Publications

2012
Article

Do Voters Demand Responsive Governments? Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief

By: Shawn Cole, Andrew Healy and Eric Werker

Using rainfall, public relief, and election data from India, we examine how governments respond to adverse shocks and how voters react to these responses. The data show that voters punish the incumbent party for weather events beyond its control. However, fewer voters... View Details

Keywords: Political Elections; System Shocks; Natural Disasters; Policy; Motivation and Incentives; Public Opinion; India

February 2021
Article

Topic Classification of Electric Vehicle Consumer Experiences with Transformer-Based Deep Learning

By: Sooji Ha, Daniel J Marchetto, Sameer Dharur and Omar Isaac Asensio

The transportation sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and is a driver of adverse health effects globally. Increasingly, government policies have promoted the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) as a solution to mitigate GHG emissions.... View Details

Keywords: Natural Language Processing; Analytics and Data Science; Environmental Sustainability; Infrastructure; Transportation; Policy

June 2021
Article

Engineering Serendipity: When Does Knowledge Sharing Lead to Knowledge Production?

By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, Eva C. Guinan and Karim R. Lakhani

We investigate how knowledge similarity between two individuals is systematically related to the likelihood that a serendipitous encounter results in knowledge production. We conduct a natural field experiment at a medical research symposium, where we exogenously... View Details

Keywords: Cognitive Similarity; Innovation; Knowledge Production; Natural Field Experiment; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Sharing; Relationships

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08 May 2023
Research & Ideas

How Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Crushed Crowdfunding for Minority Entrepreneurs

but that gap triples during periods of high public anxiety over immigration in the United States. “When there is the greatest anxiety, we see this funding shortfall.” Banks have historically rejected loan applications from Black, Asian,... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

February 2016
Article

Bridging Science and Technology Through Academic-Industry Partnerships

By: Sen Chai and Willy C. Shih

Partnerships that foster the translation of scientific advances emerging from academic research organizations into commercialized products at private firms are a policy tool that has attracted increased interest. This paper examines empirical data from the Danish... View Details

Keywords: Economic Development; Technological Change; Government Policy; Technological Innovation; Research and Development; Information Technology; Policy; Technology Industry; Denmark

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2024
Working Paper

The Value of Open Source Software

By: Manuel Hoffmann, Frank Nagle and Yanuo Zhou

The value of a non-pecuniary (free) product is inherently difficult to assess. A pervasive example is open source software (OSS), a global public good that plays a vital role in the economy and is foundational for most technology we use today. However, it is... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software

23 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 23

port their data between products securely and reliably. This paper reviews the rationale for these principles and examines their impact on competition in the cloud computing ("Internet-software") environment. Download the paper:... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

September 2023
Module Note

Live Case Exercise for Financial Reporting

By: Tatiana Sandino and Marshal Herrmann

Harvard Business School employs the case method as a cornerstone of its pedagogy, providing students with opportunities to engage in discussions related to difficult or contentious decisions confronted by real-world organizations. In this “live case,” we depart from... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Research; Corporate Disclosure

2017
Working Paper

Firm Selection and Corporate Cash Holdings

By: Juliane Begenau and Berardino Palazzo

Among stock market entrants, more firms over time are R&D intensive with initially lower profitability but higher growth potential. This sample-selection effect determines the secular trend in U.S. public firms’ cash holdings. A stylized firm industry model allows us... View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Market Entry and Exit; Supply and Industry; Research and Development

SSRN

10 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

COVID-19 Lessons: Social Media Can Nudge More People to Get Vaccinated

data scientist at Amazon; and Nils Wernerfelt, an economist at Meta, Facebook’s parent company. In one of the largest studies of its kind, Luca and his coauthors analyzed more than 800 public health... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis; Health; Technology

09 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Unilever—A Case Study

many foreign firms have experienced significant and sustained problems in the United States, though it is also possible to counter such reports with case studies of sustained success. 8 During the 1990s a series of aggregate studies using tax and other View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation; Food & Beverage; Manufacturing; Retail

Article

ESG Integration in Investment Management: Myths and Realities

By: Sakis Kotsantonis, Christopher Pinney and George Serafeim

The authors’ aim in this article is to set the record straight on the financial performance of sustainable investing while also correcting a number of other widespread misconceptions about this rapidly growing set of principles and methods. Myth Number 1:... View Details

Keywords: ESG; Sustainability; Investment Management; Finance; Corporate Social Responsibility; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Investment; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance

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Research Summary

Reforming Social Science

By: Max H. Bazerman

Social science research affects all of us. When researchers learned organ donation rates are higher in countries where human organs are automatically available for donation unless you specifically “opt-out” of the system, as opposed to countries like the U.S., where... View Details

26 May 2022
HBS Case

Apple vs. Feds: Is iPhone Privacy a Basic Human Right?

Apple CEO Tim Cook didn’t come to his post with an activist agenda, yet when law enforcement officials began pressuring the company to hand over iPhone users’ data without their permission, Cook took what he believed was a moral stance to... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

2013
Article

The Strategic Fitness Process: A Collaborative Action Research Method for Developing Organizational Prototypes and Dynamic Capabilities

By: Michael Beer

Organizations underperform and sometimes fail because their leaders are unable to learn the unvarnished truth from relevant stakeholders about how the design and behavior of the organization is misaligned with its goals and strategy. The Strategic Fitness Process (SFP)... View Details

Keywords: Organization Alignment; Dynamic Capabilities; Organization Design; Organizational Prototyping; Organizational Silence; Organizational Learning; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Organizational Design

Article

Creating Firm Disclosures

By: Amir Amel-Zadeh, Alexandra Scherf and Eugene F. Soltes

Managers expend significant time and effort preparing disclosures about firm performance and strategy. Although prior literature has explored how variation in the style and presentation of disclosures impacts investors' perceptions of firms, little is known about how... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure; Earnings Conference Call; Field Study; MD＆A; Textual Analysis; Corporate Disclosure

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July 19, 2021
Article

Do Most Family Businesses Really Fail by the Third Generation?

By: Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer

Perhaps the most commonly-cited statistic about family businesses is their failure rates. Most articles or speeches about family businesses start with some version of the “three-generation rule,” which suggests that most don’t survive beyond three generations. But that... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Success; Perception

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January 2014
Article

Networks and Productivity: Causal Evidence from Editor Rotations

By: J. Brogaard, J. Engelberg and Christopher Parsons

Using detailed publication and citation data for over 50,000 articles from 30 major economics and finance journals, we investigate whether network proximity to an editor influences research productivity. During an editor's tenure, his current university colleagues... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Performance Productivity; Education Industry; Journalism and News Industry; Publishing Industry