Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(264)
- Faculty Publications (64)
- 2016
- Working Paper
Popular Acceptance of Inequality Due to Innate Brute Luck and Support for Classical Benefit-Based Taxation
U.S. survey respondents' views on distributive justice are shown to differ in two specific, related ways from what is conventionally assumed in modern optimal tax research. A large share of respondents, and in some cases a large majority, resist the full equalization... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
A Theory of Intergenerational Mobility
By: Gary Becker, Scott Duke Kominers, Kevin Murphy and Jorg L. Spenkuch
We develop a model of intergenerational resource transmission that emphasizes the link between cross-sectional inequality and intergenerational mobility. By drawing on first principles of human capital theory, we derive several novel results. In particular, we show... View Details
- May 2015
- Teaching Note
The United Kingdom and the Means to Prosperity
By: Laura Alfaro, Lakshmi Iyer and Hilary White
After struggling through the country's longest recession since 2008, the U.K. was expected to grow faster than any other G7 nation in 2014. Analysts wondered whether the return to growth was because, or in spite of, Prime Minister David Cameron's controversial £113... View Details
Keywords: United Kingdom; Austerity; Fiscal Deficits; Fiscal Policy; Keynesian Multiplier; Government; Government Policy; Recessions; Depression; Inequality; Government Intervention In The Markets; Stagnation; Public Finance; Economics; Macroeconomics; Government Administration; Business and Government Relations; Economic Growth; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Public Sector; Economy; Financial Crisis; Taxation; Government and Politics; United Kingdom
- Article
How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments
By: Ilyana Kuziemko, Michael I. Norton, Emmanuel Saez and Stefanie Stantcheva
We analyze randomized online survey experiments providing interactive, customized information on U.S. income inequality, the link between top income tax rates and economic growth, and the estate tax. The treatment has large effects on views about inequality but only... View Details
- January 2015
- Background Note
Note on Economic Inequality (2015)
By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia
For over half a century, most of the world's economies have enjoyed steady growth and prosperity. However, beginning in the 1980s, and continuing essentially unabated to the present, the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in developed countries has widened,... View Details
- January 2015 (Revised March 2015)
- Case
San Francisco, 2015 #tech #inequality
By: Clayton Rose, Allison Ciechanover and Kunal Modi
In December 2013 a group of angry protesters blocked one of the commuter buses provided by the large Silicon Valley firms (known as "Google buses") which was stopped in San Francisco on its way to the company's headquarters 40 miles south. The protests were a tangible... View Details
- September 2014 (Revised May 2015)
- Case
The United Kingdom and the Means to Prosperity
By: Laura Alfaro, Lakshmi Iyer and Hilary White
After struggling through the country's longest recession since 2008, the U.K. was expected to grow faster than any other G7 nation in 2014. Analysts wondered whether the return to growth was because, or in spite of, Prime Minister David Cameron's controversial £113... View Details
Keywords: United Kingdom; Keynesian Multiplier; Inflation; Inflation Targeting; Government Spending; Government Intervention In The Markets; Monetary Policy; Financial Crisis Management; Austerity; Inequality; Public Finance; Government Finance; Macroeconomics; Economics; Government and Politics; Inflation and Deflation; Financial Crisis; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Economic Growth; Business Cycles; Welfare; United Kingdom
- Article
How Much (More) Should CEOs Make? A Universal Desire for More Equal Pay
By: Sorapop Kiatpongsan and Michael I. Norton
Do people from different countries and different backgrounds have similar preferences for how much more the rich should earn than the poor? Using survey data from 40 countries (N = 55,238), we compare respondents' estimates of the wages of people in different... View Details
- September 2014
- Article
Income Inequality and Social Preferences for Redistribution and Compensation Differentials
By: William R. Kerr
In cross-sectional studies, countries with greater income inequality typically exhibit less support for government-led redistribution and greater acceptance of wage inequality (e.g., United States versus Western Europe). If individual nations evolve along this pattern,... View Details
- 2014
- Article
Unequality: Who Gets What and Why It Matters
Who should get what, and what are the consequences? Economic inequality in the United States has been rising for decades, yet only recently have behavioral scientists explored two central questions surrounding the optimal level of inequality. First, what are the... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
Inequality and Decision Making: Imagining a New Line of Inquiry
By: David Moss, Anant Thaker and Howard Rudnick
The substantial increase in inequality in the United States over the past three decades has provoked considerable debate, with some analysts characterizing rising inequality as among the greatest threats facing the nation and others dismissing it as little more than a... View Details
- Article
Caste and Entrepreneurship in India
By: Lakshmi Iyer, Tarun Khanna and Ashutosh Varshney
It is now widely accepted that the lower castes have risen in Indian politics. Has there been a corresponding change in the economy? Using comprehensive data on enterprise ownership from the Economic Censuses of 1990, 1998, and 2005, we document substantial caste... View Details
- November 2012
- Case
Occupy Wall Street
By: Rakesh Khurana and Eric Baldwin
This case examines the Occupy Wall Street movement, which emerged in late 2011 in response to the fallout from the global financial crisis of 2008 and the economic downturn that followed. Occupy Wall Street was born out of a sense of frustration with both a global... View Details
- March 2012 (Revised April 2012)
- Case
The Korean Model of Shared Growth, 1960-1990
By: Aldo Musacchio, Rafael Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer
- Article
Credit Access and Social Welfare: The Rise of Consumer Lending in the United States and France
By: Gunnar Trumbull
Research into the causes of the 2008 financial crisis has drawn attention to a link between growing income inequality in the United States and high household indebtedness. Most accounts trace the U.S. idea of credit-as-welfare to the period of wage stagnation and... View Details
Keywords: Household Finance; Welfare State; Credit; Personal Finance; Welfare; Borrowing and Debt; France; United States
- March 2012
- Article
The Incentive Bubble
By: Mihir Desai
The past three decades have seen American capitalism quietly transformed by a single, powerful idea—that financial markets are a suitable tool for measuring performance and structuring compensation. Stock instruments for managers, high-powered incentive contracts for... View Details
- April 2011
- Article
Behavioral Economics Perspectives on Public Sector Pension Plans
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
We describe the pension plan features of the states and the largest cities and counties in the U.S. Unlike in the private sector, defined benefit (DB) pensions are still the norm in the public sector. However, a few jurisdictions have shifted towards defined... View Details
- January 2011
- Article
Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time
By: Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely
Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. We attempt to insert the desires of "regular" Americans into these debates, by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Plant-Size Distribution and Cross-Country Income Differences
By: Laura Alfaro, Andrew Charlton and Fabio Kanzcuk
We investigate, using plant-level data for 79 developed and developing countries, whether differences in the allocation of resources across heterogeneous plants are a significant determinant of cross-country differences in income per worker. For this purpose, we use a... View Details