Publications

December 2016 (Revised March 2017)
Case

Beingmate

By: David E. Bell, Juan Ma and Natalie Kindred

Founded in 2002, Hangzhou, China–based Beingmate was a major producer of infant formula and related products in the high-demand Chinese market. After an infamous 2008 food safety episode in China, in which toxic infant formula sickened thousands of babies and led to... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Food and Beverage Industry; China

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March 2017
Article

Artful Paltering: The Risks and Rewards of Using Truthful Statements to Mislead Others

By: Todd Rogers, Richard Zeckhauser, F. Gino, Michael I. Norton and Maurice E. Schweitzer

Paltering is the active use of truthful statements to convey a misleading impression. Across two pilot studies and six experiments, we identify paltering as a distinct form of deception. Paltering differs from lying by omission (the passive omission of relevant... View Details

Keywords: Deception; Lying; Paltering; Risk; Ethics; Negotiation Tactics

January 2015
Article

Marketplace or Reseller?

By: Andrei Hagiu and Julian Wright

Intermediaries can choose between functioning as a marketplace (on which suppliers sell their products directly to buyers) or as a reseller (purchasing products from suppliers and selling them to buyers). We model this as a decision between whether control rights over... View Details

Keywords: Intermediation; Multi-sided Platforms; Control Rights; Marketing

2013
Chapter

Growth and the Quality of Foreign Direct Investment: Is All FDI Equal?

By: Laura Alfaro and Andrew Charlton

In this paper we distinguish different "qualities" of FDI to re-examine the relationship between FDI and growth. We use "quality" to mean the effect of a unit of FDI on economic growth. However, this is difficult to establish because it is a function of many different... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Economic Growth; Foreign Direct Investment

May 2013
Article

The Stock Selection and Performance of Buy-Side Analysts

By: Boris Groysberg, Paul Healy, George Serafeim and Devin Shanthikumar

Prior research on equity analysts focuses almost exclusively on those employed by sell-side investment banks and brokerage houses. Yet investment firms undertake their own buy-side research and their analysts face different stock selection and recommendation incentives... View Details

Keywords: Buy-side Analysts; Sell-side Analysts; Stock Recommendations; Recommendation Optimism; Recommendation Performance; Investment Recommendations; Conflicts Of Interest; Financial Markets; Financial Institutions; Financial Services Industry; United States

December 2012
Case

Delwarca Software Remote Support Unit

By: Roy D. Shapiro and Paul E. Morrison

Delwarca Software provides business software to large corporate clients around the world. The firm serves customers who prefer to assemble corporate solutions using a combination of software programs from various suppliers rather than implementing a single enterprise... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Service Delivery; Mathematical Methods; Applications and Software; Problems and Challenges; Customer Satisfaction; Information Technology Industry

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Article

Assent-maximizing Social Choice

By: Katherine A. Baldiga and Jerry R. Green

We take a decision theoretic approach to the classic social choice problem, using data on the frequency of choice problems to compute social choice functions. We define a family of social choice rules that depend on the population's preferences and on the probability... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Theory; Measurement and Metrics; Mathematical Methods; Society

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

Keywords: Information; Product; Philippines

20 Jun 2023
Research & Ideas

Looking to Leave a Mark? Memorable Leaders Don't Just Spout Statistics, They Tell Stories

numbers, but by natural language, by stories.” The human mind’s love of stories over statistics can have serious implications that go beyond the question of the best approach for leaders. The preference for anecdote over stats can fuel... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

17 Oct 2023
HBS Case

With Subscription Fatigue Setting In, Companies Need to Think Hard About Fees

different combinations of product features, usage levels, and number of users. “Subscription models that have been successful are ones that build tiers that align well with the needs and preferences of different customer segments,” Ofek... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Consumer Products; Information; Information Technology

Research Summary

Level Playing Fields in International Financial Regulation

Joint work with Alan Morrison, Saïd Business School, Oxford.

We study a model of featuring two economies with adverse selection of and moral hazard by bankers. We demonstrate... View Details

Research Summary

Bargaining with Imperfect Enforcement

Joint work with Mark Williams, formerly of Exeter College, Oxford.

The game-theoretic bargaining literature insists on non-cooperative bargaining procedure but allows cooperative implementation of agreements. The effect of this is to allow free-reign of bargaining... View Details

January–February 2025
Article

What People Still Get Wrong About Negotiations: They Assume the Size of the Pie Is Fixed—and So Miss Opportunities to Create Value

By: Max H. Bazerman

Most executives leave value on the negotiating table, for two main reasons: First, many executives mistakenly believe that they’re negotiating over a fixed pie and that gains for one side necessarily mean losses for the other. Second, they focus exclusively on how to... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Offer; Negotiation Tactics; Value; Communication; Trust