Publications

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December 2019
Technical Note

Technical Note on Bayesian Statistics and Frequentist Power Calculations

By: Amitabh Chandra and Ariel Dora Stern

This Technical Note provides an introduction to Bayes’ Rule and the statistical intuition that stems from it. In this note, we review the concepts that underlie Bayesian statistics, and we offer several simple mathematical examples to illustrate applications of Bayes’... View Details

Keywords: Bayesian Statistics; Mathematical Methods

23 Feb 2017
News

The power — and the fear — of knowing your cancer genome

August 2001
Case

Pharmaceutical Industry and the AIDS Crisis in Developing Countries, The

Explores the controversy over the pricing of AIDS drugs in poor countries. This issue has received wide publicity due to two events: 1) a court case in South Africa that seeks to force drug companies to license their patents and 2) the announcement by the Indian... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Developing Countries and Economies; Business and Government Relations; Pharmaceutical Industry; South Africa; India

2019
Working Paper

Voting Trusts and Antitrust: Rethinking the Role of Shareholder Rights and Private Litigation in Public Regulation, 1880s to 1930s

By: Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Laura Phillips Sawyer

Scholars have long recognized that the states’ authority to charter corporations bolstered their antitrust powers in ways that were not available to the federal government. But they have also argued that the growth of large-scale enterprises operating in national and... View Details

Keywords: Voting Trusts; Antitrust; Business and Shareholder Relations; Lawsuits and Litigation; History; United States

27 Jun 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Inter-Generational Investment

Keywords: by Nava Ashraf, Natalie Bau, Corinne Low, and Kathleen McGinn

February 2021
Article

Trust and Disintermediation: Evidence from an Online Freelance Marketplace

By: Grace Gu and Feng Zhu

As an intermediary improves trust between the two sides of its market to facilitate matching and transactions, it faces an increased risk of disintermediation: with sufficient trust, the two sides may circumvent the intermediary to avoid the intermediary’s fees. In... View Details

Keywords: Disintermediation; Intermediaries; Online Marketplace; Platform Strategy; Trust; Marketplace Matching; Digital Platforms

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25 Apr 2014
News

To Pay Or Not To Pay: Argentina And The International Debt Market

January 2001
Case

Abgenix and the XenoMouse

By: Robert J. Dolan

Abgenix has a unique method for generating antibodies useful in treating a number of diseases, including cancer. In early 2000, the company's cancer has performed very well in animal testing and is moving to early stage human testing. Abgenix must decide whether to... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Marketing Strategy; Health Testing and Trials; Risk and Uncertainty; Technological Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Science-Based Business; Biotechnology Industry

May 1999
Case

The Saga of Prince Jefri and KPMG (A): Mystery of the Missing Billions

By: Ashish Nanda

Accounting and law firms around the globe are following with great interest the progress through British courts of a lawsuit. Those familiar with the suit, filed by Prince Jefri of Brunei against the professional service firm KPMG Peat Marwick, remark that its judgment... View Details

Keywords: Conflict of Interests; Service Industry

Article

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Corporate Compliance Programs: Establishing a Model for Prosecutors, Courts, and Firms

By: Eugene F. Soltes

When prosecutors, courts, and regulators make charging and sentencing decisions, they must evaluate whether firms have effective compliance programs. Such evaluations are difficult because of the challenges associated with measuring effectiveness. Notably, these... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Evaluation

August 2020
Article

Trust in State and Non-State Actors: Evidence from Dispute Resolution in Pakistan

By: Daron Acemoglu, Ali Cheema, Asim I. Khwaja and James A. Robinson

Lack of trust in state institutions is a pervasive problem in many developing countries. This paper investigates whether information about improved public services can help build trust in state institutions and move people away from non-state actors. We find that... View Details

Keywords: Dispute Resolution; Lab-in-the-field Games; Legitimacy; Motivated Reasoning; Non-state Actors; State Capacity; Trust; Conflict and Resolution; Information; Developing Countries and Economies

19 Dec 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 19, 2017

precision medicines (LPMs) as those that use one or more relevant biomarkers. We then further segment trials based on the nature of the biomarker(s) used and other trial... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

22 May 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 22, 2018

trust, the two sides may circumvent the intermediary to avoid the intermediary’s fees. We investigate the relationship between increased trust and disintermediation by leveraging a randomized control trial... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

2014
Working Paper

Contraceptive Access and Fertility: The Impact of Supply-Side Interventions

By: Nava Ashraf, Erica Field and Jessica Leight

Declining fertility in both the developed and developing world has led to large and potentially welfare-enhancing changes in women's labor supply, education and investment in children in recent decades. However, it has been widely noted that the pace of this decline... View Details

Keywords: Fertility; Contraceptive Access; Zambia

14 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Understaffed and Overworked: What Now?

also help your work get noticed. "Keeping your head down under the burden of responsibilities will mean that your personal and strategic vision will be stymied within your own organization," Segil notes. If you miss the... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Michelman

April 2022
Teaching Note

CVS Health: Prescription for Transformation

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Catarina Martinez

In 2021, new CEO Karen Lynch (named the most powerful woman in business) considered the next transformation phase for CVS Health (a Fortune 5 corporate giant). The 2018 acquisition of Aetna insurance brought her to the company as part of its long evolution from a... View Details

Keywords: Health; COVID-19 Pandemic; Primary Care; Leadership; Change Management; Women Executives; Retail; Pharmacy; Pharmacy Benefit Manager; Clinical Trials; Vaccination; Acquisition; Innovation and Invention; Transformation; Retail Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry; United States

January 2013
Case

Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture (MM)

By: Frances X. Frei and Robin J. Ely

On July 17, 2009, Zappos.com, a privately-held online retailer of shoes, clothing, and other soft-line retail categories, learned that Amazon.com, a $19 billion multinational online retailer, had won its Board of Directors' approval to offer to merge the two companies.... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Internet and the Web; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry

Article

Ushering in Safe, Effective, Secure, and Ethical Medicine in the Digital Era

By: William J. Gordon, Andrea Coravos and Ariel Dora Stern

From clinical trials to care delivery, advanced, digitally enabled technologies and analytics offer new approaches to how we think about medicine, health, and biology. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this conversation, and forced a roadmap, once measured in years... View Details

Keywords: Digital Medicine; Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Safety; Ethics

Article

Contested Meanings of Freedom: Workingmen's Wages, the Company Store System and the Godcharles v. Wigeman Decision

By: Laura Phillips Sawyer

In 1886, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down a law that prohibited employers from paying wages in company store scrip and mandated monthly wage payments. The court held that the legislature could not prescribe mandatory wage contracts for legally competent... View Details

Keywords: Wages; Rights; Fairness; Lawsuits and Litigation; Laws and Statutes; Pennsylvania

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