Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(899)
- Faculty Publications (173)
- 2013
- Dissertation
Designing Freemium: A Model of Consumer Usage, Upgrade, and Referral Dynamics
By: Clarence Lee, Vineet Kumar and Sunil Gupta
Abstract. Over the past decade "freemium" (free + premium) has become the dominant business model among internet start-ups for its ability to acquire and monetize a large install-base with limited marketing resources. Freemium is a hybrid strategy where a firm offers... View Details
- Article
The Re-Industrialization of the United States?
By: Willy C. Shih
Talk of "re-industrialization" in the United States has been supported by a seeming resurgence in manufacturing, but this is driven more by the end of labor arbitrage and increasing coordination costs of offshore manufacturing. Aggressive restructurings and significant... View Details
Keywords: U.S. Competitiveness; Re-industrialization; Re-shoring; Operations; Production; Supply and Industry; Supply Chain; Supply Chain Management; Geographic Location; Geography; Globalization; Globalized Economies and Regions; Globalized Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Labor; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; China; European Union
- Article
When Talk Is "Free": The Effect of Tariff Structure on Usage Under Two- and Three-Part Tariffs
By: Eva Ascarza, Anja Lambrecht and Naufel Vilcassim
In many service industries, firms introduce three-part tariffs to replace or complement existing two-part tariffs. In contrast with two-part tariffs, three-part tariffs offer allowances, or “free” units of the service. Behavioral research suggests that the attributes... View Details
- July 2012 (Revised August 2012)
- Case
Global Knowledge Management at Danone (A) (Abridged)
By: Amy C. Edmondson and David Lane
This case explores French consumer goods company Danone's novel approach to knowledge management. In 2007, Human Resource Chief (Executive Vice President) Franck Mougin assesses the company's knowledge-sharing tools and considers his options going forward. Through... View Details
- July 2012
- Article
Discrete Choice Cannot Generate Demand That Is Additively Separable in Own Price
By: Sonia Jaffe and Scott Duke Kominers
We show that in a unit demand discrete choice framework with at least three goods, demand cannot be additively separable in own price. This result sharpens the analogous result of Jaffe and Weyl (2010) in the case of linear demand and has implications for testing of... View Details
- February 2012 (Revised January 2013)
- Case
The New York Times Paywall
On March 28, 2011, The New York Times website became a restricted site where most of the content was protected behind a "paywall." Users who exceeded the limit of 20 free articles per month were required to pay for either a digital or print subscription. The newspaper... View Details
- Fall 2011
- Article
A Brief Postwar History of U.S. Consumer Finance
By: Gunnar Trumbull and Peter Tufano
In this brief history of U.S. consumer finance since World War II, the sector is defined based on the functions delivered by firms in the form of payments, savings and investing, borrowing, managing risk, and providing advice. Evidence of major trends in consumption,... View Details
- June 2011 (Revised May 2012)
- Case
Nestlé SA: Nutrition, Health and Wellness Strategy
By: Rebecca M. Henderson and Ryan Johnson
In 1997 Nestlé committed to a strategic vision of becoming the leading nutrition, health and wellness (NHW) company in the world. Over the next 13 years, the NHW strategy guided strategic decisions and choices at Nestlé including merger and acquisition choices,... View Details
- Article
Advertising, the Matchmaker
By: Bharat N. Anand and Ron Shachar
We empirically study the informational role of advertising in matching consumers with products when consumers are uncertain about both observable and unobserved program attributes. Our focus is on the network television industry, in which the products are television... View Details
- April 2011
- Case
Samsung and Google TV
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Prithvi Raj and Crystal Jean Marrie
This case describes Samsung's decision on how to pursue the growing market opportunity for internet-connected televisions, which enable consumers to access a range of web-based content including basic information (e.g. stock quotes, weather, news headlines, RSS feeds,... View Details
- 2011
- Chapter
How Does Simplified Disclosure Affect Individuals' Mutual Fund Choices?
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
We use an experiment to estimate the effect of the SEC's Summary Prospectus, which simplifies mutual fund disclosure. Our subjects chose an equity portfolio and a bond portfolio. Subjects received either statutory prospectuses or Summary Prospectuses. We find no... View Details
- Article
The Social Utility of Feature Creep
By: Debora V. Thompson and Michael I. Norton
Previous research shows that consumers frequently choose products with too many features that they later find difficult to use. Our research shows that this seemingly suboptimal behavior may in fact confer benefits when factoring in the social context of consumption.... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
A Brief Postwar History of U.S. Consumer Finance
By: Andrea Ryan, Gunnar Trumbull and Peter Tufano
This article describes the consumer finance sector in the US since World War II. We first define the sector in terms of the functions delivered by firms (payments, savings/investing, borrowing, managing risk, and providing advice.) We provide time series evidence on... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
Cognitive Barriers to Environmental Action: Problems and Solutions
By: Lisa L. Shu and Max Bazerman
We explore interventions at the individual level and focus on recognized cognitive barriers from behavioral decision-making literature. In particular, we highlight three cognitive barriers that impede sound individual decision making that have particular relevance to... View Details
- February 2010 (Revised June 2012)
- Case
"Plugging In" the Consumer: The Adoption of Electrically Powered Vehicles in the U.S.
By: Elie Ofek and Polly Ribatt
How will U.S. consumers respond to the proliferation of alternative-fuel vehicles, such as cars powered partially or completely by electricity, in the coming decade? After a century in which fossil fuel-powered vehicles dominated the market, it appeared consumers would... View Details
- 2010
- Other Unpublished Work
God, Government and Outsiders: The Influence of Religious Beliefs on Depositor Behavior in an Emerging Market.
By: Ayesha K. Khan and Tarun Khanna
This paper provides evidence that religious beliefs can have a significant impact on individual financial choices. Using proprietary panel data on the distribution of bank deposits across all commercial banks in Pakistan over a 33-month period, I find that Islamic... View Details
- January 2010
- Case
DR Corporation
By: Roy D. Shapiro
DR Corporation is a manufacturer of major appliances. The traffic manager is facing a decision of selecting a carrier for the inbound movement of motors. The primary case decisions are 1) what factors are critical to the decision; 2) how to calculate the tradeoffs... View Details
- October 2009
- Article
Shaping Online Consumer Choice by Partitioning the Web
By: Jolie M. Martin and Michael I. Norton
This research explores how partitioning attributes in online search interfaces changes the valuations of those attributes-and impacts subsequent choice-such that attributes that are displayed as separate categories tend to receive greater decision weight than... View Details
- June 2009
- Article
Highbrow Films Gather Dust: Time-inconsistent Preferences and Online DVD Rentals
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman
We report on a field study demonstrating systematic differences between the preferences people anticipate they will have over a series of options in the future and their subsequent revealed preferences over those options. Using a novel panel data set, we analyze the... View Details
- 2009
- Working Paper
Principles that Matter: Sustaining Software Innovation from the Client to the Web
By: Marco Iansiti
Economic analysis often reviews the role of principles—such as respect for intellectual property rights—in driving innovation. Given the interdependent nature of innovation in information technology, three core principles have emerged that work together to ensure that... View Details