
- June 2012
- Response
Solution to Exchanges 10.2 Puzzle: Borrowing in the Limit as Our Nerdiness Goes to Infinity
By: Ran I. Shorrer
This is a solution to the editor's puzzle from issue 10.2 of SIGecom Exchanges [Reeves 2011]. The puzzle asks to determine a point in time such that a lump sum payment of $S will be equivalent to a continuous stream of infinitesimal payments totaling $S, spread evenly... View Details
Shorrer, Ran I. "Solution to Exchanges 10.2 Puzzle: Borrowing in the Limit as Our Nerdiness Goes to Infinity." ACM SIGecom Exchanges 11, no. 1 (June 2012): 39–41.
- July 1976
- Article
Effects of Externally-Imposed Deadlines on Subsequent Intrinsic Motivation
By: T. M. Amabile, W. DeJong and M. R. Lepper
Studied the effects of externally imposed deadlines on individuals' task performance and their subsequent interest in the task. In 1 deadline condition, 20 male undergraduates were given an explicit time limit for solving a series of initially interesting word games.... View Details
Amabile, T. M., W. DeJong, and M. R. Lepper. "Effects of Externally-Imposed Deadlines on Subsequent Intrinsic Motivation." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34, no. 1 (July 1976): 92–98.
- November 2020
- Case
Axis My India
By: Ananth Raman, Ann Winslow and Kairavi Dey
Pradeep Gupta founded Axis My India (AMI) as a printing and publishing company in 1998. In 2013, AMI expanded into consumer research and election forecasting. Although a relatively unknown entity, AMI predicted several election results accurately. Gupta describes AMI’s... View Details
Keywords: Market Research; Operations; Management; Infrastructure; Logistics; Service Operations; Political Elections; Forecasting and Prediction; Asia; India
Raman, Ananth, Ann Winslow, and Kairavi Dey. "Axis My India." Harvard Business School Case 621-075, November 2020.
- 03 Jun 2008
- First Look
First Look: June 3, 2008
Working PapersAccountability and Inequality in Single-Party Regimes: A Comparative Analysis of Vietnam and China Authors:Regina Abrami, Edmund Malesky, and Yu Zheng Abstract Over the past two decades, no two economies have averaged more rapid economic growth than... View Details
Keywords: Martha Lagace
- April 2010 (Revised November 2011)
- Case
Soren Chemical: Why Is the New Swimming Pool Product Sinking?
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sunru Yong
Topics include distribution channels, pricing, and new product marketing. Jen Moritz, the marketing manager for Soren Chemical Co. is struggling with the poor sales performance of Coracle, a new clarifier for residential swimming pools. The performance is puzzling... View Details
Keywords: Marketing Mix; New Product Marketing; Pricing; Branding; Price; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Channels; Product Launch; Brands and Branding; Communication Strategy; Chemical Industry
Rangan, V. Kasturi, and Sunru Yong. "Soren Chemical: Why Is the New Swimming Pool Product Sinking?" Harvard Business School Brief Case 104-188, April 2010. (Revised November 2011.)
- January 25, 2021
- Blog Post
Lower Income Translates to Fewer Happy Experiences—Here Is How We Can Fix It
By: Jon M. Jachimowicz and Adam Eric Greenberg
Can money actually buy happiness? Research shows that having more money makes people evaluate their lives more favorably (what researchers call “life satisfaction”). Surprising as it may seem, whether money leads to greater life satisfaction because it makes people... View Details
Jachimowicz, Jon M., and Adam Eric Greenberg. "Lower Income Translates to Fewer Happy Experiences—Here Is How We Can Fix It." Character & Context (January 25, 2021). https://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/jachimowicz-greenberg-wealth-happiness-inequalities.
- Book Review
Book Review of 'Organized Violence after Civil War: The Geography of Recruitment in Latin America' by Sarah Zukerman Daly
Why do some non-state actors, under the same peace accord, go back to violence in the aftermath of the disarming and demobilization of their armies, while others remain demilitarized? In her book, Organized Violence after Civil War: The Geography of Recruitment in... View Details
Keywords: Civil War; Government; Government and Politics; Governance; National Security; Governance Compliance; Latin America
Garbiras-Díaz, Natalia. "Book Review of 'Organized Violence after Civil War: The Geography of Recruitment in Latin America' by Sarah Zukerman Daly." Peace Review 30, no. 1 (First Quarter 2018): 120–123.
- Forthcoming
- Article
Collusion in Brokered Markets
By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery
High commissions in the U.S. residential real estate agency market present a puzzle for economic theory because brokerage is not a concentrated industry. We model brokered markets as a game in which agents post prices for customers and then choose which other agents to... View Details
Keywords: Real Estate Agents; Real Estate; Realtors; Broker Networks; Brokerage; Brokerage Commissions; ＂Brokerage Industry; Brokered Markets; Brokering; Brokers; Industrial Organization; Repeated Game Framework; ＂Repeated Games＂; Collusion; Antitrust; Microeconomics; Market Design; Theory; Game Theory; Real Estate Industry
Hatfield, John William, Scott Duke Kominers, and Richard Lowery. "Collusion in Brokered Markets." Journal of Finance (forthcoming).
- 2013
- Working Paper
How Does Risk Management Influence Production Decisions? Evidence from a Field Experiment
By: Shawn Cole, Xavier Gine and James Vickery
Weather is a key source of income risk, particularly in emerging market economies. This paper uses a randomized controlled trial involving a sample of Indian farmers to study how an innovative rainfall insurance product affects production decisions. We find that... View Details
Keywords: Risk Management; Production; Weather; Insurance; Emerging Markets; Agribusiness; Insurance Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; India
Cole, Shawn, Xavier Gine, and James Vickery. "How Does Risk Management Influence Production Decisions? Evidence from a Field Experiment." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 13-080, March 2013. (Revised September 2014.)
- Research Summary
Epistemic Conditions for Iterated Admissibility (with H. Jerome Keisler)
Iterated weak dominance, also called iterated admissibility (IA), has long been known as a powerful but conceptually puzzling solution concept. We give an epistemic foundation for IA. That is, we give conditions on the rationality of the players in the game, on what... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Return on Political Investment in the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004
By: Hui Chen, Katherine Gunny and Karthik Ramanna
Prior literature raises a "puzzle" of high rates of return on corporate political investment, but evidence for this puzzle is largely descriptive in nature. We exploit the setting of the American Jobs Creation Act's passage in 2004 to provide more robust estimates of... View Details
Chen, Hui, Katherine Gunny, and Karthik Ramanna. "Return on Political Investment in the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 15-050, December 2014.
- July–August 2013
- Article
Connect, Then Lead
By: Amy J.C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut and John Neffinger
In puzzling over whether it's better to be feared or loved as a leader, Machiavelli famously said that, because it's nigh impossible to do both, leaders should opt for fear. Research from Harvard Business School's Amy Cuddy and consultants Matthew Kohut and John... View Details
Cuddy, Amy J.C., Matthew Kohut, and John Neffinger. "Connect, Then Lead." Harvard Business Review 91, nos. 7/8 (July–August 2013): 54–61.
- 2018
- Book
The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy & Society
By: William R. Kerr
The global race for talent is on, with countries and businesses competing for the best and brightest. Foreign talent has transformed U.S. science and engineering, reshaped the economy, and influenced society at large. But America is bogged down in thorny debates on... View Details
Kerr, William R. The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy & Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books, 2018.
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Incidence of the Corporate Income Tax Is Irrelevant for Its (Benefit-Based) Justification
Robust support for corporate income taxation is a puzzle for standard tax theory because the tax’s incidence is uncertain and unreliable. We propose a resolution: if the corporate tax is seen as a benefit-based tax, its normative appeal depends on the correspondence... View Details
Weinzierl, Matthew C. "The Incidence of the Corporate Income Tax Is Irrelevant for Its (Benefit-Based) Justification." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 29547, December 2021.
- 2012
- Article
The Unbundling of Advertising Agency Services: An Economic Analysis
By: Mohammad Arzaghi, Ernst R. Berndt, James C. Davis and Alvin J. Silk
We address a puzzle surrounding the shift from bundling to unbundling of U.S. advertising agency services and the slow pace of change over several decades. We model an agency’s decision as a tradeoff between the fixed cost to the advertiser of establishing a... View Details
Keywords: Bundling; Unbundling; Advertising Agency Services; Fixed Cost; Higher Media Prices; Volume; Diversification; Advertising; Change; Advertising Industry; United States
Arzaghi, Mohammad, Ernst R. Berndt, James C. Davis, and Alvin J. Silk. "The Unbundling of Advertising Agency Services: An Economic Analysis." Review of Marketing Science 10, no. 1 (2012).
- August 1986 (Revised May 1993)
- Case
Rohm and Haas (A): New Product Marketing Strategy
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Lesley Susan
Joan Macey, Rohm and Haas' market manager for Metalworking Fluid Biocides, found that sales of a new biocide, Kathon MWX, was utterly disappointing. This was all the more puzzling since sales of her other product--Kathon 886 MW, a liquid biocide used only in... View Details
Keywords: Communication Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Distribution; Performance; Sales
Rangan, V. Kasturi, and Lesley Susan. "Rohm and Haas (A): New Product Marketing Strategy." Harvard Business School Case 587-055, August 1986. (Revised May 1993.)