Publications

11 Jan 2017
Research & Ideas

The Paradoxical Quest to Make Food Look 'Natural' With Artificial Dyes

Historians.) Hisano’s paper looks at how industry players and regulators collectively decided what any given food is supposed to look like—and redefined the marketing meaning of “natural.” The quest for... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

October 1991 (Revised June 1996)
Case

Lotus MarketPlace: Households

By: Lynn S. Paine

Managers at Lotus and Equifax must decide what to do about their new jointly developed database and software product Lotus MarketPlace which has been criticized as a threat to individual privacy. The Product, which would allow small businesses to buy targeting mail... View Details

Keywords: Information; Business or Company Management; Rights; Ethics; Marketing Communications; Applications and Software; Product Marketing; Information Technology Industry

2018
Book

American Fair Trade: Proprietary Capitalism, Corporatism, and the 'New Competition,' 1890–1940

By: Laura Phillips Sawyer

American Fair Trade explores the contested political and legal meanings of the term fair trade from the late nineteenth century through the New Deal era. This history of American capitalism argues that business associations partnered with regulators to... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Competition; Policy; Fairness; History; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States

June 1994 (Revised September 1995)
Case

Leland O'Brien Rubinstein Associates, Inc.: SuperTrust

By: Peter Tufano

Leland O'Brien Rubinstein Associates, Inc. (LOR), which profited by selling portfolio insurance to institutional investors, attempts to rebuild itself after the 1987 stock market crash by creating new products to meet the unsatisfied needs of equity investors. LOR... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Financial Services Industry; United States

April 2002
Article

The Determination of Unemployment Benefits

By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert J. MacCulloch

While much empirical research exists on labor market consequences of unemployment benefits, there is remarkably little evidence on the forces determining benefits. We present a simple model where workers desire insurance against unemployment risk and benefits increase... View Details

Keywords: Unemployment; Compensation and Benefits

American Fair Trade explores the contested political and legal meanings of the term fair trade from the late nineteenth century through the New Deal era. This history of American capitalism argues that business associations partnered with... View Details

September 2018 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Apple Pay and Mobile Payments in Australia (A)

By: Feng Zhu, Susan Athey and David Lane

In summer 2016, four of Australia’s top five banks petitioned regulators for permission to bargain collectively with Apple over the terms under which they would support its digital wallet, Apple Pay. They argued that doing so would force concessions from Apple that... View Details

Keywords: Payment Methods; Mobile Payment; Apple; Banks and Banking; Cooperation; Problems and Challenges; Policy; Digital Platforms; Banking Industry; Australia

2017
Working Paper

Private and Public Disclosures in Countries with Weak Institutional Environments: Evidence from Shanghai-Hong Kong Connect

By: Aaron Yoon

I study firms’ use of disclosure to build investor confidence when they operate in a market where the institutions that support the supply of credible information are weak. Using the announcement of a regulation that allowed foreigners to invest in select Shanghai... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Reputation; Institutional Investing; Trust

SSRN

16 Jun 2008
Research & Ideas

Seven Tips for Managing Price Increases

Editor's Note: Harvard Business School professor John Quelch writes a blog on marketing issues, called Marketing Know: How, for Harvard Business Online. It is reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge. When driving... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

March 2007 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Chiaphua Group Vietnam

By: Nicolas P. Retsinas and Michael Shih-ta Chen

As part of its expansion and diversification strategy, the Chiaphua Group explored real estate investments in emerging markets. The Group was one of the largest privately held company groups based in Hong Kong, with international investments in a variety of... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Laws and Statutes; Emerging Markets; Market Entry and Exit; Business and Government Relations; Diversification; Hong Kong

August 2013 (Revised November 2015)
Case

Prudential Financial - General Motors Pension Risk Transfer: Back to the Future?

By: Luis M. Viceira and Emily A. Chien

In November 2012, Prudential Financial and General Motors closed on a $25.1B pension risk transfer (PRT) transaction, the largest of its kind to date by an order of magnitude both in the U.S. market and globally. In exchange for an in-kind transfer of $25.1B in... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Asset Management; Insurance; Retirement; Insurance Industry; Insurance Industry

02 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 2, 2019

forthcoming Strategic Management Journal Threat of Platform-Owner Entry and Complementor Responses: Evidence from the Mobile App Market By: Wen, Wen, and Feng Zhu Abstract—We examine how app developers on the Android mobile platform... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

June 2018
Article

Deviations from Covered Interest Rate Parity

By: Wenxin Du, Alexander Tepper and Adrien Verdelhan

We find that deviations from the covered interest rate parity (CIP) condition imply large, persistent, and systematic arbitrage opportunities in one of the largest asset markets in the world. Contrary to the common view, these deviations for major currencies are not... View Details

Keywords: Interest Rates; Financial Markets; Banks and Banking; Price

December 2022
Article

Shaping Nascent Industries: Innovation Strategy and Regulatory Uncertainty in Personal Genomics

By: Cheng Gao and Rory McDonald

In nascent industries—whose new technologies are often poorly understood by regulators—contending with regulatory uncertainty can be crucial to organizational survival and growth. Prior research on nonmarket strategy has largely focused on established firms in mature... View Details

Keywords: Technological Change; Innovation; Qualitative Methods; New Categories; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Risk and Uncertainty; Strategy

22 Nov 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Carbon Tariffs: Impacts on Technology Choice, Regional Competitiveness, and Global Emissions

Keywords: by David F. Drake; Manufacturing

2017
Working Paper

Carbon Tariffs: Effects in Settings with Technology Choice and Foreign Production Cost Advantage

By: David F. Drake

Emissions regulation is a policy mechanism intended to address the threat of climate change. However, the stringency of emissions regulation varies across regions, raising concerns over carbon leakage—an outcome where stringent regulation in one region shifts... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Competition; Pollutants; Taxation; Environmental Sustainability; Globalized Markets and Industries

SSRN

May 2009 (Revised October 2009)
Case

Verne Global: Building a Green Data Center in Iceland

Verne Global, a pioneering startup created to build the first large-scale data center in Iceland, faces critical challenges regarding its green strategy. Verne Co-Founder Isaac Kato is tasked with evaluating how the company can most successfully market and sell the... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Startups; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Sales; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants; Green Technology Industry; Service Industry; Iceland

November 2022 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Replika AI: Monetizing a Chatbot

By: Julian De Freitas and Nicole Tempest Keller

In early 2018, Eugenia Kuyda, co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based chatbot Replika AI, was deciding how to monetize the app she had built. Launched in 2017, Replika was a consumer AI “companion app” developed by a team of AI software engineers originally based in... View Details

Keywords: Mental Health; Subscriber Models; TAM; Monetization Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software; Product Positioning; Health Disorders; Technology Industry