Faculty & Research

• HBS Book

Your guide--using the compelling stories of changemakers and the tools of economics--to the transformation and future possibilities of the business and economics of space. Space is a place of unparalleled possibility for humanity, and it's undergoing a revolution. A wave of companies led by gutsy entrepreneurs is unlocking opportunities that fire the imagination and open up new business models. No, it's not hotels on Mars or day trips to orbit (yet), but it's an awe-inspiring transformation driven by innovative technologies, creative approaches, hard work, and--for the first time--market forces. Above all, this revolution is uncovering the simple but unfamiliar truth that space is a place: a place where countries, markets, and each of us can play a vital role in realizing some of our biggest, boldest dreams.

• Consumer Psychology Review 8, no. 1 (January 2025): 75-86.

Based on a review of relevant literature, we propose that the proliferation of AI with human-like and social features presents an unprecedented opportunity to address the underlying cognitive and affective drivers of prejudice. An approach informed by the psychology of intergroup contact and prejudice reduction is necessary, because current AI systems often reinforce or avoid prejudices. Against this backdrop, we outline unique opportunities for prejudice reduction through ‘synthetic’ intergroup contact, wherein consumers interact with AI products and services that counter stereotypes and serve as a ‘proxy’ members of the outgroup (i.e., counter-stereotypical AI).

• D^3 Institute

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology demonstrate considerable potential to complement human capital intensive activities. While an emerging literature documents wide-ranging productivity effects of AI, relatively little attention has been paid to how AI might change the nature of work itself. How do individuals, especially those in the knowledge economy, adjust how they work when they start using AI? Using the setting of open source software, we study individual level effects that AI has on task allocation. We exploit a natural experiment arising from the deployment of GitHub Copilot, a generative AI code completion tool for software developers. Leveraging millions of work activities over a two year period, we use a program eligibility threshold to investigate the impact of AI technology on the task allocation of software developers within a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity design.

• Featured Case

In early 2019, the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral was severely damaged by a fire. Though many people still believe that the fire was due to errors made at the “sharp end”, the case suggests that it resulted from the combination of various types of errors that could have been avoided.

• Featured Case

Ather Energy, India’s third-largest electric scooter maker by volume, was founded in 2013. Five years later, the start-up launched its first electric scooter, Ather 450, which was powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), to navigate India’s chaotic traffic and road conditions. The start-up had a single-product focus: Ather 450, a high-performance scooter targeting millennials and EV enthusiasts. Ather analyzed user data to improve the product and enhance customer experience. The data-driven, customer-focused strategy helped Ather 450 to secure a unique position in the market and enabled the company to garner around 13% of the market share in less than five years. To sustain future growth in the presence of rising competition, co-founders Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain debated several strategies, including widening their single-product portfolio and targeting a different customer segment.

• HBS Working Paper

Power systems account for nearly 40% of global emissions. As the world tries to reduce emissions by increasing renewable penetration, storage technologies are playing an increasingly important role in matching variable renewable supply with demand. Batteries have become the dominant investment choice for short-term storage operations but are too expensive for long-term storage, which is why alternative technologies, like hydrogen or compressed-air storage, are being experimented with. In our model, a utility can invest in up to two distinct storage technologies - an energy-limited, high-efficiency technology like batteries, and a power-limited, low-efficiency technology like hydrogen - to serve demand while minimizing costs. We introduce the concept of conflict states - times when there is not enough excess solar energy to fully utilize both technologies, and one must take priority - and study the impact of operational priority on renewable penetration.

• Working Paper

Researchers in behavioral and experimental economics often argue that only incentive-compatible mechanisms can elicit effort and truthful responses from participants. Others argue that participants make less-biased decisions when the stakes are sufficiently high. Are these claims correct? We investigate the change in behavior as incentives are scaled up in the Allais paradox, and document an increase, not decrease, in deviations from expected utility with higher stakes. We also find that if one needs to approximate participants’ behavior in real high-stakes Allais (which are often too expensive to conduct), it is better to use hypothetically high stakes than real low stakes, as is typically the practice today.