Publications
Publications
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- Faculty Publications (171)
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- 2016
- Working Paper
Paying (for) Attention: The Impact of Information Processing Costs on Bayesian Inference
By: Scott Duke Kominers, Xiaosheng Mu and Alexander Peysakhovich
Human information processing is often modeled as costless Bayesian inference.
However, research in psychology shows that attention is a computationally costly and potentially limited resource. We study a Bayesian individual for whom computing posterior beliefs is... View Details
- November 2015
- Article
Modularity and Intellectual Property Protection
By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Joachim Henkel
Modularity is a means of partitioning technical knowledge about a product or process. When state-sanctioned intellectual property (IP) rights are ineffective or costly to enforce, modularity can be used to hide information and thus protect IP. We investigate the impact... View Details
- 2015
- Chapter
The Business Model: Nature and Benefits
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and John Heilbron
This paper considers the nature of the business model and its strategic relevance to negotiations. We elaborate a substantive definition of the business model as decisions enforced by the authority of the firm; this definition enables the analysis of business models... View Details
- 2015
- Article
Beliefs About the True Self Explain Asymmetries Based on Moral Judgment
By: George E. Newman, Julian De Freitas and Joshua Knobe
Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about
(a) what a person values, (b) whether a person is happy, (c) whether a person has shown weakness
of will, and (d) whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Customers and Investors: A Framework for Understanding Financial Institutions
By: Robert C. Merton and Robert T. Thakor
Financial institutions have both investors and customers. Investors, such as those who invest in stocks and bonds or private/public-sector guarantors of institutions, expect an appropriate risk-adjusted return in exchange for the financing and risk-bearing that they... View Details
Keywords: Financial Institutions
- 2015
- Working Paper
The Business Model: Nature and Benefits
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and John Heilbron
This paper considers the nature of the business model and its strategic relevance to negotiations. We elaborate a substantive definition of the business model as decisions enforced by the authority of the firm; this definition enables the analysis of business models... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Full Substitutability
By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers, Alexandru Nichifor, Michael Ostrovsky and Alexander Westkamp
Various forms of substitutability are essential for establishing the existence of
equilibria and other useful properties in diverse settings such as matching, auctions,
and exchange economies with indivisible goods. We extend earlier models' canonical
definitions of... View Details
- Article
Multilateral Matching
By: John William Hatfield and Scott Duke Kominers
We introduce a matching model in which agents engage in joint ventures via multilateral contracts. This approach allows us to consider production complementarities previously outside the scope of matching theory. We show analogues of the first and second welfare... View Details
- 2015
- Chapter
Negotiations: Statistical Aspects
'Negotiation analysis' seeks to develop prescriptive theory and useful advice for negotiators and third parties. It generally emphasizes the parties' underlying interests, alternatives to negotiated agreement, approaches to productively manage the inherent tension... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Strategy-Proofness, Investment Efficiency, and Marginal Returns: An Equivalence
By: John William Hatfield, Fuhito Kojima and Scott Duke Kominers
We show that a mechanism induces an agent to make efficient ex ante investment choices if and only if it rewards that agent with his marginal surplus; additionally, for an ex post efficient mechanism, these properties are equivalent to strategy-proofness for the agent.... View Details
- May 2014
- Article
Investment Incentives in Labor Market Matching
By: John William Hatfield, Fuhito Kojima and Scott Duke Kominers
We provide an illustration of how the design of labor market clearing mechanisms can affect incentives for human capital acquisition. Specifically, we extend the labor market matching model (with discrete transfers) of Kelso and Crawford (1982) to incorporate the... View Details
- 2014
- Chapter
Firms and Global Capitalism
By: Geoffrey Jones
This chapter forms part of the two-volume Cambridge History of Capitalism, a definitive new reference work that traces the history of capitalism from its origins to the present day. The chapter focuses on the role of business enterprises as powerful actors in... View Details
- April 2014
- Article
The Emergence of 'Us and Them' in 80 Lines of Code: Modeling Group Genesis in Homogeneous Populations
By: Kurt Gray, David G. Rand, Eyal Ert, Kevin Lewis, Steve Hershman and Michael I. Norton
Psychological explanations of group genesis often require population heterogeneity in identity or other characteristics, whether deep (e.g., religion) or superficial (e.g., eye color). We use game-theoretical agent-based models to explore group genesis in homogeneous... View Details
Keywords: Groups and Teams
- Article
Anger and Regulation
By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra
We study a model in which agents experience anger when they see a firm that has displayed insufficient concern for the welfare of its clients (i.e., altruism) making high profits. Regulation can increase welfare, for example, through fines (even with no changes in... View Details
- 26 Feb 2015 - 28 Feb 2015
- Conference Presentation
Is That All There Is to Happiness?
By: J. Phillips, C. Mott, Julian De Freitas, J. Gruber and J. Knobe
Happiness researchers have started to converge on a conception of
happiness that involves some combination of high positive affect,
low negative affect, and high life satisfaction. We present three
studies which demonstrate that the ordinary understanding... View Details
- December 2013
- Case
Bruce Allyn: Negotiating with the KGB (A)
Isolated by the KGB in Moscow, Harvard graduate student Bruce Allyn faces high-pressure negotiation tactics to recruit him for the Soviet spy agency. At the tense height of the Cold War, with CIA agents systematically being exposed and executed in Russia, Allyn was... View Details
- December 2013
- Supplement
Bruce Allyn: Negotiating with the KGB (B)
This case picks up (from the end of the "A" case) the detailed story of the KGB's high-pressure negotiations with Harvard doctoral student Bruce Allyn to recruit him as a secret asset for the Soviet spy agency. The "A" case describes how, at the tense height of the... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Modularity and Intellectual Property Protection
By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Joachim Henkel
Modularity is a means of partitioning technical knowledge about a product or process. When state-sanctioned intellectual property (IP) rights are ineffective or costly to enforce, modularity can be used to hide information and thus protect IP. We investigate the impact... View Details
- July–August 2013
- Article
The Network Secrets of Great Change Agents
By: Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro
Change is hard, especially in a large organization. Yet some leaders succeed—often spectacularly—at transforming their workplaces. What makes them able to exert this sort of influence when the vast majority can't? The authors tracked 68 change initiatives in the UK's... View Details