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- July 2024
- Case
Dynamic Pricing at Wendy’s: Where’s the Beef?
By: Elie Ofek, Alicia Dadlani and Martha Hostetter
In early 2024, Wendy’s new CEO announced on an earnings call that the company would install digital menus in its US locations so it could begin testing dynamic pricing—changing prices up or down in response to shifts in supply and demand – as well as allow engaging in...
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- June 2024
- Article
Inflation with COVID Consumption Baskets
By: Alberto Cavallo
The Covid-19 pandemic led to changes in expenditure patterns that introduced significant bias in the measurement of Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation. Using publicly-available data on card transactions, I updated the official CPI weights and re-calculated inflation...
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- June 2024
- Article
Information Spillovers in Experience Goods Competition
By: Zhuoqiong Charlie Chen, Christopher Stanton and Catherine Thomas
When experience goods compete, consuming one product can be informative about value for similar untried products. We study a two-period model of duopoly competition in markets that have this feature and where firms can price discriminate between consumers based on...
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- May 2024
- Case
Naked Wines: The Profit vs. Growth Decision
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Edward A. Meyer
Nick Devlin faced a difficult strategic decision in October 2022. As the CEO of a UK-based subscription business connecting wine drinkers in the US, UK, and Australia with winemakers from around the world (which one journalist called the “Netflix of Wine”), he had to...
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Keywords:
Profit Vs. Growth;
Platform Business;
Economies Of Scale;
Subscription Business;
Wine;
Scaling;
Racing;
Value Creation;
Network Effects;
Business Startups;
Small Business;
Financial Management;
Financial Strategy;
Growth Management;
Business Strategy;
Competitive Advantage;
Expansion;
Profit;
E-commerce;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry;
Food and Beverage Industry;
United States;
Australia;
United Kingdom
- April 8, 2024
- Article
Loyalty Programs May Limit Competition, and They Could Be Pushing Prices up for Everyone
By: Alexandru Nichifor and Scott Duke Kominers
- April 2024
- Article
Pay-As-You-Go Insurance: Experimental Evidence on Consumer Demand and Behavior
By: Raymond Kluender
Pay-as-you-go contracts reduce minimum purchase requirements which may increase market participation. We randomize the introduction and price(s) of a novel pay-as-you-go contract to the California auto insurance market where 17 percent of drivers are uninsured. The...
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- March 2024 (Revised May 2024)
- Case
Amperity: First-Party Data at a Crossroads
By: Elie Ofek, Hema Yoganarasimhan and Alexis Lefort
In the summer of 2023, Amperity management was facing a critical decision on its future direction. Given the dramatic changes occurring within the digital advertising ecosystem, as concerns over consumer privacy placed limits on the ability to engage in third-party...
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- February 2024
- Case
Tabby: Winning Consumers' Digital Wallets
By: Eva Ascarza and Fares Khrais
Hosam Arab (MBA 2009), cofounder and CEO of Tabby, a Saudi-based fintech startup, raised its Series D funding round in October 2023, four years after its inception, valuing it as a regional unicorn. Tabby's core product, a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service, allowed...
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- February 2024
- Article
Pricing Power in Advertising Markets: Theory and Evidence
By: Matthew Gentzkow, Jesse M. Shapiro, Frank Yang and Ali Yurukoglu
Existing theories of media competition imply that advertisers will pay a lower price in equilibrium to reach consumers who multi-home across competing outlets. We generalize, extend, and test this prediction. We find that television outlets whose viewers watch more...
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- January 2024
- Article
Dog Eat Dog: Balancing Network Effects and Differentiation in a Digital Platform Merger
By: Chiara Farronato, Jessica Fong and Andrey Fradkin
Digital platforms are increasingly the subject of regulatory scrutiny. In comparison to multiple competitors, a single platform may increase consumer welfare if network effects are large or may decrease welfare due to higher prices or reduction in platform variety. We...
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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...
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- 2023
- Government Testimony
Congressional Statement for the Record, Hearing on Factors Influencing the High Cost of Insurance for Consumers
By: Ishita Sen
- October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
KOKO Networks: Bridging Energy Transition and Affordability with Carbon Financing
By: George Serafeim, Siko Sikochi and Namrata Arora
The problem was massive: two million hectares of African forests were lost annually to charcoal production for cooking, an area equivalent to 13 times Greater London, resulting in one billion tons of carbon emissions yearly. At the same time, an estimated 700,000...
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Keywords:
Clean Tech;
Digital;
Carbon Credits;
Carbon Offsetting;
Climate Change;
Entrepreneurship;
Energy Sources;
Environmental Sustainability;
Health;
Market Design;
Business Startups;
Transition;
Environmental Regulation;
Policy;
Consumer Products Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Africa;
Kenya;
Rwanda
- October 2023 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Ball: EVA Driving the World's Leading Can Manufacturer (A)
By: Jonas Heese and Susan Pinckney
The case describes Ball’s multi decade history of using Economic Value Added to drive decision making and workforce compensation. In 2016, the company acquired Rexam PLC and became the world’s leading metal beverage container company. Consumer demand for varied...
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Keywords:
Budgets and Budgeting;
Cost Accounting;
Financial Reporting;
Financial Statements;
Buildings and Facilities;
Green Building;
Mergers and Acquisitions;
Customer Satisfaction;
Decisions;
Forecasting and Prediction;
Machinery and Machining;
Asset Pricing;
Corporate Finance;
Capital;
Cost;
Financial Management;
Goods and Commodities;
Compensation and Benefits;
Executive Compensation;
Employee Relationship Management;
Goals and Objectives;
Resource Allocation;
Business Strategy;
Corporate Strategy;
Food and Beverage Industry;
United States;
Arizona;
California;
Texas
- October 2023 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
FARM Rio: Bringing a Brazilian Fashion Brand to the World
By: Isamar Troncoso and Jill Avery
FARM Rio, a twenty-six year old Brazilian fashion brand, had recently put down roots in the U.S. The brand, known for its bold, colorful, nature-inspired tropical prints, was testing the waters in Europe to assess if and how the brand should further expand globally....
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- September 2023
- Case
The Meteoric Rise of Skims
Since its founding in 2019 by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede, Skims, a solutions-oriented brand creating the next generation of underwear, loungewear, and shapewear with an eye toward body-type and skin-tone inclusivity, has experienced a meteoric rise. Kardashian, who...
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Keywords:
Brand;
Branding;
Direct-to-consumer;
DTC;
Influencers;
Influencer Marketing;
Fashion;
Growth;
Direct Marketing;
Influence;
Reputation;
Social Inference;
Consumer Goods;
Consumer Products;
Female Entrepreneur;
Female Protagonist;
Entrepreneurship And Strategy;
Brand ＆ Product Management;
Competitive Advantage;
Online Followers;
Retail;
Retail Formats;
Retailing;
Online Retail;
Celebrities;
Celebrity;
Celebrity Endorsement;
Go To Market Strategy;
Apparel;
Startup Marketing;
Startups;
Social Influencers;
Brands and Branding;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Growth Management;
Distribution Channels;
Digital Marketing;
Advertising;
Power and Influence;
Social Media;
Consumer Products Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
United States
- August 2023
- Background Note
Pricing and Customer Psychology
By: Elie Ofek
This note provides an overview of how psychological principles may be used as part of a seller’s pricing strategy. The note defines the concept of psychological pricing and explains the motivations for firms to engage in it. Prominent practices and tactics, with...
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- July–August 2023
- Article
Demand Learning and Pricing for Varying Assortments
By: Kris Ferreira and Emily Mower
Problem Definition: We consider the problem of demand learning and pricing for retailers who offer assortments of substitutable products that change frequently, e.g., due to limited inventory, perishable or time-sensitive products, or the retailer’s desire to...
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- 2024
- Working Paper
The Imperfect Intermediation of Money-Like Assets
By: Jonathan Wallen and Jeremy C. Stein
We study supply-and-demand effects in the U.S. Treasury bill market by comparing the returns on T-bills to the administered policy rate on the Federal Reserve’s reverse repurchase (RRP) facility. In spite of the arguably more money-like properties of an investment in...
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- 2023
- Working Paper
Beyond the Hype: Unveiling the Marginal Benefits of 3D Virtual Tours in Real Estate
By: Mengxia Zhang and Isamar Troncoso
3D virtual tours (VTs) have become a popular digital tool in real estate platforms, enabling potential buyers to virtually walk through the houses they search for online. In this paper, we study home sellers’ adoption of VTs and the VTs’ relative benefits compared to...
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