Publications

Educators

Purchase

11 Sep 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Competing Complements

Keywords: by Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Barry Nalebuff & David B. Yoffie

2010
Working Paper

Competing Complements

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Barry Nalebuff and David B. Yoffie

In Cournot's model of complements, the producers of A and B are both monopolists. This paper extends Cournot's model to allow for competition between complements on one side of the market. Consider two complements, A and B, where the A + B bundle is valuable only when... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Revenue; Monopoly; Game Theory; Competition

01 Dec 2015
News

Complements to the Case Method

Learning by Doing: Stock Pitching When it comes to getting an edge in a stock trade, HBS finance professors Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy urge students to go straight to the source. “We encourage them to get out in the field and talk to managers and analysts,”... View Details

April 2013
Article

Information and Subsidies: Complements or Substitutes?

By: Nava Ashraf, B. Kelsey Jack and Emir Kamenica

Does providing information about a product affect the impact of price subsidies on purchases of new or unfamiliar products? This question is particularly relevant for the introduction of health products in developing countries where consumers may be uncertain about... View Details

Keywords: Subsidies; Information; Consumer Behavior; Health; Zambia

2012
White Paper

Robust Enforcement Should Complement Voluntary Regulation

By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel

Spurred by the anti-regulation movement that started in the 1970s, voluntary self-regulation programs have emerged in many regulatory agencies, seeking to increase cooperation between government and industry to achieve greater and more cost-effective compliance.... View Details

Keywords: Governance Compliance; Business and Government Relations

2005
Chapter

Wi-Fi: Complement or Substitute for 3G?

By: Stephen P. Bradley

Keywords: Wireless Technology; Technology Industry

23 Oct 2019
News

Hands-on Simulations Complement the Case Method

Don’t let the fact that first-year MBA students immerse themselves in the beer industry fool you—they are learning about product development by participating in an online simulation. In fact, the use and complexity of simulations in the MBA program has grown in the... View Details

Keywords: Educational Innovation

14 Nov 2017
News

How That Yelp Review Could Complement Government Data: Eco Pulse

11 Jul 2023
Blog Post

Second Life: Reflections on Complementing Success with an Encore Career

In 2015, Steve Kloeblen retired and thought he was done with the corporate world. A graduate of HBS Executive Education’s General Management Program, Kloeblen had more than 30 years of experience with IBM, culminating with his transition from CFO-type roles to success... View Details

June 2005
Article

How the Balanced Scorecard Complements the McKinsey 7-S Model

By: R. S. Kaplan

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard

Research Summary

Complement Distribution on Platforms: Browser Wars from an Industry Perspective

Empirical analysis of diffusion of new technolgoies, such as the browser, accounting for quality and distribution channels. Joint work with Tim Bresnahan. Exploits discrepancies in survey data to examine the role of information and awareness in consumer choice for... View Details

June 14, 2019
Article

Social Media Should Be a Complement to Real Life. Not a Substitute

By: Arthur C. Brooks

Aug 2013
Conference Presentation

Going into the Field: How Experiential Methods Complement Case-Based Teaching

By: Ranjay Gulati

08 Apr 2019
Blog Post

Second Life: Reflections on Complementing Success with an Encore Career

In 2015, Steve Kloeblen retired and thought he was done with the corporate world. A graduate of HBS Executive Education’s General Management Program, Kloeblen had more than 30 years of experience with IBM, culminating with his transition from CFO type roles to success... View Details

Keywords: Technology

2009
Working Paper

Strategic Interactions in Two-Sided Market Oligopolies

By: Emmanuel Farhi and Andrei Hagiu

Strategic interactions between two-sided platforms depend not only on whether their decision variables are strategic complements or substitutes as for one-sided firms, but also -and crucially so- on whether or not the platforms subsidize one side of the market in... View Details

Keywords: Two-Sided Markets; Strategic Complements; Strategic Substitutes; Cost; Investment; Profit; One-Sided Platforms; Two-Sided Platforms; Duopoly and Oligopoly; Competitive Advantage

August 2013 (Revised July 2024)
Case

Amazon in 2024

By: Sunil Gupta and Margaret L. Rodriguez

Amazon launched its website in July 1995 to sell books online and by 2020 it has grown to become a digital giant with over $280 billion in annual sales. A large part of its growth came from expanding into a variety of businesses that some see as unrelated. Has it... View Details

Keywords: Platforms; Complements; Showrooming; Ecosystem; Growth Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Network Effects; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Retail Industry; Publishing Industry

Educators

Purchase

Article

Platform Competition: Betfair and the U.K. Market for Sports Betting

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Neil Campbell

We examine two episodes of strategic interaction in the U.K. betting industry: (i) Betfair (an entrant multi-sided platform or MSP) vs. Flutter (also an MSP) and (ii) Betfair vs. traditional bookmakers. We find that although Betfair was an underfunded second mover in... View Details

Keywords: Platform Design; Betting; Complements; Competing Business Models; Co-opetition; Entry; Multi-Sided Platforms; Design; Network Effects; Business Model; Competition; Cooperation

Register to Read

Summer 2014
Article

When Does a Platform Create Value by Limiting Choice?

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Hanna Halaburda

We present a theory for why it might be rational for a platform to limit the number of applications available on it. Our model is based on the observation that even if users prefer application variety, applications often also exhibit direct network effects. When there... View Details

Keywords: Platform Governance; Direct Network Effects; Indirect Network Effects; Complements; Tragedy Of The Commons; Equilibrium Selection; Coordination; Foresight; Strategy; Value Creation; Digital Platforms; Balance and Stability; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Applications and Software; Network Effects

SSRN