Publications

Register to Read

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

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

Register to Read

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

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

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

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

13 Dec 2022
Research & Ideas

The Color of Private Equity: Quantifying the Bias Black Investors Face

fund raised almost 50 percent of its goal, while the mean minority fund raised only about 25 percent. Follow-on funding One of the most surprising findings, say the researchers, was that Black- and Hispanic-owned funds are held to a higher View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds; Financial Services

2013
Working Paper

Non-Standard Matches and Charitable Giving

By: Michael Sanders, Sarah Smith and Michael I. Norton

Many organisations, including corporations and governments, wish to encourage charitable giving, and offer incentives for their employees, customers and citizens to do so. The most common of these incentives is a match rate, where the organisation agrees to pay, for... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Organizational Culture; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

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

February 2023
Case

Success Academy Charter Schools

By: Robin Greenwood, Joshua D. Coval, Denise Han, Ruth Page and Dave Habeeb

This stand-alone multimedia case follows the story of Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy, a network of high-performing charter schools in New York City. As a New York City councilor between 1999 and 2006, Moskowitz became frustrated over the inertia and dysfunction in... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Performance Effectiveness; Equality and Inequality; Private Sector; Education Industry; New York (city, NY)

Educators

Purchase

18 Nov 2002
Research & Ideas

Where Morals and Profits Meet: The Corporate Value Shift

assuming responsibility, adhering to ethical standards, or exercising moral judgment. But abundant evidence shows that companies today are expected to do all these things. In every region I've studied, I've found business leaders who are trying to develop companies... View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler

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

SSRN

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

July 2008
Article

Fairness in Extended Dictator-Game Experiments

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Reiner Eichenberger

We test the robustness of behavior in dictator games by offering allocators the choice to play an unattractive lottery. With this lottery option, mean transfers from allocators to recipients substantially decline, partly because many allocators now keep the entire... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Fairness; Game Theory; Risk and Uncertainty; Behavior

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

2024
Working Paper

Anytime-Valid Inference in Linear Models and Regression-Adjusted Causal Inference

By: Michael Lindon, Dae Woong Ham, Martin Tingley and Iavor I. Bojinov

Linear regression adjustment is commonly used to analyze randomized controlled experiments due to its efficiency and robustness against model misspecification. Current testing and interval estimation procedures leverage the asymptotic distribution of such estimators to... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Analytics and Data Science