Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,453)
- Faculty Publications (410)
- February 2022 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
P.T. Barnum: Changing the World
By: Robert Simons and Shirley Sun
This case describes the life of P.T. Barnum, widely considered to the be the father of modern advertising and marketing. Barnum showed his genius for business early, selling lottery tickets and confections from his father’s store. He went on to found a famous museum of... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Racial Disparities in the Paycheck Protection Program
By: Sergey Chernenko and David S. Scharfstein
Using a large sample of Florida restaurants, we document significant racial disparities in borrowing through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and investigate the causes of these disparities. Black-owned restaurants are 25% less likely to receive PPP loans.... View Details
- January 2022 (Revised August 2022)
- Case
Jackie Robinson: Changing the World
By: Robert Simons and Max Saffer
This case traces the rise of Jackie Robinson from the poor streets of Pasadena, California to one of the most famous people in America after he overturned the color barrier in baseball. The case describes how as a youth he excelled at basketball, football, baseball,... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
Feeling Seen: Leader Eye Gaze Promotes Psychological Safety, Participation, and Voice
By: Nicole Abi-Esber, Alison Wood Brooks and Ethan Burris
Psychological safety is a hallmark of effective team functioning. Although prior work shows that characteristics of the leader influence employee judgments of psychological safety (and subsequent decisions to speak up), we know very little about “the specific behaviors... View Details
- January 2022
- Article
Replicating Private Equity with Value Investing, Homemade Leverage, and Hold-to-Maturity Accounting
By: Erik Stafford
The contributions of asset selection and incremental leverage to buyout investment performance are more important than typically assumed or estimated to be. Buyout funds select small firms with distinct value characteristics. Public equities with these characteristics... View Details
- January 2022
- Article
Who Creates New Firms When Local Opportunities Arise?
By: Shai Benjamin Bernstein, Emanuele Colonnelli, Davide Malacrino and Timothy McQuade
We examine the characteristics of the individuals who become entrepreneurs when local opportunities arise. We identify local demand shocks by linking fluctuations in global commodity prices to municipality level agricultural endowments in Brazil. We find that the firm... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Threat and Assimilation: Evidence from Refugees in Germany
By: Philipp Jaschke, Sulin Sardoschau and Marco Tabellini
This paper studies the effects of local threat on the cultural assimilation and economic integration of refugees, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in their allocation across German regions between 2013 and 2016. We use representative survey data and... View Details
Keywords: Assimilation; Threat Hypothesis; Migration; Cultural Change; Refugees; Culture; Identity; Germany
- December 2021
- Case
Grace Capital
By: Sara Fleiss, Robin Greenwood, Eren Kuzucu and Denise Han
In March 2020, the global pandemic was delivering a dose of volatility to the U.S. economy. Catherine Faddis, the CIO of Grace Capital, a Boston-based long-only equity manager, analyzed movements in her portfolio while eyeing previously shelved opportunities to invest... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
What Drives Variation in Investor Portfolios? Estimating the Roles of Beliefs and Risk Preferences
By: Mark Egan, Alexander MacKay and Hanbin Yang
We present an empirical model of portfolio choice that allows for the nonparametric estimation of investors' (subjective) expectations and risk preferences. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset of 401(k) plans from 2009 through 2019, we explore heterogeneity in asset... View Details
- October 2021
- Article
Directors' Perceptions of Board Effectiveness and Internal Operations
By: J. Yo-Jud Cheng, Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Rajesh Vijayaraghavan
We contribute to the growing literature on the effectiveness of corporate boards by examining the effect of two insights that have been largely unexplored in prior studies that use public data. First, since boards’ responsibilities are wide-ranging, more holistic... View Details
- September–October 2021
- Article
Frontiers: Can an AI Algorithm Mitigate Racial Economic Inequality? An Analysis in the Context of Airbnb
By: Shunyuan Zhang, Nitin Mehta, Param Singh and Kannan Srinivasan
We study the effect of Airbnb’s smart-pricing algorithm on the racial disparity in the daily revenue earned by Airbnb hosts. Our empirical strategy exploits Airbnb’s introduction of the algorithm and its voluntary adoption by hosts as a quasi-natural experiment. Among... View Details
- October 2021
- Article
Overcoming the Cold Start Problem of CRM Using a Probabilistic Machine Learning Approach
By: Nicolas Padilla and Eva Ascarza
The success of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs ultimately depends on the firm's ability to understand consumers' preferences and precisely capture how these preferences may differ across customers. Only by understanding customer heterogeneity, firms can... View Details
- 2021
- Book
The Emergence of Charismatic Business Leadership
In The Emergence of Charismatic Business Leadership is an examination of how the role of the business leader in the U.S. has changed from World War II to the present. A small number of high-profile individuals have transformed the face of modern-day leadership,... View Details
- September 2021
- Article
Trials and Terminations: Learning from Competitors' R&D Failures
I analyze project continuation decisions where firms may resolve uncertainty through news about competitors' research and development (R&D) failures, as well as through their own results. I examine the trade-offs and interactions between product-market competition and... View Details
- June 23, 2021
- Article
Research: When A/B Testing Doesn't Tell You the Whole Story
By: Eva Ascarza
When it comes to churn prevention, marketers traditionally start by identifying which customers are most likely to churn, and then running A/B tests to determine whether a proposed retention intervention will be effective at retaining those high-risk customers. While... View Details
Keywords: Customer Retention; Churn; Targeting; Market Research; Marketing; Investment Return; Customers; Retention; Research
- June 2021
- Article
Cognition and Emotion in Extreme Political Action: Individual Differences and Dynamic Interactions
By: Leor Zmigrod and Amit Goldenberg
Who is most likely to join and engage in extreme political action? While traditional theories have focused on situational factors or group identity attributes, an emerging science illustrates that tendencies for extreme political action may also be rooted in... View Details
- May 2021
- Article
Preparing for a Pandemic: Accelerating Vaccine Availability
By: Amrita Ahuja, Susan Athey, Arthur Baker, Eric Budish, Juan Camilo Castillo, Rachel Glennerster, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Kremer, Jean Lee, Canice Prendergast, Christopher M. Snyder, Alex Tabarrok, Brandon Joel Tan and Witold Wiecek
Vaccinating the world’s population quickly in a pandemic has enormous health and economic benefits. We analyze the problem faced by governments in determining the scale and structure of procurement for vaccines. We analyze alternative approaches to procurement, arguing... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Spiritual Philanthropy in Emerging Markets
By: Valeria Giacomin and G. Jones
This working paper discusses the ethics and drivers of philanthropic foundations in emerging markets. A foundation organizes assets to invest in philanthropic initiatives. Previous scholarship has largely focused on developed countries, especially the United States,... View Details
- April 2021 (Revised February 2023)
- Case
Mahatma Gandhi: Changing the World
By: Robert Simons and Max Saffer
This case traces the rise of Mohandas Gandhi from his early days in British-controlled India to the inspirational martyr who, through personal deprivation and leadership, inspired millions and became the catalyst for India to break away from Britain. The case describes... View Details
- 2021
- Comment
Willpower Is a Form of, but Not Synonymous with, Self-control
By: Ariella S. Kristal and Julian Zlatev
We build on Ainslie's discussion of willpower by highlighting another common misconception in the literature: the conflation of self-control and willpower. In our commentary, we identify this issue and discuss the importance of recognizing willpower not as synonymous... View Details