probability - Publications - Faculty & Research

24 Sep 2014
Op-Ed

The ABCs of Addressing Climate Change (From a Business Perspective)

Change What role should business leaders play in trying to affect climate change? Harvard Business School faculty share their thoughts. A: Actuarial Thinking. Assessing probabilities and portfolio risk is how property insurance companies... View Details

Keywords: by John Macomber; Energy; Utilities

06 Jun 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas: June 6, 2017

observe homophily in ethnicity and gender increases the probability of forming teams by 25%. Homophily in education and past working experience increases the probability of forming teams by 17% and 11 %... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

10 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

High Note: Managing the Medici String Quartet

ensemble for, give or take, close to 40 years, but this past summer was their final concert tour as a group. "The Medici String Quartet is one of the very best such ensembles, probably one of the very best ever. One of my favorite... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Music

14 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Time that Government Reopens for Business

London or the Quai D'Orsay in Paris (the French Foreign Ministry) or the Central Party School in Beijing, where all the top Chinese bureaucrats go, you're probably beginning to change your views not just about Congress but the whole... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner

18 Jan 2021
Book

How Thinking Like a Startup Helps Governments Solve More Problems

work, which means they probably won’t work. This is in contrast to probability government, which is the pursuit of programs and services that “work” but often achieve middling outcomes. View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

21 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

Shabana Azmi: Leveraging Bollywood Fame into Social Good

she crosses over to work in the new “parallel” or art cinema, those films challenge those views. Deshpandé: Very few crossover actors are successful; there is a big divide between the two. She is probably the most successful. She gets to... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Motion Pictures & Video

24 Jun 2008
First Look

First Look: June 24, 2008

research outputs in a panel dataset spanning the careers of 3,862 academic life scientists. Using inverse probability of treatment weights (IPTW) to account for the dynamics of self-selection into patenting, we find that patenting has a... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

02 Jan 2001
Research & Ideas

Gurus in the Garage

Branscomb tries to help people who have worked for her. "I will call venture capitalists for them. There are probably a half-dozen little companies founded by former employees that I have helped get funded." Mike Homer, former... View Details

Keywords: by Dorothy Leonard & Walter Swap

11 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 11, 2018

cities between 1910 and 1930. Instrumenting immigrants’ location decision by interacting national changes in migration flows across ethnic groups with pre-existing immigrants’ enclaves across U.S. cities, we find that immigration raised marriage rates and the View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

02 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

‘Retail Revolution’ Excerpt: The Scale of the Ecommerce Threat

day, 7 days a week and is available from one's own home without a trip. While Amazon has been compared to Walmart, it's probably most apt to compare Amazon to category killers. Amazon's sales are only a fraction of Walmart's, but like... View Details

Keywords: Re: Rajiv Lal; Retail

21 Aug 2012
First Look

First Look: August 21

low-income parents than existing U.S. tax policy. The optimal policy increases the probability that low-income children move up the economic ladder, generating a present-value welfare gain of 1.28% of consumption in our baseline case.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

22 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

Advertising: It’s Not ‘Mad Men’ Anymore

relaxed, and agencies have begun adopting hybrid conflict-of-interest policies wherein competing accounts are served by a common agency—augmented by safeguards to protect confidential information and avoid conflicts of interest. Despite these changes (and View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising

04 Aug 2009
First Look

First Look: August 4

accumulation of patents generates an increasing number of claims on sequential innovation. We study the equilibrium innovation activity under three regimes: patents, no-patents, and patent pools. Patent pools increase the probability of... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

20 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

US Competitiveness at Risk

improve. But we have a political system that's increasingly about today's news. This mismatch has probably gotten worse in the last 10 or 20 years. The politics of economic policy is never easy, but we used to be better at overcoming... View Details

Keywords: Re: Michael E. Porter & Jan W. Rivkin

12 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Can Consumers be Trusted with Their Own Health Care?

empowerment. The preference for the precise mix of these elements differs from consumer to consumer, depending on patients’ individual needs. “It probably also differs according to the situation, if it’s an emergency or it’s... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health

06 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

After Germanwings, More Attention Needed on Employee Mental Health

work. "When it comes to mental health, the main issue for organizations is 'presenteeism' more than absenteeism," says Quelch. And that cost is borne not just by the employee suffering from mental illness. "If I am bringing a mental health problem to the office, I am... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health; Air Transportation

26 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

How Grocery Bags Manipulate Your Mind

the place where shoppers' attention is probably going to be most focused on this element, the bag, which seems to encourage them to buy these things." For consumers, she recommends that they just think about the findings as they... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

10 Jun 2013
Research & Ideas

How Numbers Talk to People

attempts to calculate the economic value of the lead, with an estimate of conversion rates. Competitors also do this to some degree, but probably not to the level of sophistication that Zillow does. The leads and pricing of them are so... View Details

19 Dec 2012
Research & Ideas

How to be Extremely Productive

two that would lead to better results. You may think you're sticking your neck out, but if the conflict is there and neither of you addresses it, you are probably not long for that job anyway. Q: You take exception in the book to the... View Details

Keywords: by Deborah Blagg

24 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

What’s Government’s Role in Regulating Home Purchase Financing?

Fannie and Freddie, which will expose the taxpayer to considerable risk in housing downturns. Given that guarantees have small benefits during normal times, these costs are probably not worth bearing. And finally, when markets are... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

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