Publications

SSRN

Research Summary

Overview

By: Meg Rithmire

My research and course development focus on questions of how markets and market mechanisms interact with concentrated political power, especially in the context of authoritarian or illiberal regimes. Geographically, my expertise is in the political economy of Asia,... View Details

September 2013
Case

Boston Children's Hospital: Measuring Patient Costs (Abridged)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The case describes a pilot project on applying activity-based costing to measure the cost of treating patients. After an overview of Boston Children's Hospital and its local health care market environment, the case presents process maps and financial data relating to... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Costing; Hospitals; Activity Based Costing and Management

Educators

Spring 2023
Article

Incentive Contract Design and Employee-Initiated Innovation: Evidence from the Field

By: Wei Cai, Susanna Gallani and Jee-Eun Shin

This study examines how the design of incentive contracts for tasks defined as workers’ official responsibilities (i.e., standard tasks) influences workers’ propensity to engage in employee-initiated innovation (EII). EII corresponds to innovation activities that are... View Details

Keywords: Employee-initiated Innovation; Contract Design; Rank-and-file; Extra-role Behaviors; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Innovation and Management

2021
Working Paper

The Great Unequalizer: Initial Health Effects of COVID-19 in the United States

By: Marcella Alsan, Amitabh Chandra and Kosali I. Simon

We measure inequities from the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality and hospitalizations in the United States during the early months of the outbreak. We discuss challenges in measuring health outcomes and health inequality, some of which are specific to COVID-19 and others... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Health Inequality; Health Pandemics; Demographics; Equality and Inequality

2020
Working Paper

Topic Preference Detection: A Novel Approach to Understand Perspective Taking in Conversation

By: Michael Yeomans and Alison Wood Brooks

Although most humans engage in conversations constantly throughout their lives, conversational mistakes are commonplace— interacting with others is difficult, and conversation re-quires quick, relentless perspective-taking and decision making. For example: during every... View Details

Keywords: Natural Language Processing; Interpersonal Communication; Perspective; Decision Making; Perception

January 2014
Article

China's 'New Regionalism': Subnational Analysis in Chinese Political Economy

By: Meg Rithmire

The study of Chinese political economy has undergone a sea change since the late 1990s; instead of debating the origins and direction of national reform, scholars have turned to examining the origins of local economic variation. This essay reviews recent work in... View Details

Keywords: China; Political Economy; Economy; Government and Politics; China

The public release of Large Language Models (LLMs) has sparked tremendous interest in how humans will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to accomplish a variety of tasks. In our study conducted with Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm, we examine... View Details

10 Jun 2014
First Look

First Look: June 10

between keeping one's distance and staying involved. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/download.aspx?name=14-114.pdf Wisdom or Madness? Comparing Crowds with Expert Evaluation in Funding the Arts By: Mollick, Ethan... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

Business Investment in Education in Emerging Markets Since the 1960s

By: Valeria Giacomin, Geoffrey Jones and Erica Salvaj

This article examines non-profit investments by business in education in emerging markets between the 1960s and the present day. Using a sample of 110 interviews with business leaders from an oral history database, the study shows that more than three-quarters of such... View Details

Keywords: Economic History; Oral History; Education; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Business History; Emerging Markets; Reputation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Education Industry; Africa; Asia; Latin America; Middle East; India; Chile; Colombia; Sri Lanka; Kenya

24 Mar 2014
News

Health Care Transparency: The Fox Is Guarding the Chicken Coop in Washington Again

21 Aug 2012
News

Your paycheck and the CEO's - side by side

15 Jun 2021
News

Podcast: How Biosimilars Are Affecting the Drug Markets

29 Jun 2020
News

COVID Lockdown: How India's Food Supply Chain First Tightened and then Recovered

February 2012 (Revised October 2013)
Case

OpenIDEO

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Anne-Laure Fayard, Natalia Levina and Stephanie Healy Pokrywa

The case describes OpenIDEO, an online offshoot of IDEO, one of the world's leading product design firms. OpenIDEO leverages IDEO's innovative design process and an online community to create solutions for social issues. Emphasis is placed on comparing the IDEO and... View Details

Keywords: Social Issues; Product Design; Social and Collaborative Networks; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Ghana; New Zealand

Educators

November 1987 (Revised March 1988)
Case

Searching for Trade Remedies: The U.S. Machine Tool Industry--1983

By: David B. Yoffie

In 1983 the National Machine Tools Builder Association was predicting a declining market for the United States and rising imports. Machine tool manufacturers had to decide if they should ask the U.S. government for help, and if they did, which administrative channels... View Details

Keywords: Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Machinery and Machining; Government and Politics; Law; Production; Business and Government Relations; Competition; Manufacturing Industry; Japan; Germany; United States

2016
Working Paper

Alternative Paths of Green Entrepreneurship: The Environmental Legacies of The North Face's Doug Tompkins and Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard

By: Geoffrey Jones and Ben Gettinger

This working paper examines the impact of two entrepreneurs who offered alternative paths to reach their shared goal of a more sustainable world. Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins were respective founders of the prominent outdoor apparel brands Patagonia and The North... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Apparel and Accessories Industry

SSRN

August 2021
Article

Multiple Imputation Using Gaussian Copulas

By: F.M. Hollenbach, I. Bojinov, S. Minhas, N.W. Metternich, M.D. Ward and A. Volfovsky

Missing observations are pervasive throughout empirical research, especially in the social sciences. Despite multiple approaches to dealing adequately with missing data, many scholars still fail to address this vital issue. In this paper, we present a simple-to-use... View Details

Keywords: Missing Data; Bayesian Statistics; Imputation; Categorical Data; Estimation

October 2019
Teaching Note

Granite Equity Partners

By: Victoria Ivashina and Terrence Shu

This teaching note accompanies HBS case 219-040, “Granite Equity Partners,” which follows the private equity firm as it evaluates the potential acquisition of Tyrell Corp., a Minnesota-based quality control biomaterials company. Granite Equity’s fund was different from... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity Exit; Investing; Fund Exit; Fund Management; Wealth Management; Liquidity; Buyout; Exit Strategy; Preferred Shares; Convertible Notes; Finance; Private Equity; Investment; Asset Management; Wealth; Management; Financial Liquidity; Minnesota; United States