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- Faculty Publications (258)
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- 25 Feb 2020
- Research & Ideas
For Migrant Workers, Homesickness Can Reduce Productivity
production centers spread across the country. They learned that first-year workers were usually permitted to travel home for the festivals of Diwali, while the more experienced third-year workers had to stay behind to manage projects.... View Details
Keywords: by Kristen Senz
- 1978
- Article
An Incentive Compatible Planning Procedure for Public Good Production
By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont
It is only recently that economic theorists have faced the fact that the proposed allocation mechanisms in economies with public goods might have bad incentive properties. In this paper we introduce a new planning procedure such that truthful revelation of the marginal... View Details
Green, Jerry R., and Jean-Jacques Laffont. "An Incentive Compatible Planning Procedure for Public Good Production." Scandinavian Journal of Economics 80, no. 1 (1978): 20–33.
- 02 Apr 2024
- Research & Ideas
Employees Out Sick? Inside One Company's Creative Approach to Staying Productive
workers each, running on tight schedules with little room for error. Yet the average daily worker absenteeism rate was 11 percent, and for any particular production line, the absence View Details
- May 2006
- Article
Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence from a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines
By: Nava Ashraf, Dean Karlan and Wesley Yin
We designed a commitment savings product for a Philippine bank and implemented it using a randomized control methodology. The savings product was intended for individuals who want to commit now to restrict access to their savings, and who were sophisticated enough to... View Details
Ashraf, Nava, Dean Karlan, and Wesley Yin. "Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence from a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines." Quarterly Journal of Economics 121, no. 2 (May 2006): 635–672. (Winner of TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award Certificate of Excellence For an outstanding research publication containing ideas that the public and private sectors can use to maintain and improve America's lifelong financial well being presented by TIAA-CREF Institute.)
- October 2011 (Revised March 2012)
- Case
Cottle-Taylor: Expanding the Oral Care Group in India
By: John A. Quelch and Alisa Zalosh
Brinda Patel, director of oral care products for the India division of a consumer home-care product company, develops a data-driven marketing plan for toothbrushes. She believes her plan can support a 20% increase in unit sales based on rising demand for modern... View Details
Keywords: Forecasting; Budgeting; International Marketing; Product Planning ＆ Policy; Sales Promotions; Marketing Plans; Products; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Emerging Markets; Forecasting and Prediction; Advertising; Product Launch; Budgets and Budgeting; Product Development; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; India
Quelch, John A., and Alisa Zalosh. "Cottle-Taylor: Expanding the Oral Care Group in India." Harvard Business School Brief Case 114-350, October 2011. (Revised March 2012.)
- 12 Mar 2024
- Research & Ideas
Publish or Perish: What the Research Says About Productivity in Academia
To succeed in academia, professors often feel the pressure to “publish or perish.” But in evaluating professors’ productivity based on total published studies and grant funding, are institutions overlooking other factors that affect a... View Details
- 2001
- Chapter
Publicly Funded Science and the Productivity of the Pharmaceutical Industry
By: Rebecca Henderson and Ian Cockburn
U.S. taxpayers funded $14.8 billion of health related research last year, four times the amount that was spent in 1970 in real terms. In this paper we evaluate the impact of these huge expenditures on the technological performance of the pharmaceutical industry. While... View Details
Keywords: Public Sector; Science-Based Business; Research and Development; Sovereign Finance; Pharmaceutical Industry
Henderson, Rebecca, and Ian Cockburn. "Publicly Funded Science and the Productivity of the Pharmaceutical Industry." In Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 1, edited by Adam B. Jaffe, Josh Lerner, and Scott Stern, 1–34. MIT Press, 2001.
- October 2012 (Revised April 2017)
- Case
Brazil's Enigma: Sustaining Long-Term Growth
By: Laura Alfaro, Hilary White and Haviland Sheldahl-Thomason
Over the past decade, Brazil's future as a leading world economic power appeared certain. An expanding middle class and commodity boom had fueled economic growth, with GDP growth hitting a peak of 7.5% in 2010. However, the high cost of conducting business in Brazil,... View Details
Keywords: Capital Controls; Inflation; Exchange Rates; Stimulus; Competitiveness; Productivity Growth; Foreign Investment; Infrastructure; Inflation and Deflation; Currency Exchange Rate; Brazil
Alfaro, Laura, Hilary White, and Haviland Sheldahl-Thomason. "Brazil's Enigma: Sustaining Long-Term Growth." Harvard Business School Case 713-040, October 2012. (Revised April 2017.)
- June 2023
- Article
Regulatory Limits to Risk Management
By: Ishita Sen
Variable annuities, the largest liability of U.S. life insurers, are investment products containing long-dated minimum return guarantees. I show that guarantees with similar economic risks are treated differently by regulation and these differences impact insurers’... View Details
Keywords: Interest Rate Risk; Variable Annuities; Capital Regulation; Reinsurance; Derivatives; Risk Management; Interest Rates; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms
Sen, Ishita. "Regulatory Limits to Risk Management." Review of Financial Studies 36, no. 6 (June 2023): 2175–2223. (Lead Article and Editor's Choice, Winner of the RFS Rising Scholar Award 2024.)
- 17 Dec 2014
- Research & Ideas
How Our Brain Determines if the Product is Worth the Price
yes or no with the push of a button. After exiting the machine, participants filled out a survey to rate how much they had liked each product, on a scale of 1 to 7. The researchers focused on brain activity at the moment participants saw... View Details
- Research Summary
The Effects of Firm Size and Sales Growth Rate on Inventory Turnover Performance in the U.S. Retail Sector
We review and extend recent academic literature on the inventory turnover performance of public-listed U.S. retailers using firm-level financial data. Past research has shown that there is a large variation in the inventory turnover performance of retailers across... View Details
- 2012
- Discussion Paper
Labor Productivity and Quality Change in Singapore: Achievements in 1974-2011 and Prospects for the Next Two Decades
By: Koji Nomura and Tomomichi Amano
Labor productivity growth in Singapore that has grown at a rate of over 3.0 percent per year since 1970s considerably slowed down to 0.5 percent on average per annum in the latter half of the 2000s. The purpose of this paper is to ask, first, to what extent Singapore’s... View Details
Nomura, Koji, and Tomomichi Amano. "Labor Productivity and Quality Change in Singapore: Achievements in 1974-2011 and Prospects for the Next Two Decades." Discussion Paper, Keio Economic Observatory, 2012.
- 2017
- Working Paper
Management as a Technology?
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
Are some management practices akin to a technology that can explain firm and national productivity, or do they simply reflect contingent management styles? We collect data on core management practices from over 11,000 firms in 34 countries. We find large cross-country... View Details
Keywords: Management Practices; Productivity; Competition; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Productivity
Bloom, Nicholas, Raffaella Sadun, and John Van Reenen. "Management as a Technology?" Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-133, June 2016. (Revised October 2017.)
- 21 Nov 2023
- Op-Ed
The Beauty Industry: Products for a Healthy Glow or a Compact for Harm?
In my recently published book Deeply Responsible Business, I write about business leaders since the 19th century who have acted responsibly, often by putting the welfare of their communities above the idea of maximizing profits. I make a sharp distinction between... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
The Issuance and Design of Sustainability-linked Loans
By: Maria Loumioti and George Serafeim
Sustainability-linked loans (i.e., syndicated loans for which pricing is linked to a sustainability performance indicator) have rapidly evolved into a significant private debt product. We find that sustainability-linked lending has been available mostly to borrowers... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Management; Credit Products; Loan Contracts; Loans; Corporate Finance; Credit Risk; Environment; ESG; ESG Ratings; Climate Change; Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Risk and Uncertainty; Credit
Loumioti, Maria, and George Serafeim. "The Issuance and Design of Sustainability-linked Loans." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-027, November 2022.
- 2021
- Working Paper
Competitive Two-Part Tariffs
By: Jorge Tamayo and Guofu Tan
We study competitive two-part tariffs in a model of asymmetric duopoly firms that offer (vertically and horizontally) differentiated products. We show that the sign of the markup for each product depends on the average expected demand among all customers as well as the... View Details
Keywords: Product Differentiation; Two-part Tariffs; Marginal-cost Pricing; Cross-subsidization; Competition; Price
Tamayo, Jorge, and Guofu Tan. "Competitive Two-Part Tariffs." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-089, March 2021. (R&R American Economic Journal: Microeconomics.)
- 2025
- Working Paper
Training Within Firms
By: Brayan Diaz, Andrea Neyra-Nazarrett, Julian Ramirez, Raffaella Sadun and Jorge Tamayo
Training investments are essential for improving worker and firm productivity, yet their
implementation is often hindered by low participation rates and insufficient worker engagement.
This study uses data from three firms–a car manufacturer, a quick-service... View Details
Keywords: Productivity; Absenteeism; Middle Managers; Training; Management Practices and Processes; Performance Productivity; Employees
Diaz, Brayan, Andrea Neyra-Nazarrett, Julian Ramirez, Raffaella Sadun, and Jorge Tamayo. "Training Within Firms." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 25-045, April 2025.
- 2007
- Working Paper
Plant-Size Distribution and Cross-Country Income Differences
By: Laura Alfaro, Andrew Charlton and Fabio Kanzcuk
We investigate, using plant-level data for 79 developed and developing countries, whether differences in the allocation of resources across heterogeneous plants are a significant determinant of cross-country differences in income per worker. For this purpose, we use a... View Details
Keywords: Heterogeneous Plants; Productivity; Policy Distortions; Wages; Equality and Inequality; Resource Allocation; Macroeconomics
Alfaro, Laura, Andrew Charlton, and Fabio Kanzcuk. "Plant-Size Distribution and Cross-Country Income Differences." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 07-086, May 2007. (Revised May 2008, August 2008. NBER Working Paper Series, No. 14060, June 2008)
- August 2021 (Revised February 2023)
- Case
Fair Park Covid-19 Mass Vaccination Site (A)
By: Willy Shih
This case is an opportunity to apply the methods of the Toyota Production System (TPS) to the analysis of an everyday service application: administering Covid-19 vaccines. It describes the start-up of a drive-up Covid-19 mass vaccination site at the Texas State Fair... View Details
Keywords: Operations Improvement; Operations And Processes; Toyota Production System; COVID-19 Pandemic; Operations; Service Operations; Health Pandemics; Problems and Challenges; Goals and Objectives; Measurement and Metrics; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States; Texas
Shih, Willy. "Fair Park Covid-19 Mass Vaccination Site (A)." Harvard Business School Case 622-003, August 2021. (Revised February 2023.)
- June 2013 (Revised June 2013)
- Teaching Note
Brazil's Enigma: Sustaining Long-Term Growth & Currency Wars
By: Laura Alfaro and Hilary White
Over the past decade, Brazil's future as a leading world economic power appeared certain. An expanding middle class and commodity boom had fueled economic growth, with GDP growth hitting a peak of 7.5% in 2010. However, the high cost of conducting business in Brazil,... View Details
Keywords: Exchange Rate; Inflation; Inflation Targeting; Industrialization; Infrastructure; Currency; Capital Controls; Stimulus; Commodity Prices; Manufacturing Costs; Globalization; Productivity Growth; Economics; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Inflation and Deflation; Macroeconomics; Public Sector; Brazil; South America; Latin America