Publications

September 2019 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Engineering an Inclusive Bioeconomy

By: Tarun Khanna, Raffaella Sadun and Susie L. Ma

In 2019, entrepreneur Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio was developing a project he hoped could generate and share wealth from the natural resources of the Amazon without destroying those resources. His idea, called Earth Bank of Codes (EBC), would create a library of the... View Details

January 2019 (Revised February 2024)
Teaching Note

Hubble Contact Lenses: Data Driven Direct-to-Consumer Marketing

By: Ayelet Israeli

Teaching Note for HBS No. 519-011. As its Series A extension round approaches, the founders of Hubble, a subscription-based, social-media fueled, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand of contact lenses, are reflecting on the marketing strategies that have taken them to a... View Details

January 2019
Article

Bubbles for Fama

By: Robin Greenwood, Andrei Shleifer and Yang You

We evaluate Eugene Fama's claim that stock prices do not exhibit price bubbles. Based on U.S. industry returns 1926–2014 and international sector returns 1985–2014, we present four findings: (1) Fama is correct in that a sharp price increase of an industry portfolio... View Details

Keywords: Bubble; Market Efficiency; Predictability; Price Bubble; Stocks; Price; Forecasting and Prediction

November–December 2018
Article

Online Network Revenue Management Using Thompson Sampling

By: Kris J. Ferreira, David Simchi-Levi and He Wang

We consider a network revenue management problem where an online retailer aims to maximize revenue from multiple products with limited inventory constraints. As common in practice, the retailer does not know the consumer's purchase probability at each price and must... View Details

Keywords: Online Marketing; Revenue Management; Revenue; Management; Marketing; Internet and the Web; Price; Mathematical Methods

2018
Working Paper

Ratcheting, Competition, and the Diffusion of Technological Change: The Case of Televisions Under an Energy Efficiency Program

By: Tomomichi Amano and Hiroshi Ohashi

In differentiated goods markets with societal implications, quality standards are commonly implemented to avoid the under-provision of innovation. Firms have clear incentives to engage in strategic behavior because policymakers use market outcomes as a benchmark in... View Details

Keywords: Product Differentiation; Energy Efficiency Standards; Ratcheting; Diffusion Of Innovation; Technological Innovation; Competition; Quality; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy

SSRN

August 2018 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Hubble Contact Lenses: Data Driven Direct-to-Consumer Marketing

By: Jill Avery and Ayelet Israeli

As its Series A extension round approaches, the founders of Hubble, a subscription-based, social-media fueled, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand of contact lenses, are reflecting on the marketing strategies that have taken them to a valuation of $200 million and debating... View Details

June 2018
Case

Feeding America (A)

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Alan Lam

This case describes how Feeding America, the third-largest nonprofit organization in the U.S., designed a marketplace for allocating donated food across its network of food banks. It considers the promises and pitfalls of using market-based allocation in the context of... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Nonprofit Organizations; Food; Resource Allocation; Fairness; Performance Efficiency; United States

Article

Integrated Strategy: Residual Market and Exchange Imperfections as the Foundation of Sustainable Competitive Advantage

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Dennis Yao

Market imperfections are central to understanding the mechanisms that permit firms to capture value. Many of these imperfections are competed away when firms struggle to attain and defend competitive advantages, making markets more efficient in the process. The... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Strategy; Nonmarket Strategy; Market Imperfections; Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

Article

Offline Showrooms in Omni-channel Retail: Demand and Operational Benefits

By: David R. Bell, Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno

Omnichannel environments where customers shop online and offline at the same retailer are ubiquitous and are deployed by online-first and traditional retailers alike. We focus on the relatively understudied domain of online-first retailers and the engagement of a key... View Details

Keywords: Experience Attributes; Marketing–operations Interface; Omnichannel Retailing; Quasi-experimental Methods; Retail Operations; Showrooms; Marketing Channels; Demand and Consumers; Performance Efficiency; Retail Industry

March 2018 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Whole Foods Under Amazon

By: Dennis Campbell, Tatiana Sandino, James Barnett and Christine Snively

In August 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. Whole Foods was struggling with high costs and faced growing competition from traditional supermarkets offering more organic products. Prior to the acquisition, Whole Foods began rolling out a new... View Details

Keywords: Performance Efficiency; Performance Improvement; Employee Relationship Management; Acquisition; Change Management; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry

2025
Working Paper

Government-Brokerage Analysts and Market Stabilization: Evidence from China

By: Sheng Cao, Xianjie He, Charles C.Y. Wang and Huifang Yin

We show analysts at government-controlled brokerage firms serve as a market stabilization tool in China. Using earnings forecasts from 2005–2019, we find government-brokerage analysts issue relatively more optimistic—yet less accurate and timely—forecasts during... View Details

Keywords: Sell-side Analysts; Forecast Optimism; Forecast Accuracy; Government Incentives; Market Stabilization; Government Ownership; Coordinated Economies; Stocks; Forecasting and Prediction; Business and Government Relations; Emerging Markets

SSRN

2018
Chapter

Britain: Global Legacy and Domestic Persistence

By: Geoffrey Jones

This chapter explores the British experience in a volume which examines the historical evolution of business groups in developed Western economies. The chapter argues that during the nineteenth century British merchant houses established business groups with... View Details

Keywords: Business Groups; Conglomerates; Globalization; Entrepreneurship; Business History; Organizations; Business Conglomerates; United Kingdom

February 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

HubSpot and Motion AI: Chatbot-Enabled CRM

By: Jill Avery and Thomas Steenburgh

HubSpot, an inbound marketing, sales, and customer relationship management (CRM) software provider, announced that it had acquired Motion AI, a software platform that enabled companies to easily build and deploy chatbots, fueled by artificial intelligence, to interact... View Details

2019
Working Paper

Do Banks Have an Edge?

By: Juliane Begenau and Erik Stafford

Overall, no! We show that the level and time series variation in cash flows for most bank activities are well matched by capital market portfolios with similar interest rate and credit risk to what banks report to hold. Ignoring operating expenses, bank loans earn high... View Details

Keywords: Banks; Market Efficiency; Bank Capital; Bank Debt; CAPM; Banking; Bank Deposits; Bank Funding Advantage; Leverage; Maturity Transformation; Replicating Portfolio; Efficiency; Banks and Banking; Capital Markets; Performance Evaluation; Performance Efficiency; Banking Industry; United States

SSRN

November 2017
Technical Note

21st Century Populism

By: George Serafeim and David Freiberg

While the first decade of the 21st century saw a massive financial crisis that led to significant economic downturn, the second decade saw the rise of political leaders, who built their support upon a political message that championed the common person against the... View Details

Keywords: Populism; Market Efficiency; Market Liberalization; Political Influence; Political Instability; Capital Controls; Partnerships; Coalition; Inequality; Role Of Business In Society; Government Intervention In The Markets; Labor Market; Equality and Inequality; Financial Markets; Social Issues; Immigration; Financial Crisis; Capital Markets; Business and Government Relations

Article

An Invitation to Market Design

By: Scott Duke Kominers, Alexander Teytelboym and Vincent P. Crawford

Market design seeks to translate economic theory and analysis into practical solutions to real-world problems. By redesigning both the rules that guide market transactions and the infrastructure that enables those transactions to take place, market designers can... View Details

Keywords: Matching; Trading; Scrip; Liquidity; Efficiency; Equity; Allocation Rules; Marketplaces; Market Design; Marketplace Matching; Auctions