Publications

30 Nov 2015
HBS Seminar

Soroush Saghafian, Assistant Professor of Public Policy - Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University

24 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Equalizing Outcomes vs. Equalizing Opportunities: Optimal Taxation when Children’s Abilities Depend on Parents’ Resources

Keywords: by Alexander Gelber & Matthew Weinzierl

Research Summary

Optimal Reserve Management and Sovereign Debt (with Fabio Kanczuk)

By: Laura Alfaro

Most models currently used to determine optimal foreign reserve holdings take the level of international debt as given. Some of the implications of this analysis, however, may not be generalized once one considers the joint decision to hold debt and reserves by a... View Details

2018
Working Paper

Ratcheting, Competition, and the Diffusion of Technological Change: The Case of Televisions Under an Energy Efficiency Program

By: Tomomichi Amano and Hiroshi Ohashi

In differentiated goods markets with societal implications, quality standards are commonly implemented to avoid the under-provision of innovation. Firms have clear incentives to engage in strategic behavior because policymakers use market outcomes as a benchmark in... View Details

Keywords: Product Differentiation; Energy Efficiency Standards; Ratcheting; Diffusion Of Innovation; Technological Innovation; Competition; Quality; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy

SSRN

July–August 2024
Article

Doing More with Less: Overcoming Ineffective Long-Term Targeting Using Short-Term Signals

By: Ta-Wei Huang and Eva Ascarza

Firms are increasingly interested in developing targeted interventions for customers with the best response, which requires identifying differences in customer sensitivity, typically through the conditional average treatment effect (CATE) estimation. In theory, to... View Details

Keywords: Long-run Targeting; Heterogeneous Treatment Effect; Statistical Surrogacy; Customer Churn; Field Experiments; Consumer Behavior; Customer Focus and Relationships; AI and Machine Learning; Marketing Strategy

Article

Total Cost Control in Project Management via Satisficing

By: Joel Goh and Nicholas G. Hall

We consider projects with uncertain activity times and the possibility of expediting, or crashing, them. Activity times come from a partially specified distribution within a family of distributions. This family is described by one or more of the following details about... View Details

Keywords: Project Management; Time And Cost Control; Robust Optimization; Satisficing; Linear Decision Rule; PERT; Management; Cost Management; Projects

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October–December 2022
Article

Achieving Reliable Causal Inference with Data-Mined Variables: A Random Forest Approach to the Measurement Error Problem

By: Mochen Yang, Edward McFowland III, Gordon Burtch and Gediminas Adomavicius

Combining machine learning with econometric analysis is becoming increasingly prevalent in both research and practice. A common empirical strategy involves the application of predictive modeling techniques to "mine" variables of interest from available data, followed... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Econometric Analysis; Instrumental Variable; Random Forest; Causal Inference; AI and Machine Learning; Forecasting and Prediction

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03 Mar 2022
HBS Seminar

Daniela Saban, Stanford

Achieving Reliable Causal Inference with Data-Mined Variables: A Random Forest Approach to the Measurement Error Problem

Combining machine learning with econometric analysis is becoming increasingly prevalent in both research and practice. A common empirical strategy involves the application of predictive modeling techniques to "mine" variables of interest from available data,... View Details

August 2014
Article

Incentives in a Stage-Gate Process

By: Raul O. Chao, Kenneth C. Lichtendahl and Yael Grushka-Cockayne

Many large organizations use a stage‐gate process to manage new product development projects. In a typical stage‐gate process project managers learn about potential ideas from research and exert effort in development while senior executives make intervening go/no‐go... View Details

Keywords: Stage-Gate Process; Production; Operations; Product Development; Innovation and Invention

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August 2021
Article

Multiple Imputation Using Gaussian Copulas

By: F.M. Hollenbach, I. Bojinov, S. Minhas, N.W. Metternich, M.D. Ward and A. Volfovsky

Missing observations are pervasive throughout empirical research, especially in the social sciences. Despite multiple approaches to dealing adequately with missing data, many scholars still fail to address this vital issue. In this paper, we present a simple-to-use... View Details

Keywords: Missing Data; Bayesian Statistics; Imputation; Categorical Data; Estimation

2012
Article

The Excess Burden of Government Indecision

By: Francisco J. Gomes, Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Luis M. Viceira

Governments are known for procrastinating when it comes to resolving painful policy problems. Whatever the political motives for waiting to decide, procrastination distorts economic decisions relative to what would arise with early policy resolution. In so doing, it... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Risk and Uncertainty; Investment Portfolio; Decision Choices and Conditions; Retirement; Policy; Government and Politics

2012
Working Paper

~Why Do We Redistribute so Much but Tag so Little? Normative Diversity, Equal Sacrifice and Optimal Taxation

By: Matthew Weinzierl

Tagging is a free lunch in conventional optimal tax theory because it eases the classic tradeoff between efficiency and equality. But tagging is used in only limited ways in tax policy. I propose one explanation: conventional optimal tax theory has yet to capture the... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Cost; Framework; Policy; Taxation; Analytics and Data Science; Performance Efficiency; United States

SSRN

Randomized experiments have become the standard method for companies to evaluate the performance of new products or services. In addition to augmenting managers' decision-making, experimentation mitigates risk by limiting the proportion of customers exposed to... View Details

March 2016
Article

Environmental Demands and the Emergence of Social Structure: Technological Dynamism and Interorganizational Network Forms

By: Adam Tatarynowicz, Maxim Sytch and Ranjay Gulati

This study investigates the origins of variation in the structures of interorganizational networks across industries. We combine empirical analyses of existing interorganizational networks in six industries with an agent-based simulation model of network emergence.... View Details

Keywords: Interorganizatonal Relationships; Social Networks; Network Emergence; Interorganizational Networks; Information Technology; Networks; Organizational Structure; Social and Collaborative Networks; Social Media

2023
Working Paper

Design-Based Confidence Sequences: A General Approach to Risk Mitigation in Online Experimentation

By: Dae Woong Ham, Michael Lindon, Martin Tingley and Iavor Bojinov

Randomized experiments have become the standard method for companies to evaluate the performance of new products or services. In addition to augmenting managers’ decision-making, experimentation mitigates risk by limiting the proportion of customers exposed to... View Details

Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Research and Development; Analytics and Data Science; Consumer Behavior

SSRN

August 2018
Article

Creative Sparks or Paralysis Traps? The Effects of Contradictions on Creative Processing and Creative Products

By: Goran Calic and Sébastien Hélie

Paradoxes are an unavoidable part of work life. The unusualness of attempting to simultaneously satisfy contradictory imperatives can result in creative outcomes that simultaneously satisfy both imperatives by inducing search for, and selection of, novel and useful... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Cognition and Thinking; Business or Company Management; Performance

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