Publications

October 2009 (Revised June 2011)
Case

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

By: Frances X. Frei, Robin J. Ely and Laura Winig

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: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards; Service Delivery; Organizational Culture; Internet and the Web; Valuation; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

October 1991 (Revised January 2002)
Case

Butler Lumber Company

By: Thomas R. Piper

The Butler Lumber Co. is faced with a need for increased bank financing due to its rapid sales growth and low profitability. Students must determine the reasons for the rising bank borrowing, estimate the amount of borrowing needed, and assess the attractiveness of the... View Details

Keywords: Commercial Banking; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Strategy; Financing and Loans; Capital Structure; Forecasting and Prediction

September 2020
Case

An Introduction to Money Laundering: 'The Hunter'

By: Eugene Soltes, Guilhem Ros and Grace Liu

Money laundering schemes disguise the criminal origins of an estimated 2% to 5% of the world’s gross domestic product. Money laundering not only enables criminals to escape detection, but may also be used to finance further criminal operations including terrorism. This... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Accounting Audits; Financial Reporting; Financial Institutions; Banks and Banking; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Governance Controls; International Relations; National Security; Ethics; Accounting Industry; Banking Industry; United States; Europe

August 2013 (Revised November 2013)
Case

Gordon Brothers: Collateralizing Corporate Loans by Brands

By: Paul Healy and Maria Loumioti

The case explores the collateralization of intellectual property in a loan agreement between a highly leveraged apparel company and a large US bank. Leveraging intangibles in the credit market is a new practice that has significantly grown over the past few years.... View Details

Keywords: Intangible Assets; Accounting; Valuation; Finance; Restructuring; United States

Article

Corruption and Firms

By: Emanuele Colonnelli and Mounu Prem

We estimate the causal real economic effects of a randomized anti-corruption crackdown on local governments in Brazil using rich micro-data on corruption and firms. After anti-corruption audits, municipalities experience an increase in the number of firms concentrated... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Economy; Business and Government Relations; Policy; Brazil

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Article

How Much Should We Trust Staggered Difference-In-Differences Estimates?

By: Andrew C. Baker, David F. Larcker and Charles C.Y. Wang

We explain when and how staggered difference-in-differences regression estimators, commonly applied to assess the impact of policy changes, are biased. These biases are likely to be relevant for a large portion of research settings in finance, accounting, and law that... View Details

Keywords: Difference In Differences; Staggered Difference-in-differences Designs; Generalized Difference-in-differences; Dynamic Treatment Effects; Mathematical Methods

Article

Measuring the Effectiveness of Competition in Defense Procurement: A Survey of the Empirical Literature

By: James J. Anton and Dennis A. Yao

This article surveys the literature that has attempted to measure competition's effects on defense procurement. The focus is on conceptual underpinnings of models rather than technical aspects of estimation procedures. While providing valuable insight, the models are... View Details

Keywords: Performance Effectiveness; Competition; Surveys; Value; Economics; Forecasting and Prediction; Programs; Power and Influence; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques

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2023
Working Paper

Causal Interpretation of Structural IV Estimands

By: Isaiah Andrews, Nano Barahona, Matthew Gentzkow, Ashesh Rambachan and Jesse M. Shapiro

We study the causal interpretation of instrumental variables (IV) estimands of nonlinear, multivariate structural models with respect to rich forms of model misspecification. We focus on guaranteeing that the researcher's estimator is sharp zero consistent, meaning... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods

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April 2020 (Revised June 2022)
Technical Note

Quantitative Analysis in Marketing

By: Sunil Gupta

Marketing is a combination of art and science that requires both qualitative and quantitative analysis to arrive at effective decisions. This note highlights how quantitative analysis can help in the following marketing decisions: estimating market size, determining... View Details

Keywords: Quantitative Analysis; Marketing; Decision Making; Analysis

March 2011
Module Note

Quantitative Analysis of Competitive Position: Customer Demand and Willingness to Pay

By: David J. Collis

This note is designed to provide strategists with tools to perform two critical customer-related analyses: determining willingness to pay — the estimation of how much a given customer would be willing to pay for a particular product or service; and demand estimation —... View Details

Keywords: Price; Demand and Consumers; Competitive Advantage; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Market Participation; Segmentation

03 Nov 2020
Working Paper Summaries

An Executive Order Worth $100 Billion: The Impact of an Immigration Ban’s Announcement on Fortune 500 Firms’ Valuation

Keywords: by Dany Bahar, Prithwiraj Choudhury, and Britta Glennon

March 2001
Background Note

Extracting Information from the Futures and Forwards Markets: The Relation between Spot Prices, Forward Prices and Expected Future Spot Prices

Discounted cash flow valuation calls for using expected future prices of inputs or outputs. This case describes the relationship between spot prices, forward/future prices, and expected future prices. Knowing current forward and future prices alone is not enough to... View Details

Keywords: Price; Cash Flow; Valuation; Futures and Commodity Futures

November 2019
Case

Gillette: Cutting Prices to Regain Share

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

After losing market share to low-priced competitors such as Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club for several years, Gillette decided to fight back by launching new products and increasing advertising. When these efforts failed to stem the losses, Gillette decided to cut the... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Product Positioning; Business Strategy; Competition; Price; Public Equity; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States

June 2015 (Revised July 2016)
Case

Gilbert Lumber Company

By: Steven Rogers and Kenneth Cooper

The Gilbert Lumber Co. is faced with a need for increased bank financing due to its rapid sales growth and low profitability. Students must determine the reasons for the rising bank borrowing, estimate the amount of borrowing needed, and assess the attractiveness of... View Details

Keywords: Commercial Banking; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Strategy; Financing and Loans; Capital Structure; Forecasting and Prediction

August 2022
Article

Contract Duration and the Costs of Market Transactions

By: Alexander MacKay

The optimal duration of a supply contract balances the costs of reselecting a supplier against the costs of being matched to an inefficient supplier when the contract lasts too long. I develop a structural model of contract duration that captures this tradeoff and... View Details

Keywords: Supply Contracts; Intermediate Goods; Switching Costs; Vertical Relationships; Transaction Costs; Contract Duration; Identification; Supply Chain; Cost; Contracts; Auctions; Mathematical Methods

2012
Working Paper

Average Marginal Income Tax Rates in New Zealand, 1907-2009

By: Debasis Bandyopadhyay, Robert J. Barro, Jeremy Couchman, Norman Gemmell, Gordon Y Liao and Fiona McAlister

Estimates of marginal tax rates (MTRs) faced by individual economic agents, and for various aggregates of taxpayers, are important for economists testing behavioural responses to changes in those tax rates. This paper reports estimates of a number of personal marginal... View Details

Keywords: Average Marginal Income Tax Rates; New Zealand; Taxation; New Zealand

SSRN

31 May 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Corruption: New Insights for Fighting an Age-Old Business Problem

Keywords: Re: Tarun Khanna & Geoffrey G. Jones

September 2013 (Revised April 2014)
Case

Trader Joe's

By: David L. Ager and Michael A. Roberto

Based on a variety of metrics, Trader Joe's ranked as one of the most successful grocers in the United States in 2013. Experts estimated that the company had the highest sales per square foot of any major grocery chain, even significantly higher than top performer... View Details

Keywords: Core Competencies; Growth Strategy; Strategic Positioning; Industry Analysis; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

October 2007
Article

The Influence of Financial Statement Recognition and Analyst Coverage on the Market's Valuation of R&D Capital

By: Michael D. Kimbrough

Statement of Financial Accounting Standards 141 (SFAS No. 141)'s requirement that an acquirer in a business combination estimate the fair value of the target's separately identifiable assets and liabilities (including research and development capital) provides a rare... View Details

Keywords: Information; Value Creation; Fair Value Accounting; Research and Development; Financial Statements; Capital