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- December 2023
- Article
What Can Stockouts Tell Us About Inflation? Evidence from Online Micro Data
By: Alberto Cavallo and Oleksiy Kryvtsov
We use a detailed micro dataset on product availability and stockouts to construct a direct high-frequency measure of consumer product shortages during the 2020-2022 pandemic. We document a widespread multi-fold rise in stockouts in nearly all sectors early in the... View Details
Keywords: Prices; Stockouts; Inventories; Supply Disruptions; COVID-19 Pandemic; Supply Chain; Product; Demand and Consumers
Cavallo, Alberto, and Oleksiy Kryvtsov. "What Can Stockouts Tell Us About Inflation? Evidence from Online Micro Data." Journal of International Economics 146 (December 2023).
- 26 Jun 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Inventory Management for Mobile Money Agents in the Developing World
- October 1992 (Revised September 1993)
- Case
L.L. Bean, Inc.: Item Forecasting and Inventory Management
L.L. Bean must make stocking decisions on thousands of items sold through its catalogs. In many cases, orders must be placed with vendors twelve or more weeks before a catalog lands on a customer's doorstep, and commitments cannot be changed thereafter. As a result,... View Details
Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Risk Management; Cost Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Demand and Consumers; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Retail Industry; United States
Schleifer, Arthur, Jr. "L.L. Bean, Inc.: Item Forecasting and Inventory Management." Harvard Business School Case 893-003, October 1992. (Revised September 1993.)
- Research Summary
Performance Impact of Continuous Replenishment Systems
Janice H. Hammond has conducted (with Ted Clark of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) a survey of U.S. retailers to determine how the implementation of continuous replenishment programs between manufacturers and retailers affects supply channel... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Show or Tell? Improving Agent Decision Making in a Tanzanian Mobile Money Field Experiment
By: Jason Acimovic, Chris Parker, David F. Drake and Karthik Balasubramanian
When workers make operational decisions, the firm's global knowledge and the workers’ domain-specific knowledge complement each other. Oftentimes workers have the final decision-making power. Two key decisions a firm makes when designing systems to support these... View Details
Keywords: Employees; Decision Making; Training; Performance Improvement; Money; Mobile Technology; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Services Industry
Acimovic, Jason, Chris Parker, David F. Drake, and Karthik Balasubramanian. "Show or Tell? Improving Agent Decision Making in a Tanzanian Mobile Money Field Experiment." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-106, May 2018.
- February 2024
- Teaching Note
Accelerating with Caution: Forecasting and Managing birddogs' Growth (A) and (B)
By: Mark Egan
Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 224-023 and 224-024. As 2017 was drawing to a close, birddogs’ founder and CEO, Peter Baldwin, was working with his CFO Jack Sullivan to prepare for 2018. A nascent direct-to-consumer apparel brand, birddogs had carved its niche in men’s... View Details
- June 1994 (Revised October 1999)
- Background Note
Beer Game, The: Board Version
The beer game is an exercise that demonstrates supply channel dynamics. Simulates the flow of material and information in a simplified channel of beer production and distribution, focusing on the linkages among a beer manufacturer, its distributors, a wholesaler, and a... View Details
Keywords: Cost Management; Information; Distribution Channels; Production; Supply Chain Management; Problems and Challenges
Hammond, Janice H. "Beer Game, The: Board Version." Harvard Business School Background Note 694-104, June 1994. (Revised October 1999.)
- September 1991 (Revised December 1993)
- Case
Tombow Pencil Co. Ltd.
Tombow Pencil Co. Ltd., one of Japan's two premier pencil manufacturers, has been using a subcontractor network in order to respond to changing market conditions. The system currently faces a new challenge as Tombow moves to address a volatile business market for... View Details
Mishina, Kazuhiro. "Tombow Pencil Co. Ltd." Harvard Business School Case 692-011, September 1991. (Revised December 1993.)
- April 2021
- Article
A Model of Multi-Pass Search: Price Search Across Stores and Time
By: Navid Mojir and K. Sudhir
In retail settings with price promotions, consumers often search across stores and time. However, the search literature typically only models one pass search across stores, ignoring revisits to stores; the choice literature using scanner data has modeled search across... View Details
Keywords: Consumer Search; Multi-pass Search; Price Search; Store Search; Spatial Search; Temporal Search; Spatiotemporal Search; Dynamic Structural Models; MPEC; Price Promotions; Store Loyalty; Consumer Behavior; Price; Spending; Marketing; Mathematical Methods
Mojir, Navid, and K. Sudhir. "A Model of Multi-Pass Search: Price Search Across Stores and Time." Management Science 67, no. 4 (April 2021): 2126–2150.
- 2017
- Working Paper
Inventory Management for Mobile Money Agents in the Developing World
By: Karthik Balasubramanian, David F. Drake and Douglas Fearing
Mobile money systems, platforms built and managed by mobile network operators to allow money to be stored as digital currency, have burgeoned in the developing world as a mechanism to transfer money electronically. Mobile money agents exchange cash for electronic value... View Details
Balasubramanian, Karthik, David F. Drake, and Douglas Fearing. "Inventory Management for Mobile Money Agents in the Developing World." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-109, June 2017. (Presented at INFORMS 2015 and POMS 2016. Finalist and first runner up, Production and Operations Management College of Sustainable Operations Best Student Paper Award.)
- 10 Feb 2022
- Research & Ideas
Why Are Prices So High Right Now—and Will They Ever Return to Normal?
it, a phenomenon the researchers call “permanent stockouts.” These are persisting in some sectors and are contributing to keeping prices stubbornly high, suggest Cavallo and the Bank of Canada’s Oleksiy Kryvtsov in their recent working paper, What Can View Details
Keywords: by Rachel Layne
- 08 Aug 2018
- Sharpening Your Skills
Parmigiano-Reggiano, Jane Austen, and Other Things You Didn't Know About Finance
climate-controlled vaults. Here's why. Inventory Management for Mobile Money Agents in the Developing World Mobile money agents in the developing world face a key inventory management challenge: How much cash and e-float should be held to minimize both View Details
- 22 Jan 2001
- Research & Ideas
Control Your Inventory in a World of Lean Retailing
capital and risk. But the trade-off is that the manufacturer frequently runs short on its medium and especially its high-variability items. That means lost sales and maybe a canceled contract with a prized customer. In the third test, the manufacturer focuses on... View Details
- 12 Jul 2010
- Research & Ideas
Rocket Science Retailing: A Practical Guide
shown that roughly 8 percent to 10 percent of the SKUs in a store are stocked out at any given time. Stockouts are expensive for retailers for two reasons. First, they lead to lost sales. A 2004 study that surveyed over 70,000 consumers... View Details
- 27 Jan 2015
- First Look
First Look: January 27
transactions and vice versa. This paper estimates the effect of competition and service quality on mobile money demand. In this setting, service quality consists of service reliability (lower stockout and system downtime rates), pricing... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
- 01 Jun 2020
- What Do You Think?
Will Challenged Amazon Tweak Its Retail Model Post-Pandemic?
Walmart, and Etsy ate that part of Amazon’s lunch that Amazon couldn’t finish. One problem for Amazon was its inability to meet the tremendous demand surge for online services and products. Its stockouts increased and delivery times... View Details
- 02 Sep 2019
- What Do You Think?
Are Overlooked Forces Shielding the US from Severe Economic Downturns?
inventory at various levels—retailing, wholesale, and manufacturing—in a distribution channel. One objective was to demonstrate the wide swings in inventory levels that resulted when student “managers” over-adjusted to stockouts or... View Details
- 05 Oct 2010
- First Look
First Look: October 5, 2010
delivers in the current period conditional on a stockout in the prior period. We also provide a method for estimating the impact of changes in supplier performance along these two dimensions on customer demand. Using data from Hugo Boss,... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
- 08 Dec 2008
- Research & Ideas
Thinking Twice About Supply-Chain Layoffs
centers can seriously affect an organization's bottom line and undermine its strategy. "My research reveals that what happens in the last 10 yards of retail supply chains is really important. Customers often experience stockouts not... View Details
- 12 Jun 2018
- First Look
New Research and Ideas, June 12, 2018
money using their mobile phones. Mobile money has grown quickly, but high stockout rates of currency persist due to suboptimal inventory decisions made by contracted employees (called agents). In partnership with a Tanzanian mobile money... View Details
Keywords: Dina Gerdeman