Within the Ross School of Business, a debate took place a few years back that continues today regarding the role of business. It was sparked by discussion surrounding a “Positive” Pillar as a part of the school strategy. More of the background can be found in the case, “Emphasizing the...

The recent ascent of social enterprise into the lexicon of business schools and, more importantly, businesses themselves, reflects a growing concern that profit-maximizing firms don't address all of the world's problems. There are significant problems the world is facing — income disparities,...

In this note, we first discuss the governance problems in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) from both a theoretical and practical perspective. We then describe the governance structure at Mayo Clinic based on a review of documents, written descriptions by those involved from the beginning and...

This article reviews the changes that have taken place in health care delivery in low- and middle-income countries since 1992 and highlights the role of the private sector. It looks at changes in causes of death and also provides an in-depth view of areas likely to take on more prominence and/or...

We analyze the welfare effects of parity rules, prevalent in telecommunications and other regulated industries, that force a vertically-integrated input monopolist to treat its own downstream affiliate and downstream competitors comparably in terms of input price and quality. When input pricing...

This paper examines the tension between competition for the customer and competition in the market in a differentiated-product oligopoly. Consumers make purchases through an exclusive supply relationship that is modeled as a discrete-continuous choice problem. We characterize Bertrand-Nash...

We analyze the welfare effects of “parity” rules that force a vertically-integrated input monopolist (VIM) to treat downstream affiliates and competitors alike in terms of price and quality. We find that input-quality parity can lower social welfare when input pricing is unregulated. In...

We examine the impact on inter-regional trade in eastern U.S. electricity markets arising from the FERC-supported creation of Independent System Operators (ISOs). Our analysis focuses on the PJM ISO (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and other states) and its trade with the New York ISO and...

We investigate the impact of creating Independent System Operators (ISOs) to independently manage regional electricity transmission resources and institute regional electricity exchange markets. Our analysis examines how the formation of the PJM Independent System Operator (ISO) in Pennsylvania,...

This paper compares one-part pricing and two types of two-part pricing in a general discrete-continuous choice model, providing more extensive welfare results than prior literature. Under two-part pricing, firms may set fixed fees with or without unit-price commitment. When unit-price commitment...