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14 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Keeping Credit Flowing to Consumers in Need

credit crunch? Nicolas P. Retsinas: In 2007 the nonprime mortgage market crumbled. Many of these products were predicated on ever-rising home values, which would enable owners... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services; Construction; Real Estate

Bank Capital and the Low Risk Anomaly

Minimum capital requirements are a central tool of banking regulation. Setting them balances a number of factors, including any effects on the cost of capital and in turn the rates available to borrowers. Standard theory predicts that, in perfect and efficient... View Details

March 1993 (Revised April 1995)
Case

Signalling Costs

NutraSweet's worldwide patent-protected monopoly on aspartame, the low-calorie high-intensity sweetener, ended with the 1987 entry of the Holland Sweetener Co. (HSC) into the European market. Following the arrival of a challenger, NutraSweet acted to reduce sharply the... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Competition; Price; Market Entry and Exit; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Europe

2011
Book

Moving Forward: The Future of Consumer Credit and Mortgage Finance

By: Nicolas P. Retsinas and Eric Belsky

The recent collapse of the mortgage market revealed fractures in the credit market that have deep roots in the system's structure, conduct, and regulation. The time has come for a clear-eyed assessment of what happened and how the system should be strengthened and... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Capital Markets; Credit; Financial Markets; Mortgages; Personal Finance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Demand and Consumers; Financial Services Industry

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09 Mar 2016
Lessons from the Classroom

In This Classroom, Beer Can Improve Your Grade

Universidad Catolica de Chile. In 2013, these two research collaborators came up with the idea of creating a simulation. The resulting technical manual (which they make... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Education; Food & Beverage

The Discipline of Business Experimentation

The data you already have can't tell you how customers will react to innovations. To discover if a truly novel concept will succeed, you must subject it to a rigorous experiment. In most companies, tests do not adhere to scientific and statistical principles. As... View Details

January 2015 (Revised November 2016)
Case

Stella McCartney

By: Anat Keinan and Sandrine Crener

Stella McCartney launched her own fashion house under her name in a partnership with the luxury conglomerate Kering as a 50/50 joint venture in 2001. A lifelong vegetarian, Stella McCartney does not use any leather or fur in her collections, which include women's... View Details

February 1997 (Revised March 1998)
Case

Smith Breeden Associates: The Equity Plus Fund (A)

By: Robert C. Merton and Alberto Moel

In early 1997, Smith Breeden Associates, a money management and consulting firm, was pondering the future of the Equity Plus Fund. The Equity Plus Fund was an S&P enhanced-index fund that tried to outperform the S&P Index by replicating the index using low-cost... View Details

Keywords: Assets; Cash; Financial Markets; Financial Strategy; Mortgages; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Marketing; Performance; Consulting Industry

02 Aug 2020
What Do You Think?

Is the 'Experimentation Organization' Becoming the Competitive Gold Standard?

Korrawin SUMMING UP Will Digital Experimentation Take Hold in Industies Outside High Tech? The several responses to this month’s column generally were favorable to the notion... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Technology

October 2009 (Revised April 2010)
Case

Societe Generale (A): The Jerome Kerviel Affair

By: Francois Brochet

This case illustrates the tension/balance that firms with complex and risky business models must consider in designing their internal controls. It describes the environment in which a derivatives trader engaged in massive directional positions on major European stocks... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Problems and Challenges; Complexity; Cost Management; Balance and Stability; Business Model; Design; Stocks; Crisis Management; Financial Markets; Consulting Industry; Europe

This paper proposes a new approach to social cost-benefit analysis using a model in which a benevolent government chooses risky projects in the presence of market failures and tax distortions. The government internalizes market failures and therefore perceives project... View Details

05 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

Are Virtual Tours Still Worth It in Real Estate? Evidence from 75,000 Home Sales

5 percent sales price rise by using visual tools—but it might help sellers in many other ways.” “Maybe in a time where you couldn't really go and see how it was View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Real Estate

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

corporate leaders about the purpose of and means for change. In effect these two approaches to organizational change represent theories in use by... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

November 1998 (Revised February 1999)
Case

Bolsa de Valores de Guayaquil (BVG): Reaching Worldwide Investors Through the Internet

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Ramiro Montealegre, Dusya Vera and Karen Barone

The Guayaquil Stock Exchange developed a Web site to provide information about the market in Ecuador. Though the system provided some dynamic information for potential investors and allowed for some transactions to occur via the Internet, it had not at the time of the... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Foreign Direct Investment; Emerging Markets; Internet; Technology Industry; Ecuador

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2006
Working Paper

The Value of a 'Free' Customer

By: Sunil Gupta, Carl F. Mela and Jose M. Vidal-Sanz

Central to a firm's growth and marketing policy is the revenus and profit potential of its customer assets. As a result, there has been a recent proliferation of work regarding customer lifetime value. However, extant research in this area is silent regarding how to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Auctions; Network Effects; Business Strategy

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03 Oct 2005
What Do You Think?

What’s the Future of Globally Organized Labor?

of 'we're all in the same lifeboat' is a useful one, both for management . . . and for unions . . . " Tim Pinel is more optimistic. He says "Perhaps View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2009
Working Paper

Prices or Knowledge? What Drives Demand for Financial Services in Emerging Markets?

By: Shawn A. Cole, Thomas Sampson and Bilal Zia

Financial development is critical for growth, but its micro-determinants are not well understood. We test leading theories of low demand for financial services in emerging markets, combining novel survey evidence from Indonesia and India with a field experiment. We... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Saving; Knowledge Acquisition; Emerging Markets; Motivation and Incentives; Financial Services Industry; India; Indonesia