Publications

SSRN

19 Aug 2009
Working Paper Summaries

The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution

Keywords: by N. Gregory Mankiw & Matthew Weinzierl

Research Summary

Business and Low Income Sectors: The Creation of Economic and Social Value

In the last three decades, innovative commercial solutions have emerged in developing nations focusing on providing effective responses to the hugely underserved needs of low-income populations, both as consumers as well as active participants in productive value... View Details

February 2010
Article

The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution

By: N. Gregory Mankiw and Matthew C. Weinzierl

Should the income tax include a credit for short taxpayers and a surcharge for tall ones? The standard Utilitarian framework for tax analysis answers this question in the affirmative. Moreover, a plausible parameterization using data on height and wages implies a... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Wages; Personal Characteristics

2019
Working Paper

Thinking Outside the Box (12): The Benefits of Increased Transparency in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance for the 180 Million Insured

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Barak D. Richman

Economists have long noted that the tax exclusion of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) caused workers to purchase health plans that differ in price and other characteristics from those they would otherwise choose for themselves. We explore the short-term and long-term... View Details

Keywords: After-tax Income; Consumer-driven Health Care; Health Care Costs; Health Insurance; Income Inequality; Tax Policy; Health Care and Treatment; Cost; Insurance; Income; Equality and Inequality; Taxation; Policy; United States

June 2012
Teaching Note

Harvest: Organic Waste Recycling with Energy Recovery (TN) (A) and (B)

By: Deishin Lee

This case describes the waste management industry and a clean technology solution for landfill diversion and renewable energy production. The (A) case focuses on the operational characteristics of organic waste recycling with energy recovery, and the characteristics of... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Waste Management; Sourcing; Operations Management; Environment; Wastes and Waste Processing; Renewable Energy; Operations; Supply Chain Management; Utilities Industry; Manufacturing Industry

Purchase

October 2010 (Revised August 2012)
Case

Harvest: Organic Waste Recycling with Energy Recovery (A)

By: Deishin Lee, Baris Ata and Mustafa H. Tongarlak

This case describes the waste management industry and a clean technology solution for landfill diversion and renewable energy production. The (A) case focuses on the operational characteristics of waste management and waste to energy, as well as the characteristics of... View Details

Keywords: Renewable Energy; Logistics; Wastes and Waste Processing; Corporate Finance; Green Technology Industry; Utilities Industry; Energy Industry

Educators

Purchase

October 2010 (Revised August 2012)
Supplement

Harvest: Organic Waste Recycling with Energy Recovery (B)

By: Deishin Lee, Baris Ata and Mustafa H. Tongarlak

This case describes the waste management industry and a clean technology solution for landfill diversion and renewable energy production. The (A) case focuses on the operational characteristics of waste management and waste to energy, and the characteristics of the... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Wastes and Waste Processing; Management; Operations; Social Issues; Problems and Challenges; Energy Generation; Renewable Energy; Quality; Industry Structures; Energy Industry

Purchase

2011
Other Unpublished Work

What Do Private Firms Look Like?

By: John Asker, Joan Farre-Mensa and Alexander Ljungqvist

Private firms in the U.S. are not subject to public reporting requirements, so relatively little is known about their characteristics and behavior—until now. This Data Appendix describes a new database on private U.S. firms, created by Sageworks Inc. in cooperation... View Details

Keywords: Data and Data Sets; Behavior; Public Sector; Corporate Disclosure; Private Sector; Financial Statements; United States

SSRN

Article

Valuing Time Over Money Is Associated with Greater Happiness

By: A.V. Whillans, Aaron C. Weidman and Elizabeth W. Dunn

How do the trade-offs that we make about two of our most valuable resources—time and money—shape happiness? While past research has documented the immediate consequences of thinking about time and money, research has not yet examined whether people’s general... View Details

Keywords: Well-being; Time; Trade-offs; Orientations; Happiness; Money; Satisfaction

February 2014
Article

'Last-place Aversion': Evidence and Redistributive Implications

By: Ilyana Kuziemko, Ryan W. Buell, Taly Reich and Michael Norton

We present evidence from laboratory experiments showing that individuals are "last-place averse." Participants choose gambles with the potential to move them out of last place that they reject when randomly placed in other parts of the distribution. In... View Details

Keywords: Income; Rank and Position; Attitudes

2016
Working Paper

Entrepreneurship and Public Health Insurance

By: Gareth Olds

I examine the relationship between public health insurance and firm formation. Developing a variant of regression discontinuity, I find the Child Health Insurance Program lowered the child uninsured rate by 40% and increased self-employment by 15%. Monte Carlo evidence... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Entrepreneurship

May 2011
Article

Consequences and Institutional Determinants of Unregulated Corporate Financial Statements: Evidence from Embedded Value Reporting

By: George Serafeim

I analyze Embedded Value (EV) reporting by firms with life insurance operations to assess the impact of unregulated financial reporting on transparency and to examine the institutional characteristics that promote unregulated reporting. Under EV accounting the present... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Reporting; Cash Flow; Contracts; Equity; Profit; Value; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business Earnings

24 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

Why Do We Tax?

theory recommends substantial "tagging" or tailoring of taxes to personal characteristics (such as height) that are, on average, linked to wages. In the real world, this is seen as a terrible idea, except for some select traits, such as... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Legal Services

January 2018
Article

Big Data and Big Cities: The Promises and Limitations of Improved Measures of Urban Life

By: Edward L. Glaeser, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Luca and Nikhil Naik

New, "big" data sources allow measurement of city characteristics and outcome variables at higher frequencies and finer geographic scales than ever before. However, big data will not solve large urban social science questions on its own. Big data has the most value for... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Urban Scope; City

17 Sep 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Secrets of the Academy: The Drivers of University Endowment Success

Keywords: by Josh Lerner, Antoinette Schoar & Jialan Wang; Education

April 2005
Article

Partisan Social Happiness

By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch

We use a new approach to study questions in political economy that relies on data on the subjective well-being of a large sample of people living in the OECD over the period 1975-1992. Controlling for the personal characteristics of the respondents, year and country... View Details

Keywords: Political Partisanship; Political Economy; Society; Happiness

05 Jul 2006
Research & Ideas

Reinventing the Dowdy Savings Bond

year comes in the form of an income tax refund. In 2001, the IRS returned $78 billion to families making less than $30,000 annually, for an average return of $1,546 per filer. To Tufano, that check suggested itself as an ideal... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Banking; Financial Services

06 Apr 2009
Research & Ideas

Cheers to the American Consumer

countries may be the most important of all enablers of entrepreneurship and innovation in America. Why is the American consumer more venturesome? Six factors come to mind. Wealth. The average American consumer has more disposable income... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

July 2008
Article

Crime and Punishment in the 'American Dream'

By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra

We observe that countries where belief in the "American dream" (i.e., effort pays) prevails also set harsher punishment for criminals. We know that beliefs are also correlated with several features of the economic system (taxation, social insurance, etc). Our objective... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Economic Systems; Values and Beliefs; Law Enforcement; Mathematical Methods; Personal Characteristics; United States