Publications

Educators

06 Jan 2020
Research & Ideas

Motivate Your High Performers to Share Their Knowledge

Many employees fall into a rut. They do their jobs and respond to challenges in a set way to deliver stable results. But consistency can give way to performance gaps between a company’s high achievers and its weakest links. Fortunately,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

December 2018
Article

Improving Resilience Among Employees High in Depression, Anxiety, and Workplace Distress

By: Allison L. Williams, Acacia C. Parks, Grace Cormier, Julia Stafford and A.V. Whillans

Depression and anxiety are costly for both employees and employers, in terms of direct medical costs as well as costs stemming from lost productive time and missed days at work. Resilience training has been shown to improve workplace functioning for employees, which... View Details

Keywords: Depression; Anxiety; Engagement; Resilience; Presenteeism; Employee Engagement; Mental Health; Employees; Emotions; Health; Internet and the Web; Performance Productivity

May 2013
Teaching Plan

High Wire Act: Credit Suisse and Contingent Capital

By: Clayton Rose and David Lane

Late in 2010, Credit Suisse CEO Brady Dougan and his team considered whether or not to issue contingent capital, which Swiss regulators would require by 2019. They faced a number of substantial issues, including: Would contingent capital actually work as conceptualized... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Capital Markets; Financial Crisis; Decision Choices and Conditions; Leadership; International Finance; Financial Liquidity; Risk and Uncertainty; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Switzerland

Article

The Cost of Capital for Alternative Investments

By: Jakub W. Jurek and Erik Stafford

Traditional risk factor models indicate that hedge funds capture pre-fee alphas of 6% to 10% per annum over the period from 1996 to 2012. At the same time, the hedge fund return series is not reliably distinguishable from the returns of mechanical S&P 500 put-writing... View Details

Keywords: Hedge Funds; Required Returns; Downside Risk; Index Options; Investment Funds; Cost of Capital; Investment Return; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry

August 2011 (Revised October 2014)
Case

High Wire Act: Credit Suisse and Contingent Capital (A)

By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia

Late in 2010, Credit Suisse CEO Brady Dougan and his team closed in on the decision of whether or not to issue contingent capital, which Swiss regulators would require by 2019. There were a number of substantial issues facing Dougan and his team, including whether... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Capital Markets; Financial Crisis; Decision Choices and Conditions; Leadership; International Finance; Financial Liquidity; Risk and Uncertainty; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Switzerland

Educators

July, 2022
Article

Telehealth Visits After Shoulder Surgery: Higher Patient Satisfaction and Lower Costs

By: Evan A. O'Donnell, Jillian E. Haberli, Andres Muniz Martinez, Daniel Yagoda, Robert S. Kaplan and Jon J.P. Warner

Purpose and Methods: The study compared the cost of telemedicine visits with in-person clinic visits for routine follow-up after common shoulder surgeries. It also evaluated the safety and patient experience with telemedicine visits. Time-driven activity-based costing... View Details

Keywords: Telehealth; Patient Satisfaction; Health Care and Treatment; Communication Technology; Health Industry

January 2024
Article

A Cost Model for a Low Threshold Clinic Treating Opioid Use Disorder

By: Sarah E. Wakeman, Elizabeth Powell, Syed Shehab, Grace Herman, Laura Kehoe and Robert S. Kaplan

The US fee-for-service payment system under-reimburses clinics offering access to comprehensive treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD). The funding shortfall limits a clinic’s ability to expand and improve access, especially for socially marginalized patients with... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Cost; Equality and Inequality; Health Industry

23 Jan 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Cost of Capital Dynamics Implied by Firm Fundamentals

Keywords: by Matthew Lyle & Charles C.Y. Wang

27 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Cost of a Product Recall

American emissions tests. Volkswagen estimated that fines, repairs, and legal costs would total more than $30 billion. And worse, the company ceded its command of America’s diesel car market—producing more than one-third of the models... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Manufacturing; Consumer Products; Auto; Medical Devices & Supplies

August, 2022
Article

Billing and Insurance-Related Administrative Costs: A Cross-National Analysis

By: Barak D. Richman, Robert S. Kaplan, Japees Kohli, Dennis Purcell, Mahek Shah, Igna Bonfrer, Brian Golden, Rosemary Hannam, Will Mitchell, Daniel Cehic, Garry Crispin and Kevin A. Schulman

Billing and insurance-related costs are a significant source of wasteful health care spending in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations, but these administrative burdens vary across national systems. We executed a microlevel accounting of these... View Details

Keywords: Health Care Costs; Administrative Costs; Cost; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

Register to Read

18 Jan 2016
Research & Ideas

Hazard Warning: The Unacceptable Cost of Toxic Workers

Toxic workers aren’t just a pain in the rear; they’re also a pain in the bottom line, according to a new Harvard Business School working paper. Dylan Minor, visiting assistant professor of business administration in the HBS Strategy unit, says a company stands to lose... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland

August 2011 (Revised October 2014)
Supplement

High Wire Act: Credit Suisse and Contingent Capital (B)

By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia

The B case describes the process and terms of the very successful offerings of contingent capital in February 2011, as well as The Basel Committee's preliminary decision not to allow contingent capital to count as Tier 1 equity. View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Financial Crisis; Finance; Capital; Financial Instruments; Leadership

Article

Third-Party Punishment as a Costly Signal of High Continuation Probabilities in Repeated Games

By: Jillian J. Jordan and David G. Rand

Why do individuals pay costs to punish selfish behavior, even as third-party observers? A large body of research suggests that reputation plays an important role in motivating such third-party punishment (TPP). Here we focus on a recently proposed reputation-based... View Details

Keywords: Direct Reciprocity; Evolution; Dispersal; Cooperation; Trust; Reputation; Game Theory

22 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

High-Tech Immigrant Workers Don’t Cost US Jobs

are legal fees and recruiting costs for hiring immigrants, and that kind of stuff will quickly wipe out any underpayment that a firm would get off a $50,000 salary. So I don't have the belief that firms are using this to reduce the wage... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Computer; Financial Services

January 2024
Article

Cost of Exempting Sole Orphan Drugs from Medicare Negotiation

By: Matthew Vogel, Olivia Zhao, William B. Feldman, Amitabh Chandra, Aaron S. Kesselheim and Benjamin N. Rome

Importance: The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) requires Medicare to negotiate prices for some high-spending drugs but exempts drugs approved solely for the treatment of a single rare disease.
Objective: To estimate Medicare spending and global... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Price; Health Industry

05 Jan 2011
Op-Ed

Funding Unpredictability Around Stem-Cell Research Inflicts Heavy Cost on Scientific Progress

get money. If they can't get money, they lay off people and cancel projects. Now imagine you are a postdoc in a lab and are working on a project to use human embryonic stem cells to cure diabetes by creating new beta cells in the pancreas. This is difficult work that... View Details

Keywords: by William Sahlman; Biotechnology; Health; Pharmaceutical

Article

Avoiding the Costs of Negotiation: A Commentary on "Is Unilateralism Always Bad?"

By: James K. Sebenius

Why, if an outcome is in the interests of both sides, should it not be negotiated rather than unilaterally imposed? This comment offers additional reasons to prefer negotiation (beyond those adduced in the original article) over unilateral action, even where such... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Bargaining; Middle East; Israel; Palestinians; Israel; Palestinian state

Article

Administrative Costs Associated with Physician Billing and Insurance-Related Activities at an Academic Health Care System

By: Phillip Tseng, Robert S. Kaplan, Barak D. Richman, Mahek A. Shah and Kevin A. Schulman

The federal government mandated adoption of certified electronic health record systems (EHR), at least in part, to reduce administrative costs for physicians. This study used time-driven activity-based costing to determine the administrative costs associated with... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management; Insurance; Problems and Challenges