Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(592)
- Faculty Publications (112)
- July–August 2021
- Article
Why You Aren't Getting More from Your Marketing AI
By: Eva Ascarza, Michael Ross and Bruce G.S. Hardie
Fewer than 40% of companies that invest in AI see gains from it, usually because of one or more of these errors: (1) They don’t ask the right question, and end up directing AI to solve the wrong problem. (2) They don’t recognize the differences between the value of... View Details
- 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
- January 2021
- Case
The FIRE Savings Calculator
By: Michael Parzen and Paul Hamilton
This case follows Carol Muñoz, a member of the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) lifestyle movement. At the age of 45, Carol is considering retiring and living off the $1 million she has accumulated. Using Monte Carlo simulation, Carol forecasts the... View Details
- January 2021
- Article
A Model of Relative Thinking
By: Benjamin Bushong, Matthew Rabin and Joshua Schwartzstein
Fixed differences loom smaller when compared to large differences. We propose a model of relative thinking where a person weighs a given change along a consumption dimension by less when it is compared to bigger changes along that dimension. In deterministic settings,... View Details
- December 2020
- Article
Monetary Policy and Global Banking
By: Falk Bräuning and Victoria Ivashina
When central banks adjust interest rates, the opportunity cost of lending in local currency changes, but—in absence of frictions—there is no spillover effect to lending in other currencies. However, when equity capital is limited, global banks must benchmark domestic... View Details
- October 2020
- Article
IQ from IP: Simplifying Search in Portfolio Choice
By: Huaizhi Chen, Lauren Cohen, Umit Gurun, Dong Lou and Christopher J. Malloy
Using a novel database that tracks web traffic on the SEC’s EDGAR servers between 2004 and 2015, we show that mutual fund managers gather information on a very particular subset of firms and insiders, and their surveillance is very persistent over time. This tracking... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Aggregate and Firm-Level Stock Returns During Pandemics, in Real Time
By: Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari, Andrew Greenland and Peter K. Schott
We show that unexpected changes in the trajectory of COVID-19 infections predict U.S. stock returns, in real time. Parameter estimates indicate that an unanticipated doubling (halving) of projected infections forecasts next-day decreases (increases) in aggregate U.S.... View Details
- Fall 2019
- Article
Endogenous Productivity of Demand-Induced R&D: Evidence from Pharmaceuticals
By: Kyle Myers and Mark Pauly
We examine trends in the productivity of the pharmaceutical sector over the past three decades. Motivated by Ricardo’s insight that productivity and rents are endogenous to demand when inputs are scarce, we examine the industry’s aggregate R&D production function.... View Details
- March 2019 (Revised May 2019)
- Case
Growth Investing at Totem Point
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Charles C.Y. Wang and Jonah Goldberg
The case describes the investment of hedge fund, Totem Point Management in Analog Semiconductors (ADI) as a way to discuss forecasting and valuation in growth companies. In June 2016, hedge fund Totem Point invested in ADI at around $55 a share. In general, Totem Point... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Overcoming the Cold Start Problem of CRM Using a Probabilistic Machine Learning Approach
By: Eva Ascarza
The success of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs ultimately depends on the firm's ability to understand consumers' preferences and precisely capture how these preferences may differ across customers. Only by understanding customer heterogeneity, firms can... View Details
- January 2019
- Article
Bubbles for Fama
By: Robin Greenwood, Andrei Shleifer and Yang You
We evaluate Eugene Fama's claim that stock prices do not exhibit price bubbles. Based on U.S. industry returns 1926–2014 and international sector returns 1985–2014, we present four findings: (1) Fama is correct in that a sharp price increase of an industry portfolio... View Details
Keywords: Bubble; Market Efficiency; Predictability; Price Bubble; Stocks; Price; Forecasting and Prediction
- 2017
- Working Paper
Learning by Doing: The Value of Experience and the Origins of Skill for Mutual Fund Managers
By: Elisabeth Kempf, Alberto Manconi and Oliver Spalt
Learning by doing matters for professional investors. We develop a new methodology to show that mutual fund managers outperform in industries where they have obtained experience on the job. The key to our identification strategy is that we look "inside" funds and... View Details
- 2016
- Chapter
Return Predictability in the Treasury Market: Real Rates, Inflation, and Liquidity
By: Carolin E. Pflueger and Luis M. Viceira
- 2015
- Working Paper
The Probability of Rare Disasters: Estimation and Implications
By: Emil Siriwardane
I analyze a rare disasters economy that yields a measure of the risk neutral probability of a macroeconomic disaster, p*t. A large panel of options data provides strong evidence that p*t is the single factor driving option-implied jump risk measures in the cross... View Details
- Article
The Cross Section of Expected Holding Period Returns and Their Dynamics: A Present Value Approach
By: Matthew R. Lyle and Charles C.Y. Wang
We provide a tractable model of firm-level expected holding period returns using two firm fundamentals—book-to-market ratio and ROE—and study the cross-sectional properties of the model-implied expected returns. We find that 1) firm-level expected returns and expected... View Details
- December 2014
- Article
Market Competition, Earnings Management, and Persistence in Accounting Profitability Around the World
We examine how cross-country differences in product, capital, and labor market competition, and earnings management affect mean reversion in accounting return on assets. Using a sample of 48,465 unique firms from 49 countries, we find that accounting returns mean... View Details
- 2014
- Article
Bond Supply and Excess Bond Returns
By: Robin Greenwood and Dimitri Vayanos
We examine empirically how the maturity structure of government debt affects bond yields and excess returns. Our analysis is based on a theoretical model of preferred habitat in which clienteles with strong preferences for specific maturities trade with arbitrageurs.... View Details
- December 2013
- Article
Legislating Stock Prices
By: Lauren Cohen, Karl Diether and Christopher Malloy
We demonstrate that legislation has a simple, yet previously undetected impact on stock prices. Exploiting the voting record of legislators whose constituents are the affected industries, we show that the votes of these "interested" legislators capture important... View Details
- June 2013
- Article
Issuer Quality and Corporate Bond Returns
By: Robin Greenwood and Samuel G. Hanson
We show that the credit quality of corporate debt issuers deteriorates during credit booms, and that this deterioration forecasts low excess returns to corporate bondholders. The key insight is that changes in the pricing of credit risk disproportionately affect the... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
Do Strict Capital Requirements Raise the Cost of Capital? Banking Regulation and the Low Risk Anomaly
By: Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler
Minimum capital requirements are a central tool of banking regulation. Setting them balances a number of factors, including any effects on the cost of capital and in turn the rates available to borrowers. Standard theory predicts that, in perfect and efficient capital... View Details