Publications

Article

The Price of Anarchy of Self-Selection in Tullock Contests

By: Hau Chan, David C. Parkes and Karim R. Lakhani

Crowdsourcing platforms operate by offering their clients the ability to obtain cost-effective solutions for their problems through contests. The top contestants with the best solutions are rewarded, and the submitted solutions are provided to the clients. Within the... View Details

Keywords: Crowdsourcing Contests; Game Theory

Register to Read

October 2020
Article

Collusion in Markets with Syndication

By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers, Richard Lowery and Jordan M. Barry

Markets for IPOs and debt issuances are syndicated, in the sense that a bidder who wins a contract may invite losing bidders to join a syndicate that together fulfills the contract. We show that in markets with syndication, standard intuitions from industrial... View Details

Keywords: Collusion; Antitrust; IPO Underwriting; Syndication; ＂Repeated Games＂; Markets; Game Theory

SSRN

31 May 2017
What Do You Think?

Can Amazon Do What Walmart Couldn’t, Stop the 'Wheel of Retailing'?

changed the so called cycle, and new games and new rules have overtaken this model? Not sure we can describe this (as a) new wheel of retailing; rather the new wheels of ecosystems.” Edwin Lambregts added, “In Europe the retail industry... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Retail

10 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

The COVID Two-Step for Leaders: Protect and Pivot

from the examples set by these world-class athletes, who are never satisfied, even at the top of their games and seemingly at the peak of their performance. Like Phelps and Nowitzki, two examples of organizations that excel at continuous... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly Baden

13 Oct 2009
Research & Ideas

7 Lessons for Navigating the Storm

game who got hit with their own boomerang. As a result, many of these leaders have departed the scene, just as numerous corporate CEOs did in the wake of the Enron debacle earlier in the decade. Some of these leaders failed to follow... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

June 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Technical Note

Strategic Complements and Substitutes

By: Eric Van den Steen

The framework of strategic complements and substitutes can help companies anticipate competitors' responses. It is particularly helpful in deciding on price- or capacity-commitments (or pre-emption), but it can provide more general guidance for analyzing the potential... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Strategic Substitutes; Strategic Complements; Puppy Dog Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Game Theory; Strategy; Economics

Educators

September 2010
Teaching Note

A Chinese Start-up's Midlife Crisis: 99Sushe.com (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan

Teaching Note for 309060. View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business or Company Management; Business Model; Internet and the Web; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Partners and Partnerships; Competition; Social and Collaborative Networks; Video Game Industry; China

March 2009
Teaching Note

Responding to the Wii? (TN)

By: Andrei Hagiu and Hanna Halaburda

Teaching Note for [709448]. View Details

Keywords: History; Technological Innovation; Leadership; Competition; Industry Structures; Age; Video Game Industry

May 2000
Article

Maxmin Expected Utility over Savage Acts with a Set of Priors

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Peter Klibanoff and Emre Ozdenoren

This paper provides an axiomatic foundation for a maxmin expected utility over a set of priors (MMEU) decision rule in an environment where the elements of choice are Savage acts. This characterization complements the original axiomatizations of MMEU developed in a... View Details

Keywords: Uncertainty Aversion; Ambiguity; Expected Utility; Set Of Priors; Knightian Uncertainty; Decision Making; Game Theory; Risk and Uncertainty; Mathematical Methods

Read Now

20 Aug 2001
Research & Ideas

Making an Ally of Uncle Sam

two. Though a step in the right direction, this approach suffers because the boundary between "market" and "nonmarket" is artificial and far from clear-cut. We find it more productive to focus on the key types of games... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Watkins, Mickey Edwards & Usha Thakrar

April 1997
Case

Pricing for Profit: The UK Credit Card Industry in the Late 1980s (A)

Describes the United Kingdom credit card industry in the late 1980s, which was really three businesses: a cashless transaction business for merchants, a cashless transaction business for card holders, and a credit business for card holders. At the time of the case,... View Details

Keywords: Credit Cards; Price; Decision Making; Game Theory; United Kingdom

Educators

14 Jun 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Evolution Analysis of Large-Scale Software Systems Using Design Structure Matrices and Design Rule Theory

Keywords: by Matthew J. LaMantia, Yuanfang Cai, Alan D. MacCormack & John Rusnak; Video Game; Video Game

2024
Dictionary Entry

Jerry R. Green (1946-)

By: Eddie Dekel, John Geanakoplos and Scott Duke Kominers

Jerry Green has a deep and long-standing connection to Harvard University, and in particular with its Economics Department. This paper begins by reviewing his intellectual background, and then turns to exploring how he has influenced scholars through his wide-ranging... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Microeconomics; Theory; History; Game Theory; Decision Choices and Conditions; Education Industry; North America; United States; Cambridge; Massachusetts; Boston

2010
Working Paper

Competing Complements

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Barry Nalebuff and David B. Yoffie

In Cournot's model of complements, the producers of A and B are both monopolists. This paper extends Cournot's model to allow for competition between complements on one side of the market. Consider two complements, A and B, where the A + B bundle is valuable only when... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Revenue; Monopoly; Game Theory; Competition

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December 2010
Article

Social Preferences and Strategic Uncertainty: An Experiment on Markets and Contracts

This paper reports a three-phase experiment on a stylized labor market. In the first two phases, agents face simple games, which we use to estimate subjects' social and reciprocity concerns. In the last phase, four principals compete by offering agents a contract from... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Markets; Contracts; Decisions; Distribution; Labor; Game Theory

May 2024
Supplement

GameStop: Social Media Finds a Cheat Code (B)

By: Joseph Pacelli and Sarah Mehta

This case accompanies “GameStop: Social Media Finds a Cheat Code (A),” no. 124-005. It provides an update on pertinent events from 2021 to 2023. View Details

Keywords: Finance; Markets; Value; Video Game Industry; Video Game Industry; United States

November 2006
Case

Introducing Frequent Flyer Programs

By: Dennis A. Yao

Allows students to explore the value to American Airlines of introducing a frequent flyer program in 1981. View Details

Keywords: Value; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Mathematical Methods; Game Theory; Competitive Advantage; Programs; Customers; Air Transportation Industry