Publications

fall 2008
Article

Typosquatting: Unintended Adventures in Browsing

By: Benjamin Edelman

"Typosquatting" is the practice of registering domain names, identical to or confusingly similar to trademarks and famous names, in hopes that users will accidentally request these sites—whereupon they will receive, typically, advertisements. This piece presents the... View Details

Keywords: Web; Advertising; Business Model; Lawsuits and Litigation; Profit; Practice

17 Jun 2010
Working Paper Summaries

When Do Analysts Add Value? Evidence from Corporate Spinoffs

Keywords: by Emilie Rose Feldman, Stuart C. Gilson & Belén Villalonga

13 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

How Government can Discourage Private Sector Reliance on Short-Term Debt

financial institutions. “Most people agree that the financing of large financial intermediaries put the larger financial system at risk” Can the government do anything to discourage short-term borrowing by the private sector? HBS... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Financial Services

July 2011
Case

Edna McConnell Clark Foundation-Enabling a Performance Driven Philanthropic Capital Market

By: Allen Grossman and Aldo Sesia

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, focused on building the organizational capabilities of nonprofits that served the disadvantaged youth in the United States, has recently been named an intermediary in the federal government's new social innovation fund (SIF), which... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Financial Strategy; Performance Improvement; Capital Markets; United States

October 2009 (Revised October 2010)
Case

Grove Street Advisors: September 2009

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Ann Leamon

The investment committee of Grove Street Advisors, a pioneer in the provision of customized private equity funds-of-funds for pension fund clients, must decide how to respond to the market opportunities and challenges presented by the turmoil of 2008 and 2009. How can... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Expansion; Investment Funds; Financial Services Industry

September 2009 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Intellectual Ventures

By: Andrei Hagiu, David B. Yoffie and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

Intellectual Ventures creates and acquires intellectual property, which it then seeks to monetize through non-exclusive licensing. In early 2009, as an increasing number of companies were trying to position themselves as leading intermediaries in the market for... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Intellectual Property; Rights; Service Operations; Research and Development; Technology; Service Industry

Research Summary

Marketing and Privacy Concerns

When finer consumer information becomes available, competing firms sometimes target consumers too finely, disrupting scale economies prematurely. This leads to excessive product variety or to the wasteful exclusion of certain consumer types. This paper suggests that... View Details

Article

Towards a Bill of Rights for Online Advertisers

By: Benjamin Edelman

Online advertising presents remarkable efficiencies—better targeting, improved measurement and greater return on investment. Yet there are challenges, particularly when networks of intermediaries place ads through convoluted relationships, and all the more so when... View Details

Keywords: Online Advertising; Rights; Measurement and Metrics; Investment Return; Negotiation; Networks; Problems and Challenges; Performance Efficiency; Law; Advertising Industry

February 2020 (Revised March 2020)
Case

Prime Coalition: Catalytic Capital for Climate Innovation

By: Ramana Nanda, Benjamin N. Roth and Olivia Hull

With long development timelines and high risk, new energy technologies were often left to languish in the “valley of death,” unable to raise enough funds to bring a product to market. In 2014, Sarah Kearney founded the nonprofit Prime Coalition to solve this problem.... View Details

Keywords: Energy Conservation; Renewable Energy; Social Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Investment; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Mission and Purpose; Science-Based Business; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Enterprise; Energy Industry; Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; United States

Research Summary

Market Triads: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Market Intermediation (Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, June 2002)

By: Rakesh Khurana

This paper examines the role of executive search firms in CEO search. The paper argues that the numerical shift from two party market transactions (e.g. buyers and sellers) to three party transactions (e.g. buyers, sellers, and third party) transforms market exchanges... View Details

Research Summary

"Modeling B2B Exchanges" (with Gabor Fath)

B2B exchanges are revolutionizing the way businesses will buy and sell a variety of intermediary products and services. It is estimated that most of the roughly $7 trillion worth of business transactions are likely to go through these new institutions within the next... View Details

Forthcoming
Article

Segmented Arbitrage

By: Emil Siriwardane, Adi Sunderam and Jonathan Wallen

We use arbitrage activity in equity, fixed income, and foreign exchange markets to characterize the frictions and constraints facing intermediaries. The average pairwise correlation between the 32 arbitrage spreads that we study is 22%. These low correlations are... View Details

Keywords: Financial Intermediation; Arbitrage; Intermediary-based Asset Pricing; Finance; Segmentation

July 2015
Article

A Behavioral Model of the Popularity and Regulation of Demandable Liabilities

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

Overoptimism regarding one's ability to arrive early in a queue is shown to rationalize deposit contracts in which people can withdraw their funds on demand even if consumption takes place later. Capitalized institutions serving overoptimistic depositors emerge in... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Banks and Banking

Find at Harvard

2018
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’ definitions of... View Details

Keywords: Substitutability; Mathematical Methods; Auctions; Market Design

SSRN

2002
Other Unpublished Work

Legal Management: The Case for a Managed Model for the Delivery of Legal Services

By: Ethan S. Bernstein

This essay takes a brief look at the innovations in the delivery of legal services made due to the expansion of the pre-paid sector and uses those changes in the power dynamics of the industry to make a compelling case for a more widespread, managed model. The managed... View Details

Keywords: Management; Law; Service Delivery; Legal Services Industry; United States

2017
Working Paper

The Effects of Media Slant on Firm Behavior

By: Vishal P. Baloria and Jonas Heese

The media can impose reputational costs on firms because of its important role as an information intermediary and its ability to negatively slant coverage. We exploit a quasi-natural experiment that holds constant the information event across firms, but varies the... View Details

Keywords: Media Slant; Reputational Capital; Strategic Corporate Decisions

SSRN

Article

The Effects of Media Slant on Firm Behavior

By: Vishal P. Baloria and Jonas Heese

The media can impose reputational costs on firms because of its important role as an information intermediary and its ability to negatively slant coverage. We exploit a quasi-natural experiment that holds constant the information event across firms, but varies the... View Details

Keywords: Media Slant; Reputational Capital; Strategic Corporate Decisions; Media; News; Communication Strategy; Reputation