Publications

2000
Article

Mit dem Reichtum umgehen - Norwegen sucht die Zukunft nach dem Öl (Managing a Windfall - Norway's Future beyond the Oil)

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

10 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Unobserved State Fragility and the Political Transfer Problem

Keywords: by Faisal Z. Ahmed & Eric Werker

May 2022 (Revised October 2022)
Supplement

The Freedom Fund (B)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Courtney Han

The Freedom Fund (B) case describes the management’s plan of how to use the windfall of $35 million granted by philanthropist Mackenzie Scott. The case also describes the process by which the decisions were arrived at. View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Spending; Decision Making

Article

Happiness Runs in a Circular Motion: Evidence for a Positive Feedback Loop between Prosocial Spending and Happiness

By: Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn and Michael I. Norton

We examine whether a positive feedback loop exists between spending money on others (i.e. prosocial spending) and happiness. Participants recalled a previous purchase made for either themselves or someone else and then reported their happiness. Afterward, participants... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Spending; Happiness; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

12 Oct 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Mental Accounting and Small Windfalls: Evidence from an Online Grocer

Keywords: by Katherine L. Milkman, John Beshears, Todd Rogers & Max H. Bazerman

2015
Article

Aid and the Rise and Fall of Conflict in the Muslim World

By: Faisal Z Ahmed and Eric D. Werker

The conflict following the Arab Spring is not the first wave of civil war in the Muslim world in recent time. From the mid-1980s to the end of the century, an average of one in 10 predominantly Muslim countries experienced violent civil war in any given year. We... View Details

Keywords: War; International Relations; Religion; Energy Sources

2012
Working Paper

Unobserved State Fragility and the Political Transfer Problem

By: Faisal Z. Ahmed and Eric Werker

Autocrats experiencing a windfall in unearned income may find it optimal to donate to other countries some of the windfall in order to make the state a less attractive prize to potential insurgents. We put forward a model that makes that prediction, as well as the... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Non-Renewable Energy; International Relations; Economics

October 2000 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Vyaderm Pharmaceuticals: The EVA Decision

By: Robert Simons and Indra A. Reinbergs

In 2016, the new CEO of Vyaderm Pharmaceuticals introduces an Economic Value Added (EVA) program to focus the company on long-term shareholder value. The EVA program consists of three elements: EVA centers (business units), EVA drivers (operational practices that... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Employee Relationship Management; Economic Growth; Economic Systems; Management; Motivation and Incentives; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Performance Evaluation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Pharmaceutical Industry; Washington (state, US)

Educators

01 Mar 2010
Op-Ed

A Golden Opportunity for Ford and GM

to move aggressively to secure their market share gains by investing windfall profits to make their auto lineups more competitive for the next decade. That means introducing new designs that offer attractive features, improved fuel... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George; Auto

Research Summary

I give therefore I have: Philanthropy and Prosperity

We suggest and document a surprising means by which people can feel wealthier: giving their money away. We suggest that just as acts of conspicuous generosity signal wealth and power to others, they trigger feelings of subjective wealth and power in the giver--despite... View Details

October 2012
Article

Giving Time Gives You Time

By: Cassie Mogilner, Zoe Chance and Michael I. Norton

Four experiments reveal a counterintuitive solution to the common problem of feeling that one does not have enough time: giving some of it away. Although people's objective amount of time cannot be increased (there are only 24 hours in a day), this research... View Details

Keywords: Time Perception; Well-being; Volunteering; Prosocial Behavior; Helping; Time Management; Welfare

January 2021
Case

Andela: Africa's AWS for Talent

By: Caroline M. Elkins, Tarun Khanna and Joyce J. Kim

Five years after the company’s founding, Andela, a company that built and trained remote engineering teams, became arguably Africa’s greatest technology unicorn. By January 2019, Andela raised $100 million in Series D funding. As Andela looked to scale in an... View Details

Keywords: Education In Africa; Entrepreneur; Remote Work; Software Engineering; Edtech; Entrepreneurship; Education; Applications and Software; Engineering; Growth and Development Strategy; Africa

Educators

Winter 2012
Article

South Sudan: The Birth of an Economy

By: Eric D. Werker, Kelly Wyett and Shannon Ding

We discuss the birth of a new economy in a society that has only recently emerged from a 22-year-long civil war. The pace of growth so far has been fast but uneven. We find that aid and oil money are flowing rapidly into certain sectors, while other... View Details

Keywords: Sudan; Developing Markets; Foreign Aid; Conflict; Oil Prices; Private Sector Development; Emerging Markets; Policy; Developing Countries and Economies; Innovation and Invention; South Sudan

Research Summary

Giving Time Gives You Time

Four experiments reveal a counterintuitive solution to the common problem of feeling that one doesn't have enough time: giving some of it away. Although people's objective amount of time cannot be increased (there are only 24 hours in a day), this research... View Details

08 Apr 2008
First Look

First Look: April 8, 2008

and longitudinally (in a field study of windfall spending). Finally, participants who were randomly assigned to spend money on others experienced greater happiness than those assigned to spend money on themselves. Leading from the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

November 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Case

Investor Relations at TOTAL

By: Gregory S. Miller, Vincent Marie Dessain and Anders Sjoman

Examines investor relations and financial communications in a large company with a diverse group of financial stakeholders. Total is an "energy major" based in Paris, France. The importance of its product and its impact on economies and environments combine with the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Business and Shareholder Relations; Communication Strategy; Paris

Educators

2007
Working Paper

Mental Accounting and Small Windfalls: Evidence from an Online Grocer

By: Katherine L. Milkman, John Beshears, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman

We study the effect of small windfalls on consumer spending decisions by examining the purchasing behavior of a sample of online grocery shoppers over the course of a year. We compare the purchases customers make when redeeming a $10-off coupon they received from their... View Details

Keywords: Spending; Consumer Behavior; Mathematical Methods; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry

01 Sep 2015
First Look

First Look -- September 1, 2015

given year. We provide a partial explanation for this statistic: a foreign aid windfall to poor, non-oil producing Muslim countries during the twin oil crises of the 1970s allowed the recipient states to become more repressive and stave... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 23, 2020
Article

Inequality in Socially Permissible Consumption

By: Serena Hagerty and Kate Barasz

Lower-income individuals are frequently criticized for their consumption decisions; this research examines why. Eleven preregistered studies document systematic differences in permissible consumption—interpersonal judgments about what is acceptable (or not) for others... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Judgments; Consumption; Economic Inequalty; Income; Equality and Inequality; Spending; Judgments