Publications

2024
Working Paper

Consumer Inertia and Market Power

By: Alexander MacKay and Marc Remer

We study the pricing decisions of firms in the presence of consumer inertia. Inertia, which can arise from habit formation, brand loyalty, and switching costs, generates dynamic pricing incentives. These incentives mediate the impact of competition on market power in... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Inertia; Market Power; Dynamic Competition; Demand Estimation; Consumer Behavior; Markets; Performance; Competition; Price

SSRN

08 Jun 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Physician Beliefs and Patient Preferences: A New Look at Regional Variation in Health Care Spending

Keywords: by David Cutler, Jonathan Skinner, Ariel Dora Stern & David Wennberg; Health

15 Sep 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

Research Summary

Overview

By: Rob Markey

Most companies' leaders declare their commitment to delivering value to customers. Many have adopted language such as "customer-centric" or "customer-obsessed." Companies that consistently earn top marks for customer loyalty in their industry deliver total shareholder... View Details

Keywords: Customer Base Analysis; Customer Lifetime Value; Customer Experience; Customer Loyalty; Service Profit Chain; Management Accounting; Project Evaluation And Resource Allocation; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Satisfaction; Valuation; Customer Focus and Relationships

April 12, 2023
Article

Using AI to Adjust Your Marketing and Sales in a Volatile World

By: Das Narayandas and Arijit Sengupta

Why are some firms better and faster than others at adapting their use of customer data to respond to changing or uncertain marketing conditions? A common thread across faster-acting firms is the use of AI models to predict outcomes at various stages of the customer... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; AI and Machine Learning; Consumer Behavior; Technology Adoption; Competitive Advantage

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November 2000
Case

FireDrop

By: William A. Sahlman and Michael J. Roberts

Describes the evolution of FireDrop, a new venture-backed company that has developed a new platform for e-mail communication. The FireDrop application--called a Zaplet--allows for e-mails to be continually updated so they are current when read (rather than when sent).... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Internet and the Web; Communication Technology; Venture Capital; Technological Innovation; Information Technology Industry

September 2013 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Marquee: Reinventing the Business of Nightlife

By: Anita Elberse, Ryan Barlow and Sheldon Wong

In January 2013, nightlife impresarios Jason Strauss and Noah Tepperberg are celebrating the re-opening of their famed New York City–based nightclub Marquee. While most clubs are over within their first one and a half years, Strauss and Tepperberg managed to keep... View Details

Keywords: Creative Industries; Nightlife; Service Management; Entertainment; Fashion; Celebrities; Event Marketing; Risk Management; Customer Relationship Management; Change Management; Supply Chain Management; Music Entertainment; Product Marketing; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Las Vegas

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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2008
Chapter

Public Action for Public Goods: Theory and Evidence

By: Abhijit Banerjee, Lakshmi Iyer and Rohini Somanathan

This chapter focuses on the relationship between public action and access to public goods. It begins by developing a simple model of collective action which is intended to capture the various mechanisms that are discussed in the theoretical literature on collective... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Quality; Groups and Teams; Human Needs; Poverty; Welfare or Wellbeing; Public Administration Industry

09 Nov 2015
HBS Seminar

Paul Oyer, Fred H. Merrill Professor of Economics, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

August 2018
Article

Extrapolation and Bubbles

By: Nicholas Barberis, Robin Greenwood, Lawrence Jin and Andrei Shleifer

We present an extrapolative model of bubbles. In the model, many investors form their demand for a risky asset by weighing two signals: an average of the asset’s past price changes and the asset’s degree of overvaluation. The two signals are in conflict, and investors... View Details

Keywords: Bubble; Extrapolation; Volume; Price Bubble; Mathematical Methods

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2023
Working Paper

Sending Signals: Strategic Displays of Warmth and Competence

By: Bushra S. Guenoun and Julian J. Zlatev

Using a combination of exploratory and confirmatory approaches, this research examines how people signal important information about themselves to others. We first train machine learning models to assess the use of warmth and competence impression management... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Personal Characteristics; Perception; Interpersonal Communication

2008
Working Paper

'Fair Marriages:' An Impossibility

By: Bettina-Elisabeth Klaus

For the classical marriage model (introduced in Gale and Shapley, 1962) efficiency and envy-freeness are not always compatible, i.e., fair matchings do not always exist. However, for many allocation of indivisible goods models (see Velez, 2008, and references therein),... View Details

Keywords: Marketplace Matching; Fairness

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

14 Feb 2023
HBS Case

Is Sweden Still 'Sweden'? A Liberal Utopia Grapples with an Identity Crisis

Swedish capitalism is like.” Could this lead to the end of the high-tax “Swedish model” that like-minded nations have come to admire? Harvard Business School Professor Debora Spar, who has analyzed Sweden extensively, says no, the Swedish View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

March 2002 (Revised July 2004)
Case

RWE and the Proposal for a German Electricity Regulator

In April 2001, Dietmar Kuhnt, CEO of the German energy giant RWE, had to make a decision that would affect his company's future. Profits in the electricity sector depended heavily on regulatory rules that influenced industry structure and pricing. RWE had emerged... View Details

Keywords: Energy Generation; Governance Compliance; Business Strategy; Energy Industry; Germany

2011
Working Paper

The Flexible Substitution Logit: Uncovering Category Expansion and Share Impacts of Marketing Instruments

By: Qiang Liu, Thomas J. Steenburgh and Sachin Gupta

Different instruments are relevant for different marketing objectives (category demand expansion or market share stealing). To help brand managers make informed marketing mix decisions, it is essential that marketing mix models appropriately measure the different... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Mathematical Methods

06 Oct 2020
Blog Post

2+2 Where Are They Now Spotlight: Curtis Wu (MBA 2018)

Charles Cooney, taught me that the hardest problems often occur at interfaces between multiple sectors. The 2+2 program offered me a way to learn the language and tools I would need to tackle tough problems at the interface of science and... View Details

June 2019
Article

Social Risk, Fiscal Risk, and the Portfolio of Government Programs

By: Samuel G. Hanson, David S. Scharfstein and Adi Sunderam

We develop a model of government portfolio choice in which a benevolent government chooses the scale of risky projects in the presence of market failures and tax distortions. These two frictions generate motives to manage social risk and fiscal risk. Social risk... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Government and Politics; Programs

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