Publications

April 2011
Teaching Note

Neck & Neck: Leveraging the Club Neck Information (TN)

Teaching Note for 111112. View Details

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Profit; Planning; Advertising Campaigns; Mathematical Methods; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

2024
Working Paper

The New Digital Divide

By: Mayana Pereira, Shane Greenstein, Raffaella Sadun, Prasanna Tambe, Lucia Ronchi Darre, Tammy Glazer, Allen Kim, Rahul Dodhia and Juan Lavista Ferres

We build and analyze new metrics of digital usage that leverage telemetry data collected by Microsoft during operating system updates across forty million Windows devices in U.S. households. These measures of US household digital usage are much more comprehensive than... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Measurement and Metrics; Geographic Location; Behavior; Technology Adoption; Demographics

Register to Read

August 1993 (Revised April 1994)
Case

Flanders of Springfield

By: Arthur Schleifer Jr.

Flanders is a catalog merchandiser. Various decisions on catalog distribution policy, ordering and inventory policy, and catalog format design are considered. This was a final examination, and serves as a review for a number of topics in the course. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Policy; Distribution; Product Design; Supply Chain; Mathematical Methods; Consumer Products Industry

October 1997 (Revised May 1998)
Case

Decision Making at the Top: The All-Star Sports Catalog Division

By: David A. Garvin and Michael Roberto

Describes a senior management team's strategic decision-making process. The division president faces three options for redesigning the process to address several key concerns. The president has extensive quantitative and qualitative data about the process to guide him... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Management Teams; Performance Improvement; Planning; Mathematical Methods; Strategy

Student-Profile

Do Yoon Kim

I was born in Seoul, South Korea and spent most of my life there. For my undergraduate degree, I went to Northwestern and majored in Math, Economics, and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences (MMSS).... View Details

January 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Lyons Document Storage Corporation: Bond Math

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

In 2009 a recent MBA must analyze the possible refunding of bonds issued in 2000 when interest rates were much higher. She must consider the possible consequences of repurchasing company bonds outstanding using cash that might be obtained by issuing new bonds at a... View Details

Keywords: Financial Accounting; Quantitative Analysis; Securities; Debt Securities; Bonds; Cash Flow; Mathematical Methods; Accounting; Interest Rates

2012
Article

Mutual Fund Trading Pressure: Firm-Level Stock Price Impact and Timing of SEOs

By: Mozaffar N. Khan, Leonid Kogan and George Serafeim

In tests of the equity market timing theory of external finance, the prior literature has used overvaluation identifiers such as high market-to-book and high prior returns that are likely correlated with other determinants of SEOs. We use price pressure resulting from... View Details

Keywords: Equity; Market Transactions; Valuation; Capital Structure; Market Timing; Mathematical Methods; Acquisition

May 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Teaching Note

Reliance Baking Soda: Optimizing Promotional Spending (Brief Case)

By: John A. Quelch and Heather Beckham

Teaching Note to Briefcase 4128 View Details

Keywords: Quantitative Analysis; Consumer Marketing; Marketing Planning; Product Management; Sales Promotions; Program Budgeting; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Channels; Mathematical Methods; Advertising; Budgets and Budgeting; Product Marketing; Communication Strategy

2010
Chapter

Facts and Fallacies about U.S. FDI in China

By: Lee Branstetter and C. Fritz Foley

Despite the rapid expansion of U.S.-China trade ties, the increase in U.S. FDI in China, and the expanding amount of economic research exploring these developments, a number of misconceptions distort the popular understanding of U.S. multinationals in China. In this... View Details

Keywords: Expansion; Trade; Foreign Direct Investment; Mathematical Methods; Multinational Firms and Management; China; United States

SSRN

2007
Working Paper

Optimal Reserve Management and Sovereign Debt

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

Most models currently used to determine optimal foreign reserve holdings take the level of international debt as given. However, given the sovereign's willingness-to-pay incentive problems, reserve accumulation may reduce sustainable debt levels. In addition, assuming... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Liquidity; International Finance; Emerging Markets; Mathematical Methods

Fourth Quarter 2007
Article

Contingent Claims Approach to Measuring and Managing Sovereign Credit Risk

By: Dale . F. Gray, Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie

This paper proposes a new approach to measure, analyze, and manage sovereign risk based on the theory and practice of modern contingent claims analysis (CCA). The paper provides a new framework for adapting the CCA model to the sovereign balance sheet in a way that can... View Details

Keywords: Credit; Investment; Sovereign Finance; Risk Management; Emerging Markets; Market Transactions; Mathematical Methods; Valuation

December 2012
Case

Delwarca Software Remote Support Unit

By: Roy D. Shapiro and Paul E. Morrison

Delwarca Software provides business software to large corporate clients around the world. The firm serves customers who prefer to assemble corporate solutions using a combination of software programs from various suppliers rather than implementing a single enterprise... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Service Delivery; Mathematical Methods; Applications and Software; Problems and Challenges; Customer Satisfaction; Information Technology Industry

January 2010 (Revised October 2011)
Case

The Congressional Oversight Panel's Valuation of the TARP Warrants (A)

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

The Congressional Oversight Panel wants to value the warrants issued to the government in connection with the TARP investments of 2008, in order to increase the transparency of options repurchases. The case describes the methodology used to value the warrants. Students... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Asset Pricing; Financial Instruments; Investment; Business and Government Relations; Mathematical Methods; Valuation; Banking Industry; Public Administration Industry; United States

2012
Working Paper

Level II Negotiations: Helping the Other Side Meet Its 'Behind the Table' Challenges

By: James K. Sebenius

A long analytic tradition explores the challenge of productively synchronizing "internal" with "external" negotiations, especially focusing on how each side can best manage internal opposition to agreements negotiated "at the table." Implicit in much of this work is... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Conflict Management; Agreements and Arrangements; Government and Politics; Mathematical Methods; United States; Germany

2008
Working Paper

Deterring Online Advertising Fraud Through Optimal Payment in Arrears

By: Benjamin Edelman

Online advertisers face substantial difficulty in selecting and supervising small advertising partners. Fraud can be well-hidden, and limited reputation systems reduce accountability. But partners are not paid until after their work is complete, and advertisers can... View Details

Keywords: Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Online Advertising; Profit; Corporate Accountability; Partners and Partnerships; Mathematical Methods

1988
Chapter

Evaluation of Government Financial Incentives to Large Scale Energy Projects: A Contingent Claims Approach

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Scott P. Mason

Keywords: Energy; Projects; Motivation and Incentives; Sovereign Finance; Business and Government Relations; Mathematical Methods; Energy Industry

2005
Working Paper

Pseudo Market Timing and Predictive Regressions

By: Malcolm Baker, Ryan Taliaferro and Jeffrey Wurgler

A number of studies claim that aggregate managerial decision variables, such as aggregate equity issuance, have power to predict stock or bond market returns. Recent research argues that these results may be driven by an aggregate time-series version of Schultz's... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Equity; Market Timing; Financial Instruments; Investment Return; Mathematical Methods

Article

Productivity and Selection of Human Capital with Machine Learning

By: Aaron Chalfin, Oren Danieli, Andrew Hillis, Zubin Jelveh, Michael Luca, Jens Ludwig and Sendhil Mullainathan

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Selection and Staffing; Performance Productivity; Mathematical Methods; Policy

fall 2008
Article

Toward a Theory of Behavioral Operations

By: Francesca Gino and Gary P. Pisano

Human beings are critical to the functioning of the vast majority of operating systems, influencing both the way these systems work and how they perform. Yet most formal analytical models of operations assume that the people who participate in operating systems are... View Details

Keywords: Management Systems; Operations; Mathematical Methods; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Perspective; Theory