Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(576)
- Faculty Publications (145)
- Article
The Economic Consequences of Bankruptcy Reform
By: Tal Gross, Raymond Kluender, Feng Liu, Matthew J. Notowidigdo and Jialan Wang
A more generous consumer bankruptcy system provides greater insurance against financial risks but may also raise the cost of credit. We study this trade-off using the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), which increased the costs of... View Details
- June 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
The Lunar Gateway, Moon vs. Mars, and the Political Governance of Space Activities
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Mehak Sarang
In 2017, the Trump Administration made a bold claim—that they would return the next man and the first woman to the lunar surface by 2024, this time to establish a sustainable presence to enable further exploration in the solar system. With the Artemis Program, NASA has... View Details
Keywords: Space; Space Economy; Aerospace; Nasa; Governance; Policy; International Relations; Infrastructure
- 2021
- Article
Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation
By: Benjamin B. Lockwood, Afras Sial and Matthew C. Weinzierl
Economists typically check the robustness of their results by comparing them across plausible ranges of parameter values and model structures. A preferable approach to robustness—for the purposes of policymaking and evaluation—is to design policy that takes these... View Details
- Article
A Megastudy of Text-Based Nudges Encouraging Patients to Get Vaccinated at an Upcoming Doctor's Appointment
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Mitesh S. Patel, Linnea Gandhi, Heather N. Graci, Dena M. Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Modupe Akinola, John Beshears, Jonathan E. Bogard, Alison Buttenheim, Christopher F. Chabris, Gretchen B. Chapman, James J. Choi, Hengchen Dai, Craig R. Fox, Amir Goren, Matthew D. Hilchey, Jillian Hmurovic, Leslie K. John, Dean Karlan, Melanie Kim, David Laibson, Cait Lamberton, Brigitte C. Madrian, Michelle N. Meyer, Maria Modanu, Jimin Nam, Todd Rogers, Renante Rondina, Silvia Saccardo, Maheen Shermohammed, Dilip Soman, Jehan Sparks, Caleb Warren, Megan Weber, Ron Berman, Chalanda N. Evans, Christopher K. Snider, Eli Tsukayama, Christophe Van den Bulte, Kevin G. Volpp and Angela L. Duckworth
Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment (N = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via... View Details
Keywords: Vaccination; COVID-19; Nudge; Influenza; Field Experiment; Health; Communication Strategy; Behavior
- May 2021 (Revised May 2022)
- Case
Headspace vs. Calm: A Mindful Competition
By: Ayelet Israeli and Anne Wilson
By 2021, the mindfulness app wars reached their apex. Over 2,000 meditation apps were available to consumers, but two apps, Headspace and Calm, dominated the space, jointly holding about 70% of the total market. Headspace had established itself as the approachable... View Details
Keywords: Marketing Communication; Integrated Strategy; Brand; Brand ＆ Product Management; Brand Communication; Brand Differentiation; Brand Building; Brand Management; E-Commerce Strategy; Ecommerce; App; App Development; Applications; COVID; COVID-19; Pandemic; Pricing; Pricing Strategy; Subscription Model; Subscription; Partnerships; Strategic Partnerships; B2B Vs. B2C; B2B; Health ＆ Wellness; Wellbeing; Digitization; Commoditization; Mobile App; Mobile App Industry; Mobile Healthcare; Mobile Marketing; Digital Brand; Digital Health; Consumer Health; Apps; Online Business; Online Competition; Online Community; Online Entertainment; Entertainment And Leisure; Meditation; Marketing; Marketing Communications; Brands and Branding; Price; Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Partners and Partnerships; Health; Well-being; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Communication; Communication Strategy; Disruption; Consumer Behavior; Digital Marketing; E-commerce; Applications and Software; Health Industry; Technology Industry; Communications Industry; United States; North America; United Kingdom
- 2021
- Article
Everyday Illiberalism: How Hungarian Subnational Politics Propel Single-Party Dominance
By: Laura Jakli and Matthew Stenberg
While numerous studies consider the roles that media consolidation, court-packing, and economic crises have played in Hungary's democratic decline since 2010, none have considered the subnational mechanisms driving illiberalism. This study examines the types of... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Connecting Expected Stock Returns to Accounting Valuation Multiples: A Primer
By: Akash Chattopadhyay, Matthew R. Lyle and Charles C.Y. Wang
We outline a framework in which accounting “valuation anchors" could be connected to expected stock returns. Under two general conditions, expected log returns is a log-linear function of a valuation (market value-to-accounting) multiple and the expected growth in the... View Details
Keywords: Expected Returns; Present Value; Investment Return; Accounting; Valuation; Information; Framework
- 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
- 2020
- Working Paper
Prioritarianism and Optimal Taxation
By: Matti Tuomala and Matthew C. Weinzierl
Prioritarianism has been at the center of the formal approach to optimal tax theory since its modern starting point in Mirrlees (1971), but most theorists’ use of it is motivated by tractability rather than explicit normative reasoning. We characterize analytically and... View Details
Keywords: Prioritarianism; Optimal Taxation; Utilitarianism; Redistribution; Inverse-optimum; Taxation; Theory
- 2020
- Working Paper
Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation
By: Benjami Lockwood, Afras Y. Sial and Matthew C. Weinzierl
Economists typically check the robustness of their results by comparing them across plausible ranges of parameter values and model structures. A preferable approach to robustness—for the purposes of policymaking and evaluation—is to design policy that takes these... View Details
- October 2020 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
Pete Carroll: Building a Winning Organization through Purpose, Caring, and Inclusion
By: Ranjay Gulati, Matthew Breitfelder and Monte Burke
Competing at the highest levels of the National Football League (NFL) requires tremendous skill, dedication and persistence. The most successful coaches in the NFL know how to draw out a higher level of performance and consistency from their players. This is typically... View Details
- August 2020
- Case
Sangu Delle
By: Leslie Perlow and Matthew Preble
By 2020, Sangu Delle (MBA 2016) has already made significant progress towards his life-long goal of solving Africa’s myriad and diverse challenges. At 33 years old, he is the founder and chairman of the for-profit Golden Palm Investments Corporation, CEO of Africa... View Details
- June 2020
- Case
MOD Pizza: A Winning Recipe? (Abridged)
By: Boris Groysberg, John D. Vaughan and Matthew Preble
This is an abridged version of “MOD Pizza: A Winning Recipe?” HBS Case No. 416-004. Scott and Ally Svenson, the founders of MOD Pizza, had to make a number of decisions in planning how to scale their small company. They wanted to grow MOD from 45 stores as of May 2015... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Selection and Staffing; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Service Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States
- April 2020 (Revised October 2021)
- Case
SpaceX, Economies of Scale, and a Revolution in Space Access
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl, Kylie Lucas and Mehak Sarang
From the time he transformed the world of online banking, Elon Musk established himself as a bold innovator. After selling X.com to PayPal in 2002, he founded a series of revolutionary start-ups, starting with Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX). Hoping to "make... View Details
- March 2020
- Article
Governance Through Shame and Aspiration: Index Creation and Corporate Behavior
By: Akash Chattopadhyay, Matthew D. Shaffer and Charles C.Y. Wang
After decades of deprioritizing shareholders' economic interests and low corporate profitability, Japan introduced the JPX-Nikkei400 in 2014. The index highlighted the country's "best-run" companies by annually selecting the 400 most profitable of its large and liquid... View Details
- Article
The Role of Interactivity in Local Differential Privacy
By: Matthew Joseph, Jieming Mao, Seth Neel and Aaron Leon Roth
We study the power of interactivity in local differential privacy. First, we focus on the difference between fully interactive and sequentially interactive protocols. Sequentially interactive protocols may query users adaptively in sequence, but they cannot return to... View Details
- 2019
- Chapter
Coordination Frictions in Venture Capital Syndicates
By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
An extensive literature on venture capital has studied asymmetric information and agency problems between investors and entrepreneurs, examining how separating entrepreneurs from the investor can create frictions that might inhibit the funding of good projects. It has... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Improving Regulatory Effectiveness Through Better Targeting: Evidence from OSHA
By: Matthew S. Johnson, David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel
We study how a regulator can best target inspections. Our case study is a US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) program that randomly allocated some inspections. On average, each inspection averted 2.4 serious injuries (9%) over the next five years.... View Details
- April 2019 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
Wayfair
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Susie L. Ma and Matthew G. Preble
In 2016 Niraj Shah and Steve Conine, founders of online home goods retailer Wayfair, are faced with a decision about how to improve user experience on their e-commerce sites. A key driver of consumer interest and conversion to purchase in the home category is visual... View Details
- February 2019 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
India: State Capacity and Unity in Diversity
By: Alberto Cavallo, Matthew Weinzierl and Robert Scherf
As 2018 drew to a close, India prepared to once again carry out the largest democratic exercise in human history, as in less than six months more than 850 million eligible voters would have the chance to choose their representatives to the Lok Sabha—the country’s lower... View Details