Publications

September 2012 (Revised July 2014)
Case

Blackstone's Investment in Intelenet

By: Josh Lerner, Sandeep Bapat and Rachna Tahilyani

Three years had passed since Blackstone's investment in Intelenet Global Services, their third largest investment in India. Great progress had been made, but now a new challenge loomed. Globank, a large global bank, was Intelenet's largest customer. Intelenet's... View Details

Keywords: India; Blackstone; Private Equity; Financial Services Industry; India

January 2014 (Revised June 2015)
Case

Amgen Inc.: Pursuing Innovation and Imitation? (A)

By: Ian W. Mackenzie

Set in 2009, the (A) case explores whether Amgen, a leading innovator of biotech-based drugs, should enter the emerging business of biosimilars (BS), which are essentially 'me-too' products. There appear to be sound reasons to explore this related diversification:... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotechnology Industry; United States

2025
Working Paper

Tax Planning, Illiquidity, and Credit Risks: Evidence from DeFi Lending

By: Lisa De Simone, Peiyi Jin and Daniel Rabetti

This study establishes a plausible causal link between tax-planning-induced illiquidity and credit risks in lending markets. Exploiting an exogenous tax shock imposed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on cryptocurrency gains, along with millions of transactions in... View Details

Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Taxation; Financial Liquidity; Credit; Financing and Loans; Financial Markets

February 2014
Article

Responses to Entry in Multi-Sided Markets: The Impact of Craigslist on Local Newspapers

By: Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu

How do firms respond to entry in multi-sided markets? We address this question by studying the impact of Craigslist, a website providing classified-advertising services, on local U.S. newspapers. We exploit temporal and geographical variation in Craigslist's entry to... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Market Entry and Exit; Internet and the Web; Newspapers; Advertising; Advertising Industry; Journalism and News Industry

How do firms respond to entry in multi-sided markets? We address this question by studying the impact of Craigslist, a website providing classified-advertising services, on local U.S. newspapers. We exploit temporal and geographical variation in Craigslist's... View Details

January 2023 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Veeva Systems and the Transformation to a Public Benefit Corporation

By: Ranjay Gulati and Allison M. Ciechanover

Peter Gassner, the co-founder and CEO of Veeva Systems, steered the company through rapid scaling from its launch in 2007 to 2022. Year after year, the company had exceeded expectations, with its market capitalization reaching $50 billion at its peak. By 2022, the... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; United States; California

February 2017
Article

How Much Is a Win Worth? An Application to Intercollegiate Athletics

By: Doug J. Chung

Intercollegiate athletics in the United States have become a multibillion-dollar industry over the past several decades. In this study, we investigate the short- and long-term direct monetary effects of operating a winning athletics program for an academic institution... View Details

Keywords: Dynamic Panel Data; Heterogeneity; Instrumental Variables; Intercollegiate Athletics; Educational Finance; Entertainment Marketing; Higher Education; Marketing; Sports; Revenue; Education Industry; United States

28 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 28

increase reported revenues, matching the third-party estimate when provided. Firms also increase reported costs by 96 cents for every dollar of revenue adjustment, resulting in minor increases in total tax... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

2020
Working Paper

Aggregate and Firm-Level Stock Returns During Pandemics, in Real Time

By: Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari, Andrew Greenland and Peter K. Schott

We show that unexpected changes in the trajectory of COVID-19 infections predict U.S. stock returns, in real time. Parameter estimates indicate that an unanticipated doubling (halving) of projected infections forecasts next-day decreases (increases) in aggregate U.S.... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Stock Returns; Health Pandemics; Stocks; Investment Return; Forecasting and Prediction

18 Dec 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Concentration Levels in the U.S. Advertising and Marketing Services Industry: Myth vs. Reality

Keywords: by Alvin J. Silk & Charles King III; Advertising

June 2024 (Revised September 2024)
Case

Major League Baseball: Changing the Rules of America's Pastime

By: Stephen A. Greyser, Mac Levin and Brent Schwarz

This case describes the efforts of Major League Baseball (MLB) to make meaningful changes in the rules affecting the ways the game is played. These changes are intended to speed the pace of the game and make it more appealing to younger fans. The principal changes... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Age; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Demand and Consumers; Sports Industry

2010
Article

Measuring the Perpetrators and Funders of Typosquatting

By: Tyler Moore and Benjamin Edelman

We describe a method for identifying "typosquatting", the intentional registration of misspellings of popular website addresses. We estimate that at least 938,000 typosquatting domains target the top 3,264 .com sites, and we crawl more than 285,000 of these domains to... View Details

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Online Technology; Web

October 2007
Article

The Effectiveness of Pre-Release Advertising for Motion Pictures: An Empirical Investigation Using a Simulated Market

By: Anita Elberse and Bharat N. Anand

One of the most visible and publicized trends in the movie industry is the escalation in movie advertising expenditures over time. Yet, the returns to movie advertising are poorly understood. The main reason is that disentangling the causal effect of advertising on... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Stocks; Investment Return; Price; Revenue; Quality; Mathematical Methods; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

03 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Transforming Manufacturing Waste into Profit

It's been said that "one man's trash is another man's treasure." HBS Assistant Professor Deishin Lee, however, has taken that old adage a step further in her recent working paper Turning Waste into By-Product by showing how it's possible for companies to turn... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Manufacturing

May 2010
Article

Bye Bye Bundles: The Unbundling of Music in Digital Channels

By: Anita Elberse

Fueled by digital distribution, unbundling is prevalent in many information industries. What is the effect of this unbundling on sales? And what bundle characteristics drive this effect? I empirically examine these questions in the context of the music industry, using... View Details

Keywords: Unbundling; Bundling; Digital Distribution; System-of-equations Modeling; Sales; Distribution Channels; Framework; Mathematical Methods; Revenue; Reputation; Internet and the Web; System; E-commerce; Information Industry; Music Industry

03 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 3

studying the impact of Craigslist, a website providing classified-advertising services, on local U.S. newspapers. We exploit temporal and geographical variation in Craigslist's entry to show that newspapers with greater reliance on classified-ad View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2016
Article

Taxation, Corruption, and Growth

By: Philippe Aghion, Ufuk Akcigit, Julia Cagé and William R. Kerr

We build an endogenous growth model to analyze the relationships between taxation, corruption, and economic growth. Entrepreneurs lie at the center of the model and face disincentive effects from taxation but acquire positive benefits from public infrastructure.... View Details

Keywords: Endogenous Growth; Public Goods; Corruption; Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Taxation; Economic Growth

Intercollegiate athletics in the United States have become a multibillion-dollar industry over the past several decades. In this study, we investigate the short- and long-term direct monetary effects of operating a winning athletics program for an academic institution... View Details

August 2019
Article

When and How to Diversify—A Multicategory Utility Model for Personalized Content Recommendation

By: Yicheng Song, Nachiketa Sahoo and Elie Ofek

Sometimes we desire change, a break from the same or an opportunity to fulfill different aspects of our needs. Noting that consumers seek variety, several approaches have been developed to diversify items recommended by personalized recommender systems. However,... View Details

Keywords: Recommender Systems; Personalization; Recommendation Diversity; Variety Seeking; Collaborative Filtering; Consumer Utility Models; Digital Media; Clickstream Analysis; Learning-to-rank; Consumer Behavior; Media; Customization and Personalization; Strategy; Mathematical Methods