Publications

Educators

01 Nov 2016
First Look

First Look - November 1, 2016

America Innovation Network By: Acemoglu, Daron, Ufuk Akcigit, and William R. Kerr Abstract— Technological progress builds upon itself, with the expansion of invention in one domain propelling future work in linked fields. Our analysis... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2025 (Revised February 2025)
Background Note

A High-Tech Revolution with Chinese Characteristics: China's Drive Towards EV Supremacy

By: William C. Kirby, Daniel Fu and Matthew Ngai

This background note explains and documents the rise of China's EV industry. Moreover, it identifies the challenges facing it and posits several questions about the decisions needed to be made to sustain the industry's global dominance. Would Chinese producers be able... View Details

Keywords: State Capitalism; Electric Vehicles; Tesla; Renewable Energy; Global Strategy; Taxation; Technological Innovation; Industry Growth; Competition; Auto Industry; China; United States; Japan; European Union

Educators

2022
Working Paper

House Prices, Home Equity and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from U.S. Census Micro Data

By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda

During 1992-2007, house price growth is strongly correlated with local entrepreneurship. We show with Census Bureau data that most of this entry is related to construction and real estate; these entrants tend to be small and short-lived. Using a 1998 Texas reform that... View Details

Keywords: House Prices; Collateral Channel; Entry; Demography; Mortgages; Entrepreneurship

SSRN

04 Dec 2012
First Look

First Look: December 4

case:http://hbr.org/search/913701-PDF-ENG Convertible Notes in Angel Financing Ramana Nanda and William R. KerrHarvard Business School Note 813-017 This note introduces convertible notes in angel financing. It begins View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

Web

Harvard Business School

Broadcast executive and businessman W. Don Cornwell was hired by Goldman Sachs in 1971 and later promoted to chief operating officer of the investment banking division's corporate finance department. In 1988, Cornwell left the securities... View Details

19 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 19

claims about the benefits of broader operational scope. The performance benefits of focus are typically attributed to reduced complexity, lower uncertainty, and the development of specialized expertise, while the benefits of greater breadth are linked to the economies... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2021
Working Paper

Winner Takes All? Tech Clusters, Population Centers, and the Spatial Transformation of U.S. Invention

By: Brad Chattergoon and William R. Kerr

U.S. invention has become increasingly concentrated around major tech centers since the 1970s, with implications for how much cities across the country share in concomitant local benefits. Is invention becoming a winner-takes-all race? We explore the rising spatial... View Details

Keywords: Invention; Innovation; Artificial Intelligence; Clusters; Agglomeration; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Applications and Software; Industry Clusters; United States

November 2023
Case

Swanson Health: Becoming a Super Seller

By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor and Paige Boehmcke

Founded in 1969, Swanson Health sold vitamins, supplements, natural health products, and organic foods. Over the years, the company had successfully navigated multiple industry transitions as it expanded from a print catalog to sell products on its own... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Transition; Growth Management; Distribution Channels; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Health Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

Educators

Forthcoming
Article

In the Red: Overdrafts, Payday Lending and the Underbanked

By: Marco Di Maggio, Angela Ma and Emily Williams

The reordering of transactions from “high-to-low” is a controversial bank practice thought to maximize fees paid by low-income customers on overdrawn accounts. We exploit multiple class-action lawsuits resulting in mandatory changes to this practice, coupled with... View Details

Keywords: Overdraft; Payday Loans; Excessive Fees; Underbanked; Underserved; Income; Personal Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Banks and Banking

08 Nov 2016
First Look

November 8, 2016

Measuring Entrepreneurial Businesses: Current Knowledge and Challenges Immigrant Entrepreneurship By: Kerr, William R., and Sari Pekkala Kerr Abstract—We examine immigrant entrepreneurship and the survival and growth of immigrant-founded... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

29 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 29

yields. However, the fraction of seniors is uncorrelated with share repurchases, investment, or profitability, suggesting that geographic variation in dividend payout is not driven by some unmeasured firm characteristic affecting the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 2021
Supplement

HNA Group: Global Excellence with Chinese Characteristics (C)

By: William C. Kirby, Billy Chan and John P. McHugh

July 2017 was supposed to be a triumphant month for HNA Group. The latest Fortune Global 500 list showed the company had again skyrocketed in its ranking to no. 170, an improvement of over 200 positions from the year prior. Yet earlier that same July, the mysterious... View Details

Keywords: Conglomerate; Airline Industry; Coronavirus; Financial Risk; Debt; Bankruptcy; Global Strategy; Restructuring; Health Pandemics; Financial Markets; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Condition; Globalized Firms and Management; Business and Government Relations; Air Transportation Industry; Financial Services Industry; China

November 2016
Supplement

Uber in China: Driving in the Gray Zone (B)

By: William C. Kirby, Yuanzhuo Wang, Shuang L. Frost and Adam K. Frost

Starting in 2014, for two years Uber had fought an intense, costly battle for China’s ridesharing market with well-financed and well-connected domestic Chinese competitors. During this time, Uber also had to respond to an ever-shifting regulatory landscape that looked... View Details

Keywords: China; Uber; Didi Chuxing; Start-up Growth; Regulation; Ride-sharing; Transportation; Business Startups; Growth and Development; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Transportation Industry; Technology Industry; China

1996
Article

Limits on Interest Rate Rules in the IS Model

By: William R. Kerr and Robert G. King

There has been a substantial amount of research on interest rate rules. This literature finds that the feasibility and desirability of interest rate rules depends on the structure of the model used to approximate macroeconomic reality. We employ a series of... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Macroeconomics; Interest Rates; Price; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Performance Expectations

2020
Working Paper

Collusion in Brokered Markets

By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery

The U.S. residential real estate agency market presents a puzzle for economic theory: commissions on real estate transactions have remained high for decades even though entry is frequent and costs are low. We model the real estate agency market, and other brokered... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; ＂Repeated Games＂; Collusion; Antitrust; Brokered Markets; Game Theory; Real Estate Industry

SSRN

October 2019
Teaching Note

Google: To TVC or Not to TVC?

By: William R. Kerr and Carl Kreitzberg

A Teaching Note for the "Google: To TVC or Not to TVC?" case study (HBS#820-048). The case discusses recent controversies regarding how Google manages temporary help agency workers, workers supplied by vendors, and independent contractors ("TVCs"). Such TVCs reportedly... View Details

November 2021
Article

Gaussian Process Subset Scanning for Anomalous Pattern Detection in Non-iid Data

By: William Herlands, Edward McFowland III, Andrew Gordon Wilson and Daniel B. Neill

Identifying anomalous patterns in real-world data is essential for understanding where, when, and how systems deviate from their expected dynamics. Yet methods that separately consider the anomalousness of each individual data point have low detection power for subtle,... View Details

Keywords: Pattern Detection; Subset Scanning; Gaussian Processes; Mathematical Methods

2017
Chapter

Immigrant Entrepreneurship

By: William R. Kerr and Sari Pekkala Kerr

We examine immigrant entrepreneurship and the survival and growth of immigrant-founded businesses over time relative to native-founded companies. Our work quantifies immigrant contributions to new firm creation in a wide variety of fields and using multiple... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Immigration; United States