Publications

September 2018
Article

Aggregation of Consumer Ratings: An Application to Yelp.com

By: Weijia Dai, Ginger Jin, Jungmin Lee and Michael Luca

Because consumer reviews leverage the wisdom of the crowd, the way in which they are aggregated is a central decision faced by platforms. We explore this "rating aggregation problem" and offer a structural approach to solving it, allowing for (1) reviewers to vary in... View Details

Keywords: User Generated Content; Crowdsourcing; Yelp; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information; Internet and the Web; Learning; Mathematical Methods; E-commerce

April 2012
Article

The Changing Ecology of Teams: New Directions for Teams Research

By: Ruth Wageman, Heidi K. Gardner and Mark Mortensen

The nature of collaboration has been changing at an accelerating pace, particularly in the last decade. Much of the published work in teams research, however, is still focused on the archetypal team that has well-defined membership, purposes, leadership, and standards... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Research; Change Management; Leadership; Standards; Performance Effectiveness; Theory; Civil Society or Community

Firms offering "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) point-of-sale loans with minimal underwriting have grown in popularity in the last couple of years. According to Worldpay, BNPL accounted for 2.1% – or roughly $97b – of global e-commerce transactions in 2020, and is... View Details

18 May 2016
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Mass Shootings on Gun Policy

Keywords: by Michael Luca, Deepak Malhotra, and Christopher Poliquin; Entertainment & Recreation

Research Summary

Come Together: Firm Boundaries and Delegation

By: Laura Alfaro

We develop an incomplete-contracts model to jointly study firm boundaries and the allocation of decision rights within them. Integration has an option value: it gives firm owners authority to delegate or centralize decision rights, depending on who can best solve... View Details

December 2023
Article

Intermediary Balance Sheets and the Treasury Yield Curve

By: Wenxin Du, Benjamin Hebert and Wenhao Li

We document a regime change in the Treasury market post-Global Financial Crisis (GFC): dealers switched from net short to net long Treasury bonds. We construct “net-long” and “net-short” curves that account for balance sheet and financing costs, and show that actual... View Details

Keywords: Bonds; Financial Markets; Financial Crisis; Asset Pricing

February 2024
Article

Come Together: Firm Boundaries and Delegation

By: Laura Alfaro, Nick Bloom, Paola Conconi, Harald Fadinger, Patrick Legros, Andrew F. Newman, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

We develop an incomplete-contracts model to jointly study firm boundaries and the allocation of decision rights within them. Integration has an option value: it gives firm owners authority to delegate or centralize decision rights, depending on who can best solve... View Details

Keywords: Boundaries; Decision Choices and Conditions; Risk and Uncertainty

November 1989 (Revised January 1991)
Case

Honda Motor Co. and Honda of America (A)

In its 43-year history, Honda grew from an also-ran in the Japanese motorcycle market to a dominant force in the worldwide motorcycle and automobile markets. To do this, Honda has developed a unique organizational style based on constructive conflict and organizational... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Organizational Culture; Business Processes; Motorcycle Industry; Auto Industry; Japan; United States

Educators

Purchase

This study examines the U.S. commerce in human cadavers for medical education and research to explore variation in legitimacy in trades involving similar goods. It draws on archival, interview, and observational data mainly from New York state to analyze market... View Details

November 2021
Article

The Nixon Doctrine and the Making of Authoritarianism in Island Southeast Asia

By: Mattias Fibiger

This article argues that the Nixon Doctrine was an instrument of authoritarianization in island Southeast Asia. It traces the formulation of the Nixon Doctrine and its implementation through foreign aid decisions, revealing that President Richard Nixon and his chief... View Details

Keywords: Diplomacy; Foreign Aid; Authoritarianism; Geopolitics; Nixon; International Relations; Policy; History; Southeast Asia; United States

18 Aug 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Immigrant Entrepreneurship

Keywords: by Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr

January 2020
Article

The Job Rating Game: Revolving Doors and Analyst Incentives

By: Elisabeth Kempf

Investment banks frequently hire analysts from rating agencies. While many argue that this "revolving door" creates captured analysts, it can also create incentives to improve accuracy. To study this issue, I construct an original dataset, linking analysts to their... View Details

Keywords: Credit Rating Agencies; Investment Banking; Recruitment; Performance Evaluation; Financial Services Industry

Article

Online and Official Price Indexes: Measuring Argentina's Inflation

By: Alberto Cavallo

Prices collected from online retailers can be used to construct daily price indexes that complement official statistics. This paper studies their ability to match official inflation estimates in five Latin American countries, with a focus on Argentina, where official... View Details

Keywords: Inflation; Online Price Index; Economics; Macroeconomics; Inflation and Deflation; Price; Latin America; Argentina

May 2018
Article

Using Online Prices for Measuring Real Consumption Across Countries

By: Alberto Cavallo, Erwin Diewert, Robert C. Feenstra, Robert Inklaar and Marcel P. Timmer

We show that online prices can be used to construct quarterly purchasing power parities (PPPs) with a closely matched set of goods and identical methodologies in a variety of developed and developing countries. Our results are close to those reported by the... View Details

Keywords: Purchasing Power Parity; International Economy; Online Prices; Billion Prices Project; Economics; Macroeconomics; Price; Internet and the Web; Spending; Economy; Global Range; Measurement and Metrics

2010
Working Paper

Investment Taxation and Portfolio Performance

By: Daniel B. Bergstresser and Jeffrey Pontiff

Taxes have a first-order impact on portfolio returns. Most research mistakenly assumes that portfolios command similar tax burdens, or that tax burdens are proportional to dividend yields. Portfolio strategies differ in the pace of capital gains realization. We use the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Strategy; Investment Return; Investment Portfolio; Taxation; Performance Evaluation

October 2001 (Revised March 2002)
Background Note

Implicit Predictors of Consumer Behavior

By: Gerald Zaltman, Nancy Puccinelli, Kathryn A. Braun and Fred W Mast PHD

An important distinction is drawn in psychology between explicit and implicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge refers to consciously held beliefs about an individual or object that often draws on the remembering of experiences in the past. In contrast, implicit knowledge... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Values and Beliefs; Knowledge Sharing; Consumer Behavior; Opportunities; Cognition and Thinking

Educators

Purchase

March 2005
Article

Sovereign Debt As a Contingent Claim: A Quantitative Approach

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

We construct a dynamic equilibrium model with contingent service and adverse selection to quantitatively study sovereign debt. In the model, benefits of defaulting are tempered by higher future interest rates. For a wide set of parameters, the only equilibrium is one... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Interest Rates; Balance and Stability; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Mathematical Methods; Management Style; Segmentation; Debt Securities; Banking Industry