Publications

24 Sep 2014
Op-Ed

We Need a Miracle. New Nuclear Might Provide it.

On September 4, the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) published its 2014 International Energy Outlook. Earlier this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its latest World Energy Investment Outlook. Both watchdogs tell us the same story. Energy... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph Lassiter; Energy; Utilities

18 Jan 2012
News

Charter Supporter

headquartered in Waterloo, Wisconsin. While there, she set up Trek’s sales and distribution companies across Europe and worked in forecasting and planning. Since 2007, she has devoted her energy and skills full time to the nonprofit... View Details

Keywords: Arts, Sports, Language, Driving, and Other Schools; Educational Services

Fast Answer

Commodities Research: data and reports

color="#333333" face="Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">World Bank Publishes the Quarterly Commodity Market Outlook providing analysis and forecasts for major commodity groups -- energy, metals, agriculture,... View Details

April 2022
Article

Predictable Financial Crises

By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson, Andrei Shleifer and Jakob Ahm Sørensen

Using historical data on post-war financial crises around the world, we show that crises are substantially predictable. The combination of rapid credit and asset price growth over the prior three years, whether in the nonfinancial business or the household sector, is... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Global Range; Forecasting and Prediction; Mathematical Methods

September 2009 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Marquee: The Business of Nightlife

By: Anita Elberse, Ryan Barlow and Sheldon Wong

In December 2008, nightlife impresario Noah Tepperberg celebrated the fifth anniversary of his New York City nightclub Marquee. While most clubs are over within their first one-and-a-half years, Tepperberg has succeeded in keeping Marquee one of NYC's hottest clubs for... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Cost Management; Marketing Strategy; Competitive Strategy

August 2018
Case

Four Products: Predicting Diffusion (2018)

By: John Gourville

One job of product managers, marketers, strategic planners, and other corporate executives is to predict what the demand will be for a new product. This task is easier for certain classes of new products than for others. For new consumer package goods, for instance,... View Details

Keywords: Diffusion Processes; Product Adoption; Marketing; Forecasting and Prediction; Demand and Consumers; Adoption; Product Launch

05 Dec 2012
What Do You Think?

Should Managers Bother Listening to Predictions?

identify fairly reliable predictions from the guesses." Others identified people as the weak point in the process. Adam Hartung commented that " everyone should be evaluating trends and making forecasts they use to guide... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

December 2021
Article

Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight

By: Aticus Peterson and Andy Wu

We study how learning by experience across projects affects an entrepreneur's strategic foresight. In a quantitative study of 314 entrepreneurs across 722 crowdfunded projects supplemented with a program of qualitative interviews, we counterintuitively find that... View Details

Keywords: Crowdfunding; Experience; Prediction; Timeline; Complexity; Entrepreneurship; Learning; Experience and Expertise; Forecasting and Prediction

Find at Harvard

Read Now

June 2012
Article

Consequence-Cause Matching: Looking to the Consequences of Events to Infer Their Causes

By: Robyn A. LeBoeuf and Michael I. Norton

We show that people non-normatively infer event causes from event consequences. For example, people inferred that a product failure (computer crash) had a large cause (widespread computer virus) if it had a large consequence (job loss), but that the identical failure... View Details

Keywords: Causal Inference; Product; Forecasting and Prediction; Motivation and Incentives; Failure

26 Jun 2007
First Look

First Look: June 26, 2007

include positioning strategies, choosing the proper channel, potential partnerships, manufacturing issues, market analysis, and PR management. Purchase this case: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=507016 Demand and Supply View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

01 Sep 2014
News

Faculty Q&A: Cents and Sensibilities

forecast for revenue by an enormous amount and that requires some adjustment. We’ll have to either raise taxes or cut spending. People don’t always understand the technical details of these policies, but that’s really not the point. The... View Details

Keywords: April White; faculty research; writing

09 Dec 2015
Research Event

How Do You Predict Demand and Set Prices For Products Never Sold Before?

predictive and prescriptive analytics can be combined to develop a tactical decision-making tool that makes a big impact on the bottom line. For details about the research and the successful machine learning tool, see the paper “Analytics for an Online Retailer: Demand... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail; Apparel & Accessories

Web

Corporate Finance: Corporate Financial Operations (CFO) - Course Catalog

Measuring and Driving Performance Forecasting Managing Cash and Source of Funding Managing Risk Managing Investment, Divestitures, and Portfolios of Businesses Nearly all class sessions will be case based. We will have numerous guests... View Details

19 Dec 2008
News

WHBS, 820 on Your Dial

case discussions by faculty, “Job Market,” “Mystery Melody” (an audience call-in program), and such services as weather forecasts and the morning menus at Kresge. Students had their own disk-jockey programs of pop, folk, and classical... View Details

Keywords: Keith Larson; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Educational Services; Broadcasting (except Internet); Information

October 2017 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Improving Worker Safety in the Era of Machine Learning (A)

By: Michael W. Toffel, Dan Levy, Jose Ramon Morales Arilla and Matthew S. Johnson

Managers make predictions all the time: How fast will my markets grow? How much inventory do I need? How intensively should I monitor my suppliers? Which potential customers will be most responsive to a particular marketing campaign? Which job candidates should I... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Policy Implementation; Empirical Research; Inspection; Occupational Safety; Occupational Health; Regulation; Analysis; Forecasting and Prediction; Policy; Operations; Supply Chain Management; Safety; Manufacturing Industry; Construction Industry; United States

October 2012
Case

Dispensers of California, Inc.

By: David A. Wilson and David Hawkins

An investor seeking capital must prepare projected financial statements for a new business. View Details

Keywords: Financial Statement Preparation; Accounting Process; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment; Financial Statements; Business Startups; Capital; California

January 2000 (Revised February 2007)
Case

Asia Renal Care

Presents a business plan for a start-up company focused on building a network of high-quality dialysis centers in the Asia-Pacific region. Includes a detailed financial forecast. An executable spreadsheet is available by contacting HBSP Customer Service at... View Details

Keywords: Business Plan; Forecasting and Prediction; Business Startups; Financial Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Asia

2023
Working Paper

Insufficiently Justified Disparate Impact: A New Criterion for Subgroup Fairness

By: Neil Menghani, Edward McFowland III and Daniel B. Neill

In this paper, we develop a new criterion, "insufficiently justified disparate impact" (IJDI), for assessing whether recommendations (binarized predictions) made by an algorithmic decision support tool are fair. Our novel, utility-based IJDI criterion evaluates false... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Forecasting and Prediction; Prejudice and Bias

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July 2005 (Revised June 2006)
Case

Ryanair Holdings plc

Examines the valuation of an Irish airline that reported its first decline in net income in 2004 and saw a 30% stock price drop on the news. Ryanair is a low-cost, low-fare airline headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, operating over 200 routes in 20 countries. The company... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; International Accounting; Analysis; Valuation; Air Transportation; Forecasting and Prediction; Finance; Air Transportation Industry; Dublin