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- January 2014 (Revised November 2015)
- Background Note
Rational Choice and Managerial Decision-Making
By: Willy Shih
This note discusses Herbert Simon's notion of bounded rationality: how managers may sometimes make suboptimal choices because of their limited ability to access or process information. View Details
Keywords: Rational Choice; Bounded Rationality; Satisficing; Herbert Simon; Agenda-setting; Choice; Alternatives; Decision Making; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Judgments
Shih, Willy. "Rational Choice and Managerial Decision-Making." Harvard Business School Background Note 614-048, January 2014. (Revised November 2015.)
- 1984
- Working Paper
Earnings Variability and Variance Bounds Tests for Rationality of Stock Market Prices
By: Robert C. Merton and Terry A. Marsh
- April 2007
- Article
Getting Big Too Fast: Strategic Dynamics with Increasing Returns and Bounded Rationality
By: Rebecca M. Henderson, John Sterman, Eric Beinhocker and Lee Newman
Keywords: Strategy
Henderson, Rebecca M., John Sterman, Eric Beinhocker, and Lee Newman. "Getting Big Too Fast: Strategic Dynamics with Increasing Returns and Bounded Rationality." Management Science 53, no. 4 (April 2007): 683–696.
- June 1986
- Article
Dividend Variability and Variance Bounds Tests for the Rationality of Stock Market Prices
By: Robert C. Merton and Terry A. Marsh
Merton, Robert C., and Terry A. Marsh. "Dividend Variability and Variance Bounds Tests for the Rationality of Stock Market Prices." American Economic Review 76, no. 3 (June 1986): 483–498.
- 2007
- Working Paper
Choice, Rationality and Welfare Measurement
By: Jerry R. Green and Daniel A. Hojman
We present a method for evaluating the welfare of a decision maker, based on observed choice data. Unlike the standard economic theory of revealed preference, our method can be used whether or not the observed choices are rational. Paralleling the standard theory we... View Details
Green, Jerry R., and Daniel A. Hojman. "Choice, Rationality and Welfare Measurement." HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series, No. 2144, November 2007.
- Research Summary
Choice, Rationality and Welfare Measurement
By: Jerry R. Green
For the past century, economists have used the hypothesis that individual choice is based on rationality in their calculations of individual and collective welfare. The central ideas are that actual market choice reveal underlying preferences, and with a good set of... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Complexity and Hyperbolic Discounting
By: Benjamin Enke, Thomas Graeber and Ryan Oprea
A large literature shows that people discount financial rewards hyperbolically instead of exponentially. While discounting of money has been questioned as a measure of time preferences, it continues to be highly relevant in empirical practice and predicts a wide range... View Details
Keywords: Hyperbolic Discounting; Present Bias; Bounded Rationality; Cognitive Uncertainty; Behavioral Finance
Enke, Benjamin, Thomas Graeber, and Ryan Oprea. "Complexity and Hyperbolic Discounting." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 24-048, February 2024.
- 2008
- Working Paper
Learning Processes in Environmental Policy Making and Implementation
By: Alnoor Ebrahim
This paper explores how "learning" occurs in the context of environmental policy formulation and implementation. Rather than viewing policy learning as a rational and technocratic process, the emphasis here is on the political and institutional contexts within which... View Details
- 2008
- Chapter
Learning in Environmental Policymaking and Implementation
By: Alnoor Ebrahim
This paper explores how "learning" occurs in the context of environmental policy formulation and implementation. Rather than viewing policy learning as a rational and technocratic process, the emphasis here is on the political and institutional contexts within which... View Details
Keywords: Learning; Corporate Accountability; Policy; Government and Politics; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Natural Environment; Power and Influence; South Africa; Brazil
Ebrahim, Alnoor. "Learning in Environmental Policymaking and Implementation." In Strategic Environmental Assessment for Policies: An Instrument for Good Governance, edited by Kulsum Ahmed and Ernesto Sanchez-Triana. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2008. (Was HBS Working Paper 08-071.)
Thomas W. Graeber
Thomas Graeber is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches Negotiations in the MBA elective curriculum.
As an empirical behavioral and experimental... View Details
- 2016
- Other Teaching and Training Material
Organizational Behavior Reading: Decision Making
By: Francesca Gino, Max Bazerman and Katherine Shonk
This Reading argues that decision making is systematically flawed and introduces methods to improve decision-making effectiveness. The Essential Reading section covers the rational decision-making model and three important ideas that challenge it: Herbert Simon's... View Details
Gino, Francesca, Max Bazerman, and Katherine Shonk. "Organizational Behavior Reading: Decision Making." Core Curriculum Readings Series. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Publishing 8383, 2016. Electronic.
- 18 Jul 2012
- Research & Ideas
Penn State Lesson: Today’s Cover-Up was Yesterday’s Opportunity
them immediately? Many leaders strive for such a high degree of perfection that they are unwilling to admit mistakes. They feel tremendous external pressure to be perfect, but in reality they are far more successful when they are authentic. Were they to think View Details
- Article
Hinged Dissections Exist
By: Timothy G. Abbott, Zachary Abel, David Charlton, Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine and Scott Duke Kominers
We prove that any finite collection of polygons of equal area has a common hinged dissection. That is, for any such collection of polygons there exists a chain of polygons hinged at vertices that can be folded in the plane continuously without self-intersection to form... View Details
Abbott, Timothy G., Zachary Abel, David Charlton, Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, and Scott Duke Kominers. "Hinged Dissections Exist." Discrete & Computational Geometry 47, no. 1 (January 2012): 150–186.
- 2011
- Working Paper
Price Competition under Multinomial Logit Demand Functions with Random Coefficients
In this paper, we postulate a general class of price competition models with Mixed Multinomial Logit demand functions under affine cost functions. We first characterize the equilibrium behavior of this class of models in the case where each product in the market is... View Details
Keywords: Customers; Income Characteristics; Price; Product Marketing; Mathematical Methods; Competition; Segmentation
Allon, Gad, Awi Federgruen, and Margaret Pierson. "Price Competition under Multinomial Logit Demand Functions with Random Coefficients." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-030, October 2011.
- Summer 2012
- Article
Epistemic Contests and the Legitimacy of the World Trade Organization: The Brazil–USA Cotton Dispute and the Incremental Balancing of Interests
By: Arthur A. Daemmrich
The World Trade Organization (WTO) features prominently in studies of international institutions, often cast either as a tool of rich-world domination over the poorer South or as a neutral mediator facilitating a tariff-free world of economic prosperity. This article... View Details
Keywords: Organizations; Trade; Conflict and Resolution; Consumer Products Industry; Brazil; United States
Daemmrich, Arthur A. "Epistemic Contests and the Legitimacy of the World Trade Organization: The Brazil–USA Cotton Dispute and the Incremental Balancing of Interests." Special Issue on Dispute Settlement at the WTO. Trade, Law and Development 4, no. 1 (Summer 2012): 200–240.
- 26 Feb 2008
- First Look
First Look: February 26, 2008
(c) accountability in implementation. Examples are drawn from the experiences of South Africa and Brazil. Several preliminary factors are identified that may enhance policy learning, while acknowledging the constraints of bounded View Details
Keywords: Martha Lagace
- Web
The Founding of U.S. Steel and the Power of Public Opinion | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School
had an international presence in the world economy. “U.S. Steel was a giant—or a monster, depending on one’s perspective,” B. Mark Smith writes in Toward Rational Exuberance: The Evolution of the Modern Stock Market . 3 At Harvard... View Details
- 03 Oct 2023
- Research Event
Build the Life You Want: Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey Share Happiness Tips
come from? So, then I started looking back, reading other columns. I called him up. I said, you know what? You should make a book of all those columns and put that together as a book. And he actually did. And bound it and sent it to me.... View Details
Keywords: by HBS Staff
- 05 May 2011
- What Do You Think?
How Ethical Can We Be?
with whom we interact judge us differently than we judge ourselves? Phil Clark commented that "Ethics is in the 'eye of the beholder,' not the person carrying out the action." We may rationalize our behaviors depending on, as R.... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 24 Jun 2002
- Research & Ideas
Four Keys of Enduring Success: How High Achievers Win
each individual. It is uneven and unstable; it's never frozen at a moment in time. It is both rational and emotional. In the interviews they have conducted so far with successful people—those deemed by their peers to be in the top of... View Details
Keywords: by Martha Lagace