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Publications
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(1,027)
- Faculty Publications (211)
- 2008
- Working Paper
Where Does It Go? Spending by the Financially Constrained
By: Shawn A. Cole, John Thompson and Peter Tufano
In this paper, we analyze the spending decisions of over 1.5 million Americans who vary in their degree of revealed credit constraints. Specifically, we analyze how these Americans spend their income tax refunds, using transaction-level data from a stored-value card... View Details
- 2008
- Chapter
Life-Cycle Funds
By: Luis M. Viceira
The U.S. retirement system has experienced a substantial transformation in recent years. It has evolved from a system in which employees relied mainly on Social Security and professionally managed defined benefit (DB) pension plans sponsored by their employers to... View Details
- January 2008 (Revised July 2008)
- Case
Opportunity Partners
By: Robin Greenwood and James Quinn
Philip Goldstein, the principal in a growing hedge fund and prominent activist investor, has taken a position in a Mexico-based closed-end fund. Following a hard-fought proxy contest in which he advocated for management to eliminate the fund's substantial discount,... View Details
- January 2008
- Article
Nonemployment Stigma as Rational Herding: A Field Experiment
Long spells of unemployment are known to reduce the likelihood of re-employment, but it is difficult to discern the reasons for this observation. Using an experimental method that controls for search intensity and possible discouragement of job applicants, I document... View Details
- November 2007 (Revised March 2009)
- Case
Allston: Brand vs. Architecture
By: Andre F. Perold, Arthur I Segel and Christopher M. Gordon
Harvard President Lawrence Summers had presided over the final interviews of world-renowned architects being considered for the science complex planned for Harvard's expanded campus in Allston. The selection process had absorbed nine months in 2005 and amplified the... View Details
- Article
Learning and Equilibrium as Useful Approximations: Accuracy of Prediction on Randomly Selected Constant Sum Games
By: Ido Erev, Alvin E. Roth, R. Slonim and Greg Barron
- 2007
- Working Paper
Harnessing Our Inner Angels and Demons: What We Have Learned About Want/Should Conflicts and How That Knowledge Can Help Us Reduce Short-Sighted Decision Making
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman
Although observers of human behavior have long been aware that people regularly struggle with internal conflict when deciding whether to behave responsibly or indulge in impulsivity, psychologists and economists did not begin to empirically investigate this type of... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
A Taste For Obscurity: An Individual-Level Examination of 'Long Tail' Consumption
By: Anita Elberse
Because online retailers are often able to provide products in a more cost-efficient manner than bricks-and-mortar stores, online channels are characterized by a vast assortment of products. Proponents of the "long tail" principle recently argued that the demand for... View Details
- January 2007 (Revised November 2007)
- Case
Organic Growth at Wal-Mart
By: Jan W. Rivkin and Troy Smith
In 2005, an executive vice president at Wal-Mart must decide whether to expand the retailer's selection of organic food. The decision is made in the context of wider attempts to move the giant retailer slightly upscale and to focus on environmental sustainability. View Details
- 2006
- Working Paper
Future Lock-In: Future Implementation Increases Selection of 'Should' Choices
By: Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman
People often experience tension over certain choices (e.g., they should reduce their gas consumption or increase their savings, but they do not want to). Some posit that this tension arises from the competing interests of a deliberative "should" self and... View Details
- April 2006 (Revised March 2007)
- Case
Drexel Burnham Lambert (A): "The Smartest People on Wall Street Can be Had"
By: Boris Groysberg, Anahita Hashemi and Brendan Reed
In February 1990, Drexel Burnham Lambert declared bankruptcy amid a slew of scandals. Equities chief Arthur Kirsch hoped to keep his high-performing 600-person team intact. Could he find a company that would take on such a massive group hire? Competitors were already... View Details
- April 2006
- Background Note
Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World: Module 1: Innovation and Uncertainty
Describes the first module of a Harvard Business School 30-session elective course called Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World. The course helps students understand the challenges that uncertainty implies for innovation and how to overcome these challenges. The... View Details
- June 2005
- Article
Compensatory Transfers in Two-Player Decision Problems
By: Jerry R. Green
This paper presents an axiomatic characterization of a family of solutions to two-player quasi-linear social choice problems. In these problems the players select a single action from a set available to them. They may also transfer money between... View Details
- November 2004 (Revised March 2007)
- Case
10 Uncommon Values®: Optimizing the Stock-Selection Process
By: Paul M. Healy and Boris Groysberg
In 2003, Steve Hash, research director at Lehman Brothers, prepared to initiate the firm's "Ten Uncommon Values" stock-picking process for the year. An investment committee had to pick the 10 best stocks from about 100 stock ideas presented by the firm's analysts. The... View Details
- September 2004 (Revised August 2007)
- Case
Enterprise IT at Cisco (2004)
By: Andrew P. McAfee, F. Warren McFarlan and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
Illustrates the challenges associated with centralizing IT decisions at Cisco after a decade of decentralized planning and project funding. When Brad Boston became Cisco's new CIO in 2001, he found that managers were starting to get frustrated with the results of their... View Details
- October 2003 (Revised November 2006)
- Case
GE's Talent Machine: The Making of a CEO
By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Andrew N. McLean
GE believes its ability to develop management talent is a core competency that represents a source of sustainable competitive advantage. This case traces the development of GE's rich system of human resource policies and practices under five CEOs in the post-war era,... View Details
- October 2003 (Revised January 2004)
- Case
The 2001 Crisis in Argentina: An IMF-Sponsored Default? (A)
By: Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel
At the end of 2001, Argentina's economy and society both appeared on the verge of collapse. Furious about controls imposed on the convertibility of their bank deposits into cash (the "corralito") and huge proposed government spending cuts amidst high unemployment and... View Details
- July 2003 (Revised January 2004)
- Case
Carol Brewer's Investments
By: Richard S. Ruback and Julia Stevens
Following her husband's death in 1994, Carol Brewer took over the management of her family's investments. This case describes the decisions Brewer made during this process, including her choice to seek active account management, her selection of an investment firm, and... View Details
- July 2003 (Revised March 2004)
- Case
XM Satellite Radio (A)
By: David B. Godes and Elie Ofek
XM Satellite Radio is a radically new way to listen to radio. Management must develop a marketing strategy to launch the firm and the category. A crucial aspect of the strategy is to determine which of two business models the company will pursue. Should it focus... View Details
- May 2003
- Background Note
Customer Management Strategy in Business Markets
By: Das Narayandas
Describes in detail customer management strategies in business markets, including selection decisions, design and management of customer relationship strategies, monitoring the health of customer relations, and linking the vendors' customer management effort to... View Details