Publications

September 2018
Article

Aggregation of Consumer Ratings: An Application to Yelp.com

By: Weijia Dai, Ginger Jin, Jungmin Lee and Michael Luca

Because consumer reviews leverage the wisdom of the crowd, the way in which they are aggregated is a central decision faced by platforms. We explore this "rating aggregation problem" and offer a structural approach to solving it, allowing for (1) reviewers to vary in... View Details

Keywords: User Generated Content; Crowdsourcing; Yelp; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information; Internet and the Web; Learning; Mathematical Methods; E-commerce

09 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 9, 2008

Working PapersHow Firms Respond to Being Rated Authors:Aaron K. Chatterji, Michael W. Toffel Abstract While many independent rating systems are designed primarily to help buyers overcome information... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2018 (Revised July 2020)
Case

Nectar (A)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Thomas O. Jones

In late 2017, Nectar was a rapidly emerging player in the “bed-in-a-box” online market for direct-to-consumer foam memory mattresses. Barely a year old, it had achieved a revenue run rate of $85M and looked ahead to another year of blistering growth. The founding team... View Details

Keywords: Direct-to-consumer; Growth and Development Strategy; Product; Diversification; Decision Making; Growth Management; Entrepreneurship

November 2024
Article

Price Discounts and Cheapflation During the Post-Pandemic Inflation Surge

By: Alberto Cavallo and Oleksiy Kryvtsov

We study how within-store price variation changes with inflation, and whether households exploit it to attenuate the inflation burden. We use micro price data for food products sold by 91 large multi-channel retailers in ten countries between 2018 and 2024. Measuring... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Inflation and Deflation; Price; Consumer Behavior; Personal Finance; Product Positioning

May 2016 (Revised September 2016)
Case

Hillside Beach Club: Delivering the Ultimate Family Vacation in the Mediterranean

By: Rajiv Lal and Gamze Yucaoglu

In 2015, Edip Ilkbahar, HBC’s founder and CEO, was looking over the plans for a new branch in Cyprus. Since the inception of the company by the Alarko Group of companies in 1994, Ilkbahar’s company had enjoyed high occupancy, high guest satisfaction, and high... View Details

28 Jan 2013
Research & Ideas

Helping Yelp Create More Accurate Reviews

Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com, which explored how restaurant reviews on Yelp affect their bottom lines.) Reviewing The Reviewers After spending some time on Yelp, Luca questioned whether the site's star-based rating system (five stars for... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Food & Beverage

2008
Working Paper

Just Keep My Money! Supporting Tax-time Savings with U.S. Savings Bonds

By: Peter Tufano

This paper reports the results of a 2007 experiment testing if specific process simplification can foster increased take-up rates for savings products, particularly by low-to-moderate income (LMI) households. Tax refund recipients at certain H&R Block tax preparation... View Details

Keywords: Household; Income; Bonds; Investment; Personal Finance; Saving; Taxation; United States

November 2001 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Digital Angel

By: Youngme E. Moon and Kerry Herman

Digital Angel is considering the appropriate marketing plan for the launch of its new locator device. The device, a watch and pager worn in combination, provides GPS location information and monitors heart rate and body temperature via body sensors. Parents of young... View Details

Keywords: Information; Safety; Rights; Market Entry and Exit; Ethics; Product Launch; Brands and Branding; Product Development

20 Jan 2009
Research & Ideas

Risky Business with Structured Finance

modeling exercise (using the same computer tools employed by the ratings agencies) that demonstrates that the challenge of rating structured products lies in their extreme... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Banking; Financial Services

Forthcoming
Article

Improving Customer Compatibility with Tradeoff Transparency

By: Ryan W. Buell and MoonSoo Choi

Through a large-scale field experiment with 393,036 customers considering opening a credit card account with a nationwide retail bank, we investigate how providing transparency into an offering’s tradeoffs affects subsequent rates of customer acquisition and long-run... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Customer Selection; Customer Compatibility; Retention; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Marketing Strategy; Marketing Communications; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Banking Industry; Australia

November 2010
Article

The Litigation of Financial Innovations

By: Josh Lerner

This paper examines the litigation of patents relating to financial products and services. I show that these grants are being litigated at a rate 27 to 39 times greater than that of patents as a whole. The patents being litigated are disproportionately those issued to... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Lawsuits and Litigation; Finance

Spring 2011
Article

CSR as Reputation Insurance: Primum Non Nocere

By: Dylan B. Minor and John Morgan

We provide a theoretical framework showing how CSR activities can insure a firm against lost reputation in the face of adverse events. We offer evidence for this linkage through a case study and a multi-year analysis of stock price responses for S&P 500 companies... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility; Insurance; Risk Management; Marketing Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Reputation

March 17, 2021
Other Article

Beyond Pajamas: Sizing Up the Pandemic Shopper

By: Ayelet Israeli, Eva Ascarza and Laura Castrillo

A first look at how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted e-commerce apparel shopping in the US and the UK. Extensive analysis and interactive graphics utilizing millions of transactions.
While the pandemic is still playing out, our preliminary investigations... View Details

05 Oct 2016
What Do You Think?

Can the US Economy Regain the Growth and Prosperity of the Past?

Whose Job Is It to Rebuild the US Middle Class? Optimism among respondents to this month’s column concerning future United States growth rates hinges on whether the middle class can be restored. That’s a big contingency. Those commenting... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

January 2009 (Revised May 2011)
Case

China Mobile's Rural Communications Strategy

By: William C. Kirby, F. Warren McFarlan, G.A. Donovan and Tracy Manty

China Mobile was the world's leading mobile communications service provider with over 400 million customers. In some cities, its penetration rate was over 100%. With such huge successes, Chairman Wang Jianzhou was exploring ways to expand its customer base. Nearly... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Investment; Rural Scope; Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Telecommunications Industry; China