Publications

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

Purchase

22 Jan 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Turbulent Firms, Turbulent Wages?

Keywords: by Diego A. Comin, Erica L. Groshen & Bess Rabin

May 2023
Article

Equilibrium Effects of Pay Transparency

By: Zoë B. Cullen and Bobak Pakzad-Hurson

The public discourse around pay transparency has focused on the direct effect: how workers seek to rectify newly-disclosed pay inequities through renegotiations. The question of how wage-setting and hiring practices of the firm respond in equilibrium has received... View Details

Keywords: Pay Transparency; Online Labor Market; Privacy; Wage Gap; Corporate Disclosure; Wages; Negotiation

31 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

Why the Largest Minority Group Faces the Most Hate—and How to Push Back

American cities have experienced an alarming double-digit rise in hate crimes in recent years, due in part to factors like anti-Asian sentiment in the wake of the pandemic and racial strife following the murder of George Floyd. Now, new research suggests yet another... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

29 Aug 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 29

terminal illness or execution—may be more pleasant than one imagines. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53127 in press Current Opinion in Psychology (Mis)perceptions of Inequality By: Hauser, Oliver P., and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

16 May 2023
HBS Case

How KKR Got More by Giving Ownership to the Factory Floor: ‘My Kids Are Going to College!’

One thing that stuck with Pete Stavros from the dinner-table conversations of his youth was that capitalism seemed fundamentally broken for his father, who earned an hourly wage working construction. The incentive was not there for Stavros’ dad and his peers to try to... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

June 10, 2021
Article

How to Be a Purpose-Driven Leader in a Capitalist World

By: Celia Bravard, John Pontillo and Andrew J. Hoffman

Today’s business school education isn’t suited to the big challenges facing the world — climate change, economic inequality and racial injustice — that the leaders of tomorrow will be expected to solve. So, how can students and young professionals succeed in a system... View Details

Keywords: Values and Beliefs; Mission and Purpose; Social Issues; Power and Influence; Social and Collaborative Networks; Opportunities

10 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

In Empowering Black Voters, Did a Landmark Law Stir White Angst?

often promoted by strategic political entrepreneurs, that such policies might be ‘zero sum’ and could harm the ‘old majority’,” Tabellini says. You Might Also Like: Confront Workplace Inequity in 2023: Dig Deep, Build Bridges, Take... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

11 Jun 2024
In Practice

The Harvard Business School Faculty Summer Reader 2024

As the vacation season looms, Harvard Business School faculty members share recommendations for a little light reading. Spoiler alert: Lessons in Chemistry tops two of their beach-read lists. For those whose brains can’t—or won’t—turn off, HBS faculty also suggest some... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

10 Nov 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Endowments, Fiscal Federalism, and the Cost of Capital for States: Evidence from Brazil, 1891-1930

Keywords: by André C. Martínez Fritscher & Aldo Musacchio

2014
Article

Models of Caring, or Acting as if One Cared, About the Welfare of Others

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper surveys the theoretical literature in which people are modeled as taking other people's payoffs into account either because this affects their utility directly or because they wish to impress others with their social-mindedness. Key experimental results that... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

27 Jun 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Positive and Normative Judgments Implicit in US Tax Policy and the Costs of Unequal Growth and Recessions

Keywords: by Benjamin Lockwood & Matthew Weinzierl

Article

Changes in Negative Reciprocity as a Function of Age

By: Yoella Bereby-Meyer and Shelly Fiks

Standard economic models assume people exclusively pursue material self-interests in social interactions. However, people exhibit social preferences; that is, they base their choices partly on the outcomes others obtained in a social interaction. People care about... View Details

2021
Article

Fair Influence Maximization: A Welfare Optimization Approach

By: Aida Rahmattalabi, Shahin Jabbari, Himabindu Lakkaraju, Phebe Vayanos, Max Izenberg, Ryan Brown, Eric Rice and Milind Tambe

Several behavioral, social, and public health interventions, such as suicide/HIV prevention or community preparedness against natural disasters, leverage social network information to maximize outreach. Algorithmic influence maximization techniques have been proposed... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

I am an ethnographer and field researcher studying how people experience and interpret their work and cultural contexts, as well as how this shapes inequality and organizational outcomes like normative control. I specialize in utilizing in-depth, inductive field... View Details

Keywords: Qualitative Research; Ethnography; Corporate Culture; Organizational Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Theory; Working Conditions; Consulting Industry

05 Jun 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, June 5, 2018

traditional question of how the inflow of foreign workers affects native employment and earnings to explore effects on innovation and productivity, wage inequality across skill groups, the behavior of multinational firms, firm-level... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

11 Aug 2022
Research & Ideas

When Parents Tell Kids to ‘Work Hard,’ Do They Send the Wrong Message?

suggests that those messages may have an unintended consequence, making people believe that someone who isn’t succeeding isn’t bothering to try. And those perceptions can perpetuate inequality in society. "How do all of these lessons... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Education

21 Nov 2023
Op-Ed

The Beauty Industry: Products for a Healthy Glow or a Compact for Harm?

In my recently published book Deeply Responsible Business, I write about business leaders since the 19th century who have acted responsibly, often by putting the welfare of their communities above the idea of maximizing profits. I make a sharp distinction between... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Beauty & Cosmetics

2015
Book

MOVE: Putting America's Infrastructure Back in the Lead

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Americans are stuck. We live with travel delays on congested roads; shipping delays on clogged railways; and delays on repairs, project approvals, and funding due to gridlocked leadership. These delays affect us all, whether you are a daily commuter, a frequent flyer,... View Details