Publications

Article

Portfolio Value-at-Risk Optimization for Asymmetrically Distributed Asset Returns

By: Joel Goh, Kian Guan Lim, Melvyn Sim and Weina Zhang

We propose a new approach to portfolio optimization by separating asset return distributions into positive and negative half-spaces. The approach minimizes a newly-defined Partitioned Value-at-Risk (PVaR) risk measure by using half-space statistical information. Using... View Details

Keywords: Robust Optimization; Portfolio Management; Value-at-risk; Mathematical Methods; Finance

August 25, 2022
Article

Find the Right Pace for Your AI Rollout

By: Rebecca Karp and Aticus Peterson

Implementing AI can introduce disruptive change and disfranchise staff and employees. When members are reluctant to adopt a new technology, they might hesitate to use it, push back against its deployment, or use it in limited capacity — which affects the benefits an... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Change Management

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February 2009 (Revised March 2009)
Case

AFSCME vs. Mozilo...and "Say on Pay" for All! (A)

By: Fabrizio Ferri and James Weber

Union seeks to protect its pension funds through shareholder activism focused on corporate governance and executive compensation. The case uses Countrywide Financial as an example. Richard Ferlauto, director of pensions and benefits policy at the AFSCME, the largest... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Mortgages; Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Labor Unions; Business and Shareholder Relations; United States

21 Feb 2014
News

Why myRa is not the way to save for retirement

15 Dec 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation

Keywords: by Benjami Lockwood, Afras Y. Sial, and Matthew C. Weinzierl

December 1997 (Revised September 2014)
Exercise

Discount and Hawkins Exercise: Confidential Instructions for Landlord

By: Michael A. Wheeler

This simulation involves a negotiation between a real estate developer and a prospective anchor tenant in a proposed shopping center. Students are assigned roles, given confidential information, and asked to try to break the impasse over the "use, assignment, and... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Leasing; Real Estate Industry

December 2011
Case

Roger Caracappa: Package Deals for the Estée Lauder Companies

By: James K. Sebenius

Roger Caracappa must negotiate a cost-saving, innovative proposal from a potential French supplier that could displace the otherwise satisfactory, long-time incumbent supplier. Shortly after being promoted to executive vice president of the Estée Lauder Companies with... View Details

Keywords: Operations; Supply Chain Management; Change; Innovation and Invention; Cost vs Benefits; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

Educators

April 2018
Case

The Bayer - Monsanto Merger: GMOs and 'Science for a Better Life'

By: Martha J. Crawford and James Barnett

This case allows students to explore the economic, ethical and legal challenges faced by agri-business companies, after several decades of promoting and selling Genetically Modified (GM) crops. Starting in the 1980s, the widespread introduction of GM crops was... View Details

Keywords: Merger; Acquisition; GMO; Genetically Modified Crops; Neonics; Pesticides; Crop Seeds; EU; Mergers and Acquisitions; Agribusiness; Genetics; Natural Environment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Consolidation; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Europe; United States

Educators

September – October 2008
Article

Care Platforms: A Basic Building Block for Care Delivery

By: Richard Bohmer and David Lawrence

Without significant operational reform within the nation's health care delivery organizations, new financing models, payment systems, or structures are unlikely to realize their promise. Adapting insights from high-performing companies in other high-risk, high-cost,... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Management Systems; Standards; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Business Processes; Organizational Design; Customization and Personalization; Health Industry

March 2009 (Revised April 2009)
Case

AFSCME vs. Mozilo...and "Say on Pay" for All! (A) (Abridged)

By: Fabrizio Ferri and James Weber

Richard Ferlauto, director of pensions and benefits policy at the AFSCME, the largest public sector workers union in the U.S., was responsible for protecting the pensions of its members. Because pensions were invested for decades, Ferlauto wanted the companies in which... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Investment; Investment Activism; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations; United States

Educators

December 1997 (Revised September 2014)
Exercise

Discount and Hawkins Exercise: Confidential Instructions for Tenant

By: Michael A. Wheeler

This simulation involves a negotiation between a real estate developer and a prospective anchor tenant in a proposed shopping center. Students are assigned roles, given confidential information, and asked to try to break the impasse over the "use, assignment, and... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Leasing

05 Jul 2006
What Do You Think?

How Important Is “Executive Intelligence” for Leaders?

case. For example, Rowland Freeman opined, "Intelligence is of value, but more important is demonstrated common sense. Some of the most intelligent leaders I have known were failures at leadership." As Malvin Bernal put it,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Article

Scenario Generation for Long Run Interest Rate Risk Assessment

By: Robert F. Engle, Guillaume Roussellet and Emil N. Siriwardane

We propose a statistical model of the term structure of U.S. treasury yields tailored for long-term probability-based scenario generation and forecasts. Our model is easy to estimate and is able to simultaneously reproduce the positivity, persistence, and factor... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting; Stress Testing; Interest Rates; Forecasting and Prediction; Risk Management; United States

06 May 2002
Research & Ideas

A Toolkit for Customer Innovation

development project at BBA might progress in the following way: A customer requests a meaty flavor for a soy product, and the sample must be delivered within a week. BBA marketing professionals and... View Details

Keywords: by Stefan Thomke & Eric Von Hippel

August 2015
Article

Pricing and Efficiency in the Market for IP Addresses

By: Benjamin Edelman and Michael Schwarz

We consider market rules for transferring IP addresses, numeric identifiers required by all computers connected to the Internet. Transfers usefully move resources from lowest- to highest-valuation networks, but transfers tend to cause socially costly growth in the... View Details

Keywords: Externalities; Intermediaries; Market Design; Internet; Web Services Industry; Telecommunications Industry

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15 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

Why Americans Voted for an Income Tax

have long balanced competing notions of fairness when deciding on policy toward the poor. We want everyone to pitch in, to pay their "fair share," so we have moved away from making cash transfers to low-income households and have avoided View Details

Keywords: by Matthew C. Weinzierl

19 May 2015
News

Getting Ready for Success

began volunteering with foster kids, taking them the symphony, the ballet, and museums. But the adoption request was a game-changer. “That day, I realized while we made their day, we hadn’t done anything that improved a life trajectory... View Details

Keywords: Jill Radsken; Educational Services

Article

Towards a Bill of Rights for Online Advertisers

By: Benjamin Edelman

Online advertising presents remarkable efficiencies—better targeting, improved measurement and greater return on investment. Yet there are challenges, particularly when networks of intermediaries place ads through convoluted relationships, and all the more so when... View Details

Keywords: Online Advertising; Rights; Measurement and Metrics; Investment Return; Negotiation; Networks; Problems and Challenges; Performance Efficiency; Law; Advertising Industry