Publications

March 1999 (Revised January 2000)
Background Note

A Note on Microeconomics for Strategists

By: Kenneth S. Corts and Jan W. Rivkin

Summarizes the core ideas about the microeconomics of markets that are most relevant to business strategy. Sections I and II develop two basic building blocks of any market, demand and supply. Section II discusses how demand and supply interact to determine the... View Details

Keywords: Microeconomics; Cost; Cost of Capital; Market Entry and Exit; Business Strategy; Competition; Corporate Strategy

14 Apr 2009
First Look

First Look: April 14, 2009

Competition Between Differentiated Products with Demand for More Than One Variety Author: Andrei Hagiu Abstract We analyze the existence of pure strategy symmetric price equilibria in a generalized version... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

14 Jan 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Optimal Auction Design and Equilibrium Selection in Sponsored Search Auctions

Keywords: by Benjamin G. Edelman & Michael Schwarz

05 Jul 2006
First Look

First Look: July 5, 2006

Working PapersThe Framing Effect of Price Format Marco Bertini and Luc Wathieu Existing evidence suggests that preferences are affected by whether a price is presented as one all-inclusive expense or... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2005 (Revised December 2006)
Background Note

Midway's Entry into Milwaukee: An Interactive Game

By: Dennis A. Yao

Provides background and instructions to the Airline Pricing Game courseware (9-705-802), an interactive simulation of a new entry by a lower cost airline. The courseware allows students to make round-by-round competitive pricing decisions and react to changing market... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Wisconsin

05 Apr 2017
Research & Ideas

For Women Especially, It Pays to Know What Car Repairs Should Cost

expected price in mind enables consumers to use bargaining strategies that they might otherwise not use, such as mentioning the expected price or negotiating for a View Details

Keywords: by Wendy Guild Swearingen; Auto; Service

December 2003 (Revised October 2014)
Case

Alusaf Hillside Project

By: Kenneth S. Corts and John R. Wells

The aluminum industry has suffered from long periods of depressed prices and profits interspersed with relatively short-lived price and profit peaks. The case investigates why this has occured, focusing on the decision Alusaf must make on whether to invest in a major... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Business Cycles; Financial Crisis; Metals and Minerals; Financial Strategy; Investment; Price; Profit; Demand and Consumers; Industry Structures

May 2024
Case

Naked Wines: The Profit vs. Growth Decision

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Edward A. Meyer

Nick Devlin faced a difficult strategic decision in October 2022. As the CEO of a UK-based subscription business connecting wine drinkers in the US, UK, and Australia with winemakers from around the world (which one journalist called the “Netflix of Wine”), he had to... View Details

April 1999 (Revised March 2002)
Background Note

Aluminum Industry in 1994, The

After reaching all-time highs in excess of $2,500 per ton in 1988 and 1989, aluminum prices fall dramatically in the early 1990s as the former Soviet Union begins exporting far larger quantities of metal. By the beginning of 1994, the price has hit all-time lows (in... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Price; Supply and Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Soviet Union

July 2023
Article

Marketplace Scalability and Strategic Use of Platform Investment

By: Jin Li, Gary Pisano, Richard Xu and Feng Zhu

The scalability of a marketplace depends on the operations of the marketplace platform as well as its sellers’ capacities. In this study, we explore one strategy that a marketplace platform can use to enhance its scalability: providing an ancillary service to sellers.... View Details

Keywords: Two-sided Platforms; Services; Digital Platforms

July 2024 (Revised September 2024)
Case

Shell’s Balancing Act: Resource Allocation and the Green Transition (Abridged)

By: David Collis and Haisley Wert

In mid-2023, amid pressure from climate change activists, shareholder activists, and confronting enormous uncertainty about the future demand for and price of fossil fuels, new Shell CEO Wael Sawan (Harvard MBA 2003) announced a change in strategy for the U.K. oil... View Details

Keywords: Oil ＆ Gas; Renewables; Forecasting Demand; Strategy; Energy; Climate Change; Resource Allocation; Corporate Strategy; Investment Activism; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Energy Industry

December 2016 (Revised March 2017)
Case

Beingmate

By: David E. Bell, Juan Ma and Natalie Kindred

Founded in 2002, Hangzhou, China–based Beingmate was a major producer of infant formula and related products in the high-demand Chinese market. After an infamous 2008 food safety episode in China, in which toxic infant formula sickened thousands of babies and led to... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Food and Beverage Industry; China

10 Nov 2015
HBS Seminar

Matthew Grennan, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania

2007
Working Paper

Exclusivity and Control

By: Andrei Hagiu and Robin S. Lee

We analyze platform competition for content in the presence of strategic interactions between content distributors and content providers. We provide a model of bargaining and price competition within these industries, and show that whether or not a piece of content... View Details

Keywords: Price; Revenue; Governance Controls; Digital Platforms; Competition

Read Now

Research Summary

Implications of Limits of Arbitrage (with James Choi)

In this project we investigate the relationship between limits to arbitrage facing mutual fund managers and asset pricing anomalies. We measure changes in the limits to arbitrage by computing the average of slopes on current and past returns in quarterly... View Details

November 2011 (Revised June 2013)
Case

Natura Cosméticos, S.A.

Rodolfo Guttilla, Director of Corporate Affairs for Natura Cosméticos S.A. (Natura), prepared for a meeting with key stakeholders to discuss the future of integrated reporting at Natura. A cosmetics company with a strong brand, robust growth in international and... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Decision Making; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Brazil

June 2003 (Revised May 2006)
Case

Cipla

By: Rohit Deshpande and Laura Winig

The head of Cipla, a $325-million-dollar Indian pharmaceutical company and seller of low-cost AIDS drugs to South Africa, must decide what to do about Cipla's future. With India poised to enforce international patents in only two years, much of Cipla's product line... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Price; Global Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Patents; Leadership; Marketing Strategy; Health Industry; South Africa; India

March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
Case

MTN: Unlocking Value While Driving Socioeconomic Progress

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Dilyana Karadzhova Botha

On March 10, 2021, Ralph Mupita the new CEO of MTN Group, Africa's largest telecommunications company, presented the group’s 2020 annual results and unveiled a new strategy to “drive growth and unlock value.” Despite MTN’s leadership in most of its markets, the... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Goals and Objectives; Valuation; Emerging Markets; Business Strategy; Financial Management; Information Technology; Corporate Finance; Telecommunications Industry; Africa; South Africa; Ghana; Nigeria

September 2018 (Revised August 2019)
Case

The Progressive Corporation, 2018

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In early 2019, The Progressive Corporation (Progressive), the USA’s third-largest auto insurance writer, reported earned premiums were up 20% in 2018 compared to the previous year, and net income was up 64%. Direct sales of personal auto policies rose 21%, while agent... View Details