Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(576)
- Faculty Publications (145)
- 2017
- Working Paper
Cost of Experimentation and the Evolution of Venture Capital
By: Michael Ewens, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
We study how technological shocks to the cost of starting new businesses have led the venture capital model to adapt in fundamental ways over the prior decade. We both document and provide a framework to understand the changes in the investment strategy of VCs in... View Details
- February 2015 (Revised August 2019)
- Case
Equality of Opportunity and Outcome in the U.S.
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Alastair Su
Equality of opportunity is endorsed universally even though, or more likely because, it can mean such different things to different people. What definition of equality of opportunity ought to figure into policy decisions? How close, or far, is the United States from... View Details
- December 2014 (Revised May 2015)
- Case
Growth Hacking at Bazaart (A)
By: Jeffrey Bussgang and Matthew G. Preble
The four founding members of Bazaart—a young Israeli company whose sole product was its eponymous mobile application (app) which allowed users to create collages from photographs and other images—face an important strategic decision in June 2014. Since its founding... View Details
- October 2014 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
The National Football League and Brain Injuries
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Matthew G. Preble
The National Football League (NFL) was both the most popular spectator sport in the U.S. and a major economic entity, taking in roughly $10 billion a year in revenue. However through the early twenty-first century, an increased understanding of the long-term effects of... View Details
Keywords: Employee Safety; Safety; Employees; Sports; Health; Ethics; Sports Industry; United States
- October 2014
- Article
The Promise of Positive Optimal Taxation: Normative Diversity and a Role for Equal Sacrifice
A prominent assumption in modern optimal tax research is that the objective of taxation is Utilitarian. I present new survey evidence that most people disagree with this assumption, preferring tax policies based at least in part on a classic alternative objective: the... View Details
- Fall 2014
- Article
Seesaws and Social Security Benefits Indexing
The price indexation of Social Security benefit payments has emerged in recent years as a flashpoint of debate in the United States. I characterize the direct effects that changes in that price index would have on retirees who differ in their initial wealth at... View Details
- Article
Advancing Research on Hybrid Organizing—Insights from the Study of Social Enterprises
By: Julie Battilana and Matthew Lee
Hybrid organizations that combine multiple organizational forms deviate from socially legitimate templates for organizing and thus experience unique organizing challenges. In this paper, we introduce and develop the concept of hybrid organizing, which we define as the... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Entrepreneurship as Experimentation
By: William R. Kerr, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
Entrepreneurship research is on the rise but many questions about its fundamental nature still exist. We argue that entrepreneurship is about experimentation: the probabilities of success are low, extremely skewed and unknowable until an investment is made. At a macro... View Details
- July 2014
- Article
Convergence of Position Auctions under Myopic Best-Response Dynamics
By: Matthew Cary, Aparna Das, Benjamin Edelman, Ioannis Giotis, Kurtis Heimerl, Anna Karlin, Scott Duke Kominers, Claire Mathieu and Michael Schwarz
We study the dynamics of multi-round position auctions, considering both the case of exogenous click-through rates and the case in which click-through rates are determined by an endogenous consumer search process. In both contexts, we demonstrate that the dynamic... View Details
- Article
Entrepreneurship as Experimentation
By: William R. Kerr, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
Entrepreneurship research is on the rise, but many questions about its fundamental nature still exist. We argue that entrepreneurship is about experimentation: the probabilities of success are low, extremely skewed, and unknowable until an investment is made. At a... View Details
- June 2014 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Kathy Giusti and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation
By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Joshua D. Margolis and Matthew G. Preble
What do you do when your rising professional career is cut short by an unexpected cancer diagnosis? Kathy Giusti shifted careers, built a new organization that transformed how cancer research is done, and now faces the challenge of sustaining the organization and its... View Details
Keywords: Philanthropy; Philanthropy Funding; Entrepreneurship; Health Care; Management Styles; Personalized Medicine; Health Care Outcomes; Cancer; Cancer Care In The U.S.; Personal Care; Leadership; Leading Change; Social Entrepreneurship; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Health Care and Treatment; Leadership Style; Management Style; Management Skills; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Health; Health Industry; United States; Canada; Spain
- February 2014 (Revised October 2019)
- Case
Should Corporate Profits Be Taxed? (A)
By: Matthew Weinzierl, Katrina Flanagan and Michael Cianellli
Taxing corporations is popular, but why? Corporations do not bear the burden of taxes, people do, and the incidence of the corporate income tax burden is likely to be far different from what many of its supporters assume.
Instructors may also obtain a Teaching... View Details
Instructors may also obtain a Teaching... View Details
- February 2014 (Revised August 2015)
- Case
The Estate Tax Debate
By: Matthew Weinzierl, Katrina Flanagan and Valerie Galinskaya
Per dollar of revenue, no tax policy generates more sound and fury than the taxation of estates. To supporters, the tax is a break on the concentration of wealth and power and an easy way to fund redistribution. To opponents, the tax is an unjust punishment of the... View Details
- February 2014
- Article
Governance and CEO Turnover: Do Something or Do the Right Thing?
By: Ray Fisman, Rakesh Khurana, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Soojin Yim
We study how corporate governance affects firm value through the decision of whether to fire or retain the CEO. We present a model in which weak governance—which prevents shareholders from controlling the board—protects inferior CEOs from dismissal, while at the same... View Details
- January 2014 (Revised February 2016)
- Case
U.S. Government Debt and the Debate over a Balanced Budget Amendment
By: Matthew Weinzierl, Katrina Flanagan and Alastair Su
In the first decade of the 21st century, national debt as a share of GDP rose dramatically in the United States and across the developed world. This case consists of excerpts from leading commentators explaining and commenting on this trend and the economic and moral... View Details
- January 2014 (Revised May 2014)
- Background Note
Rail Transportation in the United States
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Matthew Guilford
In the 20th century, automobiles and airlines pushed rail into the background as an often-troubled and neglected mode. After a review of the long history of rail in the U.S., this paper examines the situation in the 21st century, including the rail market structure,... View Details
- January 2014 (Revised July 2016)
- Case
Samuel Slater & Francis Cabot Lowell: The Factory System in U.S. Cotton Manufacturing
By: Tom Nicholas and Matthew Guilford
At the time of the American War of Independence (1776-1783) and for several decades after it, Great Britain dominated the global production of cotton textiles. In fact, Britain became so dominant in textile manufacturing and trading that Manchester, its industrial... View Details
- December 2013 (Revised December 2014)
- Case
Reform in the Chicago Public Schools
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Katrina Flanagan
In 2012, the Chicago Teachers' Union went on strike over proposed reforms by the city's mayor, Rahm Emanuel. At the heart of the reforms, and the strike, was frustration over many decades of underperformance in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and a surge of... View Details
- November 2013 (Revised August 2015)
- Case
Janet Yellen and the Bernanke Fed
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Katrina Flanagan
The unelected Federal Reserve Chairman exerts exceptional influence over the U.S., in fact global, economy. As Janet Yellen prepared to take over the position, she would look back on Chairman Bernanke's tenure during the Great Recession. During that time, Bernanke was... View Details
- November 2013 (Revised January 2015)
- Case
Obamacare
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Katrina Flanagan
One vote in June, 2012, decided the fate of President Barack Obama's crowning first-term achievement: universal health insurance. Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court cast the deciding vote to uphold the keystone of the reform: the mandate to purchase... View Details