Publications

2020
Working Paper

Cutting the Gordian Knot of Employee Health Care Benefits and Costs: A Corporate Model Built on Employee Choice

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Barak D. Richman

The U.S. employer-based health insurance tax exclusion created a system of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) with limited insurance choices and transparency that may lock employed households into health plans that are costlier or different from those they prefer to... View Details

Keywords: After-tax Income; Consumer-driven Health Care; Health Care Costs; Health Insurance; Income Inequality; Tax Policy; Health Care and Treatment; Cost; Insurance; Employees; Income; Taxation; Policy; United States

2019
Working Paper

Fiscal Rules and Sovereign Default

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

Recurrent concerns over debt sustainability in emerging and developed nations have prompted renewed debate on the role of fiscal rules. Their optimality, however, remains unclear. We provide a quantitative analysis of fiscal rules in a standard model of sovereign debt... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Debt; Hyperbolic Discounting; Fiscal Rules; Sovereign Finance

Article

Buying (Quality) Time Predicts Relationship Satisfaction

By: A.V. Whillans, Jessie Pow and Joe J. Gladstone

Seven studies examine the association between time-saving purchases (e.g., housecleaning and meal delivery services) and relationship satisfaction. Study 1 uses an eleven-year longitudinal panel survey to show that increases in time-saving purchases predict long-term... View Details

Keywords: Personal Finance; Family and Family Relationships; Satisfaction; Well-being

2020
Working Paper

Capital Regulation and Product Market Outcomes

By: Ishita Sen and David Humphry

We present evidence of product market adjustments and asset reorganizations from the largest ever shift in risk regulation in a developed insurance market. Using proprietary data on insurance risk exposures from the Bank of England, we develop a measure of regulatory... View Details

Keywords: Non-traditional-non-insurance; Risk Regulation; Product Market Concentration; Small Vs. Large Insurers; Insurance Risk Exposure; Insurance; Risk and Uncertainty; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

20 May 2008
First Look

First Look: May 20, 2008

full-service bank; describes the competitive context of low-income sector of financing in Mexico; and reviews the decisions leading to the IPO in the Mexican Stock Exchange. Purchase this case:... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

17 Aug 2023
Research & Ideas

‘Not a Bunch of Weirdos’: Why Mainstream Investors Buy Crypto

wild ride. That is, until now. A new study by Harvard Business School professor Marco Di Maggio shows that on average, cryptocurrency investors have higher household incomes, live in wealthier and more educated ZIP codes, like to gamble,... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

August 2024
Case

Keurig: A Return to Growth

By: David Fubini and Patrick Sanguineti

By the early 2010s, Keurig Green Mountain (KGM) had lost the momentum that had made it the name in at-home coffee brewing in North America. Following a series of product missteps, negative media scrutiny, and ongoing challenges to its partner relationships, in late... View Details

Keywords: Turnaround; Mergers and Acquisitions; Decisions; Initial Public Offering; Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Going Public; Diversification; Expansion; Food and Beverage Industry

Educators

Purchase

2023
Working Paper

Saving and Consumption Responses to Student Loan Forbearance

By: Justin Katz

How do households adjust savings and consumption in response to liquidity from debt relief? I study this question using policy variation induced by federal student loan forbearance in the 2020 CARES Act and an individual-level panel of daily financial transactions for... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Consumer Behavior; Borrowing and Debt; Interest Rates; Financial Liquidity; Personal Finance; Government Legislation

Web

Placement - Doctoral

Samuel G. Hanson Talia B. Gillis Business Economics, 2022 Placement: Columbia Law School, Associate Professor of Law Dissertation: Essays in Household Finance and Consumer Protection Advisors: John Beshears... View Details

April 2021
Article

A Model of Multi-Pass Search: Price Search Across Stores and Time

By: Navid Mojir and K. Sudhir

In retail settings with price promotions, consumers often search across stores and time. However, the search literature typically only models one pass search across stores, ignoring revisits to stores; the choice literature using scanner data has modeled search across... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Search; Multi-pass Search; Price Search; Store Search; Spatial Search; Temporal Search; Spatiotemporal Search; Dynamic Structural Models; MPEC; Price Promotions; Store Loyalty; Consumer Behavior; Price; Spending; Marketing; Mathematical Methods

Find at Harvard

22 Jul 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Banks as Patient Fixed-Income Investors

Keywords: by Samuel G. Hanson, Andrei Shleifer, Jeremy C. Stein & Robert W. Vishny; Banking

2020
Working Paper

Revenue Collapses and the Consumption of Small Business Owners in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: Olivia S. Kim, Jonathan A. Parker and Antoinette Schoar

Using detailed transaction-level data from financial accounts, this paper shows that the revenues of small businesses and the consumption spending of their owners both decline by roughly 40% following the declaration of the national emergency in March 2020. However,... View Details

Keywords: Revenue; Small Business; Health Pandemics; Spending

Find at Harvard

Purchase

10 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 10

three flat panel TV brands, along with Samsung and Sony. Faced with intensifying price pressure from the industry leaders and an unprecedented economic recession, Wang wondered how VIZIO could best sustain its growth and finance its... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2008
Working Paper

Finding Missing Markets (and a disturbing epilogue): Evidence from an Export Crop Adoption and Marketing Intervention in Kenya

By: Nava Ashraf, Xavier Gine and Dean Karlan

In much of the developing world, many farmers grow crops for local or personal consumption despite export options which appear to be more profitable. Thus many conjecture that one or several markets are missing. We report here on a randomized controlled trial conducted... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Developing Countries and Economies; Trade; Profit; Product Marketing; Standards; Failure; Risk and Uncertainty; Non-Governmental Organizations; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Service Industry; Kenya; Europe

23 Jun 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Using Financial Innovation to Support Savers: From Coercion to Excitement

Keywords: by Peter Tufano & Daniel Schneider; Financial Services

September 2021 (Revised December 2021)
Case

STARZPLAY: Shooting for the Stars

By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini and Alpana Thapar

In mid-2021, Maaz Sheikh, cofounder and CEO of STARZPLAY, a Dubai-based subscription video on demand (SVOD) provider that catered to the Middle East and North Africa region, was wrestling with how to find the right balance between continued subscriber growth and... View Details