Economics Insights @ CBS

We examine (1) whether the accounting, governance, and investing practices of Berkshire Hathaway investees are consistent with Warren Buffett's public statements on what constitutes good accounting, governance, and investing practices and (2) whether these practices are associated with Berkshire's initial "selection" or Buffett's subsequent "influence." Compared to control firms, we find that Berkshire investees are highly likely to follow Buffett's investment philosophy, somewhat likely to follow his preferred accounting, disclosure, and compensation policies, but unlikely to follow the bo

The case describes the launch of a social media platform by the largest container shipping company in the world. Students will have the opportunity to thoroughly evaluate the campaign, which by observable criteria, has done extremely well. The case provides details on the various platforms used, the nature of content provided on each, and the associated budgets (including headcount). The budget figures are particularly interesting because they permit a rich discussion around the social media program's ROI.

Conventionally, the construction of a pair-matched sample selects treated and control units and pairs them in a single step with a view to balancing observed covariates x and reducing the heterogeneity or dispersion of treated-minus-control response differences, Y. In contrast, the method of cardinality matching developed here first selects the maximum number of units subject to covariate balance constraints and, with a balanced sample for x in hand, then separately pairs the units to minimize heterogeneity in Y.