Publications

Research Summary

Personal Data in Marketing

By: John A. Deighton

Between 10% and 20% of all marketing activity in the United States, and a smaller proportion internationally, relies on data about individuals, whether personally identifying or pseudonomized. These data flow across a system of established and emerging firms operating... View Details

Keywords: Data; Personal Data; Information Technology; Industry Structure; Marketing

August 2001 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Consumer-Driven Health Care: Medtronic's Health Insurance Options

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, John Hurwitch and Seth Bokser

Describes the variety of health insurance plans that this medical device company offers, including a high-deductible, consumer-driven health plan with a health reimbursement account that also enables health care providers to quote their own prices. Asks students to... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Decision Choices and Conditions; Compensation and Benefits; Demand and Consumers

24 May 2004
Research & Ideas

When Reputation Trumps Regulation

U.S.-listed foreign firm. Siegel collects evidence from a core sample of Mexican firms to show that some insiders from foreign-listed firms exploit this lax enforcement and run off with the firm's assets with impunity, while others learn to reap the View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

2010
Working Paper

Regulating for Legitimacy: Consumer Credit Access in France and America

By: J. Gunnar Trumbull

Theories of legitimate regulation have emphasized the role of governments either in fixing market failures to promote greater efficiency or in restricting the efficient functioning of markets in order to pursue public welfare goals. In either case, features of markets... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Financial Markets; Personal Finance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Welfare; France; United States

2024
Working Paper

Antitrust Platform Regulation and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from China

By: Ke Rong, D. Daniel Sokol, Di Zhou and Feng Zhu

Many jurisdictions have launched antitrust enforcement and brought in regulation of large tech platforms. The swift and strict implementation of China’s Anti-Monopoly Guidelines for the Platform Economy (Platform Guidelines) provides a quasi-natural experiment... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competition; Venture Capital; Market Entry and Exit; Supply and Industry; China

2015
Working Paper

Markets with Price Coherence

By: Benjamin Edelman and Julian Wright

In markets with price coherence, the purchase of a given good via an intermediary is constrained to occur at the same price as a purchase of that same good directly from the seller (or through another competing intermediary). We examine ten markets with price... View Details

Keywords: Intermediaries; Platforms; Two-Sided Markets; Vertical Restraints; Price; Distribution Channels; Business History; Insurance Industry; Insurance Industry; Insurance Industry; Insurance Industry; Insurance Industry

14 Dec 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Regulating for Legitimacy: Consumer Credit Access in France and America

Keywords: by Gunnar Trumbull

March 2007 (Revised April 2007)
Case

Micro Insurance Agency: Helping the Poor Manage Risk

By: Michael Chu and Jean Hazell

The notable success of insurance products for low-income clients of its microfinance network leads Opportunity International to launch the first global specialized microinsurance company, the Micro Insurance Agency (MIA). Building on the experience in 10 countries... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Cost Management; Microfinance; Globalization; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk Management; Infrastructure; Nonprofit Organizations; Competition; Financial Services Industry; Africa; Asia; Latin America

Research Summary

Financial Regulation and the Japanese Banking Crisis of the 1990s

As part of a long-term research interest in financial regulation and the role of the Ministry of Finance, Ulrike Schaede has studied various segments of Japan's financial markets to understand better the interaction between regulators and regulatees. This includes... View Details

1998
Chapter

Comments on 'Index Hedge Performance: Insurer Market Penetration and Basis Risk' by John A. Major

By: André Perold

Keywords: Insurance; Risk and Uncertainty; Insurance Industry

2002
Working Paper

Cost Reductions, Cost Padding and Stock Market Prices: The Chilean Experience with Price Cap Regulation

By: Rafael Di Tella and Alexander Dyck

New platforms reinvent traditional markets as varied as transport, short-term accomodations, and media. (Consider Uber, Airbnb, and YouTube.) With new business models come new questions of regulation which Edelman and coauthor Damien Geradin assess in View Details

August 2019 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Lemonade: Disrupting Insurance with Instant Everything, Killer Prices, and a Big Heart

By: Elie Ofek and Danielle Golan

Launching its first products in the fall of 2016 in New York, insurtech startup Lemonade was on a mission to disrupt the insurance market by using AI and behavioral economics principles. The company offered renters, homeowners, and condo insurance and mainly targeted... View Details

Keywords: AI; Business Startups; Insurance; Technological Innovation; Business Model; Disruption; Brands and Branding; Growth and Development Strategy; Global Strategy; Decision Making; Insurance Industry; Insurance Industry

spring 2008
Article

Cost Reductions, Cost Padding and Stock Market Prices: The Chilean Experience with Price Cap Regulation

By: Rafael Di Tella and Alexander Dyck

Keywords: Cost; Price; Stocks; Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Chile

Find at Harvard

30 Nov 2016
Op-Ed

Where Could More Regulation Help Small Businesses? Online Lending.

charter permitting preemption of state law. The Internet is not bound by any one state, and the market for loans online is no exception—regulation must reflect this new reality. However, regulators should... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills and Brayden McCarthy; Financial Services

summer 1995
Article

The Emerging Asset Class: Insurance Risk

By: K. A. Froot, B. Murphy, A. Stern and S. Usher

Keywords: Financial Markets; Insurance; Policy; Risk Management; Natural Disasters; Insurance Industry

24 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

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

book This Time Is Different, credit markets particularly mortgage markets are prone to boom and bust cycles that can have long-lasting and devastating economic impacts. View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

March 1991 (Revised May 1991)
Case

New York Life Insurance Co.: Pension Department

By: Robert J. Dolan

Analyzes competition in the pension fund industry. In particular, New York Life must decide whether to compete head-to-head with mutual fund giants by offering record-keeping services or to just continue to focus on selling investment products. Presents the results of... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Financial Instruments; Insurance Industry; Insurance Industry