Publications
Publications
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(5,686)
- Faculty Publications (987)
- Article
The Social Utility of Feature Creep
By: Debora V. Thompson and Michael I. Norton
Previous research shows that consumers frequently choose products with too many features that they later find difficult to use. Our research shows that this seemingly suboptimal behavior may in fact confer benefits when factoring in the social context of consumption.... View Details
- December 2010 (Revised April 2013)
- Case
Kepak and the Future of the Irish Beef Industry
By: David E. Bell, Damien P. McLoughlin and Mary Shelman
As Ireland's third largest beef processor, Kepak faces new opportunities as well as significant challenges from the collapse of the "Celtic Tiger." The government has identified food and agriculture as one way the country could significantly grow exports. However, the... View Details
- December 2010 (Revised March 2013)
- Case
Asian Agri and the Future of Palm Oil
By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred
For Asian Agri and other Indonesian palm oil producers, the future promised rising demand from fast-growing Asian populations, but also intensifying criticism from environmental groups. With the highest yield and lowest production cost of any edible oil, palm oil... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
A Brief Postwar History of U.S. Consumer Finance
By: Andrea Ryan, Gunnar Trumbull and Peter Tufano
This article describes the consumer finance sector in the US since World War II. We first define the sector in terms of the functions delivered by firms (payments, savings/investing, borrowing, managing risk, and providing advice.) We provide time series evidence on... View Details
- Article
Do Strong Fences Make Strong Neighbors?
By: Mihir Desai and Dhammika Dharmapala
Many features of U.S. tax policy towards multinational firms-including the governing principle of capital export neutrality, the byzantine system of expense allocation, and anti-inversion legislation-reflect the intuition that building "strong fences" around the United... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
Lawful but Corrupt: Gaming and the Problem of Institutional Corruption in the Private Sector
This paper describes how the gaming of society's rules by corporations contributes to the problem of institutional corruption in the world of business. "Gaming" in its various forms involves the use of technically legal means to subvert the intent of society's rules in... View Details
- November 2010
- Technical Note
Technical Note: An Abridged History of the American Corporation
By: Rakesh Khurana, Andrew David Klaber and Eric Baldwin
This note examines the development of the corporate form in the United States from the eighteenth century to the present, focusing primarily on legal issues. It identifies several major trends in the history of the American corporation: the transition of corporations... View Details
- November 2010 (Revised October 2012)
- Background Note
Farmland Investing: A Technical Note
By: Ray Goldberg, Arthur I Segel, Gustavo Herrero and Andrew Terris
This note seeks to provide an overview of farmland investing, the investment thesis behind investing in agriculture, how and why investors would choose farmland, and the general risks and return characteristics of this asset class. In recent years, a growing number of... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
Regulating for Legitimacy: Consumer Credit Access in France and America
Theories of legitimate regulation have emphasized the role of governments either in fixing market failures to promote greater efficiency or in restricting the efficient functioning of markets in order to pursue public welfare goals. In either case, features of markets... View Details
- October 2010 (Revised October 2011)
- Case
Ken Langone: Member, GE Compensation Committee
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Lizzie Gomez
On September 2003, Richard Grasso stepped down as chairman and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, following weeks of intense public criticism over the size of his $190 million compensation package. As chairman of the committee that oversaw Grasso's payout, Ken Langone... View Details
- October 2010 (Revised January 2011)
- Case
Toyota Recalls (A): Hitting the Skids
By: John A. Quelch, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Ryan Johnson
In the fall of 2009, Toyota Motor Corporation, once revered for its commitment to quality and reliability, faced a highly publicized series of recalls in the United States representing approximately a year's worth of sales in one of its most important markets. While... View Details
- October 2010
- Article
The Emerging Capital Market for Nonprofits
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Allen S. Grossman
Many of our largest and most successful companies today did not exist 50 years ago. During this same time interval, companies that ranked among top in the 1960s have disappeared, been merged out of existence, or become much smaller presences in the U.S. industrial... View Details
- September 2010 (Revised April 2012)
- Case
Better World Books
By: Michael I. Norton, Fiona Wilson, Jill Avery and Thomas J. Steenburgh
Better World Books, a young start-up, provides a socially conscious alternative to Amazon, collecting and selling used books to keep them out of the waste stream, while donating a portion of their profits to support global literacy efforts. The case presents an... View Details
- September 2010 (Revised April 2017)
- Case
Aspen Skiing Company (A)
By: Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Having begun improving the environmental performance of its own operations, Aspen Skiing Company is considering "greening" its supply chain and lobbying for greenhouse gas regulations. A world renowned ski resort vulnerable to global climate change, Aspen's activities... View Details
- September 2010 (Revised November 2013)
- Supplement
Aspen Skiing Company (B)
By: Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Having begun improving the environmental performance of its own operations, Aspen Skiing Company is considering "greening" its supply chain and lobbying for greenhouse gas regulations. A world renowned ski resort vulnerable to global climate change, Aspen's activities... View Details
- September 2010 (Revised September 2013)
- Supplement
Aspen Skiing Company (C)
By: Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Having begun improving the environmental performance of its own operations, Aspen Skiing Company is considering "greening" its supply chain and lobbying for greenhouse gas regulations. A world renowned ski resort vulnerable to global climate change, Aspen's activities... View Details
- September 2010 (Revised January 2014)
- Supplement
Aspen Skiing Company (D)
By: Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Having begun improving the environmental performance of its own operations, Aspen Skiing Company is considering "greening" its supply chain and lobbying for greenhouse gas regulations. A world-renowned ski resort vulnerable to global climate change, Aspen's activities... View Details
- September 2010 (Revised March 2013)
- Case
Capital for Enterprise Limited (CfEL): Bridging the SME Early-Stage Finance Gap
By: Josh Lerner, Eli Talmor, Ananth Vyas Bhimavarapu and Thibaud Simphal
The CEO of the company set up to manage a British government effort to promote the venture capital industry considers the progress made to date, as well as how the program can be adjusted. View Details
- September 2010
- Article
Do Inventory and Gross Margin Data Improve Sales Forecasts for U.S. Public Retailers?
By: Saravanan Kesavan, Vishal Gaur and Ananth Raman
Firm-level sales forecasts for retailers can be improved if we incorporate cost of goods sold, inventory, and gross margin (defined here as the ratio of sales to cost of goods sold) as three endogenous variables. We construct a simultaneous equations model, estimated... View Details
- July 2010 (Revised September 2012)
- Case
Public Architecture
By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Christopher Marquis and Bobbi Thomason
Public Architecture is a non-profit architecture company dedicated to creating social and professional change through design for the public good. Public has focused on three strategies to create change: 1) promoting the design community's commitment to pro bono work,... View Details