Publications

May 20, 2024
Article

Porter’s Five Forces and Competitive Advantage in Web3

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Liang Wu

Competitive strategy — the art of crafting and executing plans to achieve an advantageous position in the market — is integral to any business, and especially relevant for platforms because it determines their ability to achieve network effects and scale. But web3... View Details

Keywords: Five Forces Framework; Competitive Strategy; Business Strategy; Network Effects; Digital Transformation

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February 2001
Background Note

National Innovation Systems and Comparative Industry Evolution

Discusses U.S. and Japanese innovation systems. Illustrates these with comparative studies of computer and pharmaceutical industries. Probes effects of labor, capital, and customer market institutions on these sectors in the United States and Japan. View Details

Keywords: Industry Growth; Innovation and Invention; Computer Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Japan; United States

November 2006 (Revised May 2025)
Case

Eli Lilly: Developing Cymbalta

By: Elie Ofek and Ron Laufer

Anticipating the expiration of its Prozac patent, Eli Lilly has to make tough decisions regarding the development of its next-generation antidepressant drug. In particular, the company needs to decide whether to first establish that once-a-day dosing for Cymbalta... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Product Development; Research and Development; Pharmaceutical Industry

June 2012
Article

The Economic Value of Celebrity Endorsements

By: Anita Elberse and Jeroen Verleun

What is the payoff to enlisting celebrity endorsers? Although effects on stock returns are relatively well documented, little is known about any impact on sales—arguably a metric of more direct importance to advertising practitioners. In this study of athlete... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Value; Advertising; Sales; Brands and Branding; Decisions; Economics; Marketing Strategy; Investment Return

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28 Sep 2020
Working Paper Summaries

What Can Economics Say About Alzheimer's Disease?

Keywords: by Amitabh Chandra, Courtney Coile, and Corina Mommaerts; Health; Pharmaceutical

Research Summary

Dynamics of Platform Competition: Exploring the Role of Installed Base, Platform Quality and Consumer Expectations

Researchers debate the role of installed base, platform quality and consumer expectations in driving the success of platforms. We analyze these three factors in a dynamic model where a new entrant with superior quality competes with an incumbent platform, and... View Details

December 2011
Article

Platform Envelopment

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Geoffrey Parker and Marshall Van Alstyne

Due to network effects and switching costs in platform markets, entrants generally must offer revolutionary functionality. We explore a second entry path that does not rely upon Schumpeterian innovation: platform envelopment. Through envelopment, a provider in one... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Economic Systems; Development Economics; Business or Company Management; Business Strategy; Network Effects; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry

October 2018 (Revised February 2018)
Case

Masayoshi Son and the Vision Fund

By: Tom Nicholas, Ramana Nanda and Benjamin N. Roth

In October 2016, SoftBank Group Corp., the Japanese conglomerate giant caused a significant shock to the worldwide market for venture capital and private equity by announcing the Vision Fund, the largest tech investment fund in the world at close to $100 billion. The... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Entrepreneurship; Competitive Strategy

Research Summary

Capital Flows and Capital Goods (joint with Eliza Hammel)

By: Laura Alfaro

We examine one of the channels through which financial integration can help promote growth. In particular, we study the effects of capital account liberalization on the imports of capital goods. We pay particular attention to the effects of equity market... View Details

June 2011 (Revised June 2012)
Case

Sephora Direct: Investing in Social Media, Video, and Mobile

By: Elie Ofek and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Julie Bornstein, senior vice president of Sephora Direct, is seeking to double her budget for social media and other digital marketing initiatives for 2011. A number of digital efforts implemented in the past two years seem to be bearing fruit and there is a desire to... View Details

Keywords: History; Leadership; Marketing Strategy; Marketing; Emerging Markets; Investment Return; Investment Funds; Budgets and Budgeting

Frank Cespedes is Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit. He received his B.A. from the City College of New York, M.S. from M.I.T. and Ph.D. from Cornell University.

At Harvard, he has developed and taught a variety of MBA and executive... View Details

13 Jan 2011
News

Mentoring Program Turns Cameras on Its Young Clients

September 1995 (Revised December 1997)
Case

Philip Morris: Marlboro Friday (A)

By: Alvin J. Silk and Bruce Isaacson

On April 2, 1993 Philip Morris USA launched an elaborate integrated program of consumer and retail promotions of unspecified duration that effectively slashed the retail price of its flagship brand, Marlboro, by 20% in the U.S. market. This program represented a major... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Price; Marketing Strategy; Market Participation; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; United States

2018
Working Paper

The Impact of Pensions and Insurance on Global Yield Curves

By: Robin Greenwood and Annette Vissing-Jorgensen

We document a strong effect of pension and insurance company (P&I) assets on the long end of the yield curve. Using data from 26 countries, the yield spread between 30-year and 10-year government bond yields is negatively related to the ratio of pension assets (in... View Details

Keywords: Pension Funds; Investment Funds; Insurance; Assets; Interest Rates; Bonds

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13 Jan 2003
Research & Ideas

The Subconscious Mind of the Consumer (And How To Reach It)

Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman's latest book, How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market, delves into the subconscious mind of the consumer—the place where most purchasing decisions are made. The question: How can View Details

Keywords: by Manda Mahoney

Article

Selling to Many Countries Within the U.S.

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Michael Wong

In pursuing growth, many companies have plans to sell to emerging markets like the so-called B-R-I-C nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China), but they overlook significant ethnic markets within the United States. For example, the combined African-American and Hispanic... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Ethnicity; Sales; Business Growth and Maturation; Marketing Communications; Business Plan; Emerging Markets; Debates; Business Strategy; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; United States

04 Apr 2016
HBS Seminar

Ariel Stern, Harvard Business School

Adi Sunderam

Adi Sunderam is the Willard Prescott Smith Professor of Corporate Finance at Harvard Business School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Faculty Affiliate of the Harvard Economics department. He teaches Finance 2 in... View Details

Keywords: asset management; banking; brokerage; federal government; financial services; investment banking industry

May 2014
Article

Information and Two-Sided Platform Profits

By: Andrei Hagiu and Hanna Halaburda

We study the effect of different levels of information on two-sided platform profits under monopoly and competition. One side (developers) is always informed about all prices and therefore forms responsive expectations. In contrast, we allow the other side (users) to... View Details

Keywords: Responsive Expectations; Passive Expectations; Wary Expectations; Information; Performance Expectations; Two-Sided Platforms; Monopoly

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