Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(120,129)
- Faculty Publications (187)
- March 2010 (Revised December 2010)
- Case
The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream"
By: Rafael M. Di Tella and Laura Winig
In 2010, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison operator in the U.S., was considering expansion options. The company's largest customers, federal and state governments, were under economic pressure to reduce the incarceration rate and... View Details
- 2010
- Chapter
Happiness Adaptation to Income beyond 'Basic Needs'
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
We test for whether, once "basic needs" are satisfied, there is happiness adaptation to further gains in income using three data sets. Individual German Panel Data from 1985 to 2000, and data on the well-being of over 600,000 people in a panel of European countries... View Details
- 2009
- Chapter
Should Central Banks Maximize Happiness? Happiness, Contentment and Other Emotions for Central Banks
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
- 2009
- Working Paper
Anger and Regulation
By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra
We propose a model where voters experience an emotional cost when they observe a firm that has displayed insufficient concern for other people's welfare (altruism) in the process of making high profits. Even with few truly altruistic firms, an equilibrium may emerge... View Details
- Article
Why Doesn't Capitalism Flow to Poor Countries?
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
We show that capitalism is far from common around the world. Outside a small group of rich countries, heavy regulation of business, leftist rhetoric, and interventionist beliefs flourish. We relate these phenomena to the presence of corruption, with causality running... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Reality versus Propaganda in the Formation of Beliefs about Privatization
By: Rafael Di Tella, Sebastian Galiani and Ernesto Schargrodsky
Argentina privatized most public utilities during the 1990s but re-nationalized the main water company in 2006. We study beliefs about the benefits of the privatization of water services amongst low and middle income groups immediately after the 2006 nationalization.... View Details
- October 2008
- Case
Financial Crisis in Asia: 1997-1998 (Abridged)
By: Huw Pill, Rafael M. Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer
What caused the 1997-98 Asia Crisis: Asian nations' poor economic management, international financial contagion, close "crony" relations between local politicians and capitalists? This case examines how the crisis erupted in Thailand and spread in a chain of events... View Details
- October 2008
- Article
Choosing Agents and Monitoring Consumption: A Note on Wealth as a Corruption-Controlling-Device
By: Rafael Di Tella and Federico Weinschelbaum
- July 2008 (Revised June 2012)
- Case
Corruption in Germany
By: Rawi E. Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer
Why do managers become corrupt? Does corruption ever pay? When do friendly relations cross into bribery? How can CEOs manage and prevent outbreaks of corruption? These and other questions are raised by three short case studies of corruption in Germany: at the global... View Details
- 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
- June 2008
- Article
Crime and Beliefs: Evidence from Latin America
By: Rafael Di Tella, Javier Donna and Robert MacCulloch
- March 2008 (Revised April 2009)
- Case
Eliot Spitzer: Pushing Wall Street to Reform
By: Rawi Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer
New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer faced a decision about how to stop wrongdoing committed by major Wall Street firms during the Internet boom. The equities analysts of Merrill Lynch and other Wall Street firms were charged with objectively advising retail... View Details
- spring 2008
- Article
Cost Reductions, Cost Padding and Stock Market Prices: The Chilean Experience with Price Cap Regulation
By: Rafael Di Tella and Alexander Dyck
- February 2008 (Revised April 2009)
- Case
Chronology of the Asian Financial Crisis
By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael Di Tella and Renee Kim
In July 1997, Thailand became the first Asian "tiger" economy to abandon its fixed exchange rate system in response to speculative attacks on its currency. Investors started to flee Asia, and the crisis rapidly spread to other countries. Central banks spent billions of... View Details
Keywords: Financial Crisis; Currency Exchange Rate; Central Banking; Policy; Crisis Management; Asia; Thailand
- 2007
- Working Paper
A Resource Belief-Curse: Oil and Individualism
By: Rafael Di Tella, Juan Dubra and Robert MacCulloch
We study the correlation between a belief concerning individualism and a measure of luck in the US during the period 1983-2004. The measure of beliefs is the answer to a question related to whether the poor should be helped by the government or if they should help... View Details
Keywords: Energy; Price; Policy; Government and Politics; Poverty; Welfare; Energy Industry; United States
- October 2007
- Teaching Note
Rovna Dan: The Flat Tax in Slovakia (TN)
By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Renee Kim
Teaching Note to 707043. View Details
- Article
Gross National Happiness As an Answer to the Easterlin Paradox?
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
The Easterlin Paradox refers to the fact that happiness data are typically stationary in spite of considerable increases in income. This amounts to a rejection of the hypothesis that current income is the only argument in the utility function. We find that the... View Details
- Article
Information or Opinion? Media Bias as Product Differentiation
By: Bharat Anand, Rafael Di Tella and Alexander Galetovic
- Article
Reputation When Threats and Transfers Are Available
By: Ernesto Dal Bo, Pedro Dal Bo and Rafael Di Tella
We present a model where a long-run player is allowed to use both money transfers and threats to influence the decisions of a sequence of short-run players. We show that threats might be used credibly (even in arbitrarily short repeated games) by a long-lived player... View Details
- March 2007 (Revised January 2008)
- Case
Korea: After the 1997 Financial Crisis
By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Renee Kim
Examines what happened to Korea after the 1997 financial crisis and the implementation of the IMF-mandated reforms imposed on Korea as conditionalities to the country's emergency loan package. View Details