Publications

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Article

Scenario Generation for Long Run Interest Rate Risk Assessment

By: Robert F. Engle, Guillaume Roussellet and Emil N. Siriwardane

We propose a statistical model of the term structure of U.S. treasury yields tailored for long-term probability-based scenario generation and forecasts. Our model is easy to estimate and is able to simultaneously reproduce the positivity, persistence, and factor... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting; Stress Testing; Interest Rates; Forecasting and Prediction; Risk Management; United States

23 Sep 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Applying Random Coefficient Models to Strategy Research: Testing for Firm Heterogeneity, Predicting Firm-Specific Coefficients, and Estimating Strategy Trade-Offs

Keywords: by Juan Alcácer, Wilbur Chung, Ashton Hawk & Gonçalo Pacheco-de-Almeida

2025
Working Paper

How Firms Respond to Worker Activism: Evidence from Global Supply Chains

By: Yanhua Bird, Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel

Social movement pressures can lead organizations to concede and improve social performance to avoid disruption costs, but we theorize that such responses evoke concession costs that prompt organizations to shift resources and attention from other social domains whose... View Details

Keywords: Worker Activism; Labor Standards; Tradeoffs; Global Supply Chains; Internal Governance Structure

SSRN

16 Feb 2016
News

Is your child taking a test? When is the right time?

August 2007
Article

Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India

By: A. Banerjee, Shawn A. Cole, E. Duflo and L. Linden

This paper presents the results of two randomized experiments conducted in schools in urban India. A remedial education program hired young women to teach students lagging behind in basic literacy and numeracy skills. It increased average test scores of all children in... View Details

Keywords: Literacy; Teaching; Performance Improvement; Competency and Skills; India

Article

Applying Random Coefficient Models to Strategy Research: Identifying and Exploring Firm Heterogeneous Effects

By: Juan Alcácer, Wilbur Chung, Ashton Hawk and Gonçalo Pacheco-de-Almeida

Strategy aims at understanding the differential effects of firms’ actions on performance. However, standard regression models estimate only the average effects of these actions across firms. Our paper discusses how random coefficient models (RCMs) may generate new... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Research; Competitive Advantage; Competitive Strategy; Performance

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September 2004 (Revised January 2006)
Tutorial

Introduction to Cost Accounting Systems

By: David F. Hawkins, V.G. Narayanan, Jacob Cohen and Michele Jurgens

Covers the basics of cost system design, demonstrating in a clear, step-by-step fashion how costs are assigned to cost objects. Key concepts include direct and indirect costs, two-stage allocation, cost pools, and cost drivers. Also provides a brief review of several... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Cost; System

Purchase

06 Nov 2006
Research & Ideas

How South Africa Challenges Our Thinking on FDI

enduring strength of the corporate climate in South Africa, says Eric D. Werker, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School. Werker's case study, "Foreign Direct Investment and South Africa," to be published in December, shows that South Africa's... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Article

Update on E-liability Accounting

By: Robert Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Piyush Jha

Since publication of the original E-liability carbon accounting paper (HBR, Nov 2021), we created the E-liability Institute to help companies, governments, and nonprofits implement the method. The Institute’s mission is to test and validate the method, and develop... View Details

Keywords: Decarbonization; Carbon Footprint; Supply Chain; Environmental Sustainability; Environmental Accounting

Research Summary

Statistical Methodology

William Simpson is developing methods of inference to use when assumptions of standard models are not met. He has created a hypothesis test to use for ipsative variables that adjusts for the non-zero correlations among variables expected under the null hypothesis. ... View Details

June 2008
Article

The Market for Mergers and the Boundaries of the Firm

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and David Robinson

We relate the property rights theory of the firm to empirical regularities in the market for mergers and acquisitions. We first show that high market-to-book acquirers typically do not purchase low market-to-book targets. Instead, mergers pair together firms with... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Assets; Investment; Property; Mathematical Methods; Boundaries

Article

The Hidden Costs of Initial Coin Offerings

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Ramana Nanda

In recent years, much has been written about how the Blockchain is poised to transform traditional industries such as banking, real estate, and healthcare. More recently, it has gained attention as a way to finance new ventures, through what is known as an Initial Coin... View Details

Keywords: Initial Coin Offerings; Business Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Finance

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23 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

After High-Profile Failures, Can Investors Still Trust Credit Ratings?

answers the question, ‘Should we continue to rely on ratings, given all the times that ratings have been shown not to be correct?” Harvard Business School assistant professor Anywhere Sikochi and colleagues crunched thousands of ratings between 2003 and 2015 to View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

March 2010
Article

Correcting for Cross-Sectional and Time-Series Dependence in Accounting Research

By: Ian D. Gow, Daniel Taylor and Gaizka Ormazabal

We review and evaluate the methods commonly used in the accounting literature to correct for cross-sectional and time-series dependence. While much of the accounting literature studies settings in which variables are cross-sectionally and serially correlated, we find... View Details

Keywords: History; Cost of Capital; Activity Based Costing and Management; Performance Evaluation; Cost Accounting; Time Management; Research; Mathematical Methods; Equity; Borrowing and Debt; Accounting Audits; Accounting Industry

Research Summary

An Uncomfortable Predictability Paradox

In predictive regressions, we test the null hypothesis that a predictor has no information about expected returns, i.e. beta equals zero. However, the literature neglects to recognize that we are testing a joint hypothesis. The maintained... View Details

March 2021
Article

Opting-in to Prosocial Incentives

By: Daniel Schwartz, Elizabeth A. Keenan, Alex Imas and Ayelet Gneezy

The design of effective incentive schemes that are both successful in motivating employees and keeping down costs is of critical importance. Research has demonstrated that prosocial incentives, where individuals’ effort benefits a charitable organization, can sometimes... View Details

Keywords: Incentives; Prosocial Behavior; Behavioral Economics; Field Experiments; Recycling; Prosocial Motivation; Decision Making; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior

2008
Working Paper

Rethinking the Role of History in Law & Economics: The Case of the Federal Radio Commission in 1927

By: David A. Moss and Jonathan B. Lackow

In the study of law and economics, there is a danger that historical inferences from theory may infect historical tests of theory. It is imperative, therefore, that historical tests always involve a vigorous search not only for confirming evidence, but for... View Details

Keywords: Economic History; Decision Choices and Conditions; Government Legislation; Law; Media and Broadcasting Industry

2013
Working Paper

Network Effects in Countries' Adoption of IFRS

By: Karthik Ramanna and Ewa Sletten

If the differences in accounting standards across countries reflect relatively stable institutional differences (e.g., auditing technology, the rule of law, etc.), why did several countries rapidly, albeit in a staggered manner, adopt IFRS over local standards in the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; International Accounting; Network Effects; Standards; Adoption; Value