Publications

May 2016
Article

When Performance Trumps Gender Bias: Joint Versus Separate Evaluation

By: Iris Bohnet, Alexandra van Geen and Max Bazerman

We examine a new intervention to overcome gender biases in hiring, promotion, and job assignments: an "evaluation nudge," in which people are evaluated jointly rather than separately regarding their future performance. Evaluators are more likely to focus on individual... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Selection and Staffing; Decision Choices and Conditions; Performance; Gender

November 12, 2021
Editorial

The Psychology Behind Meeting Overload

By: A.V. Whillans, Dave Feldman and Damian Wisniewski

Bad meetings are the bane of the corporate world — and yet despite what appears to be an overwhelming consensus that they’re often unnecessary and unproductive, many workplaces continue to struggle to avoid them. In this piece, the authors discuss the psychological... View Details

Keywords: Meetings; Collaboration; Psychology; Time Management; Communication

Article

How Much Should We Trust Staggered Difference-In-Differences Estimates?

By: Andrew C. Baker, David F. Larcker and Charles C.Y. Wang

We explain when and how staggered difference-in-differences regression estimators, commonly applied to assess the impact of policy changes, are biased. These biases are likely to be relevant for a large portion of research settings in finance, accounting, and law that... View Details

Keywords: Difference In Differences; Staggered Difference-in-differences Designs; Generalized Difference-in-differences; Dynamic Treatment Effects; Mathematical Methods

16 Sep 2020
Blog Post

Turning a Moment into a Movement: How the Anti-Racism Fund Co-Founders are Fighting Racism and Encouraging Other Companies to Do Their Part

help communities of color.” One of the issues ARF plans to help tackle is recruiting, hiring, and supporting diverse workforces. Kevin noted, “It’s not just giving money or looking at active injustices, it’s considering the implicit View Details

Keywords: All Industries

Mandi Nerenberg

Mandi is a doctoral student in Organizational Behavior at Harvard Business School. She is interested in the impact of how gender and racial dynamics shape workplace evaluations. Her research explores gender biases in interpersonal professional contexts,... View Details

June 2010
Case

Legendary Pictures & ABRY Partners

This case focuses on the review by the private equity firm ABRY Partners of an opportunity to invest in a film financing vehicle, Legendary Pictures. Before 2004, private equity firms had avoided co-investing with film studios in film productions because of their... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Investment; Film Entertainment; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

Educators

Purchase

10 Nov 2015
First Look

November 10, 2015

of research, the authors have concluded that four biases stand in the way: we focus too heavily on success, are too quick to act, try too hard to fit in, and rely too much on experts. Each of these View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2020 (Revised December 2020)
Background Note

A Note on Ethical Analysis

By: Nien-hê Hsieh

To engage in ethical analysis is to answer such questions as “What is the right thing to do?” “What does it mean to be a good person?” “How should I live my life?” Ethical analysis, on its own, is often not adequate for doing the right thing or being a good... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Framework; Decision Making; Prejudice and Bias

Educators

Purchase

2012
Working Paper

When Performance Trumps Gender Bias: Joint versus Separate Evaluation

By: Iris Bohnet, Alexandra van Geen and Max H. Bazerman

We examine a new intervention to overcome gender biases in hiring, promotion, and job assignments: an "evaluation nudge," in which people are evaluated jointly rather than separately regarding their future performance. Evaluators are more likely to focus on individual... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Selection and Staffing; Behavior; Groups and Teams; Decision Making; Performance Evaluation; Gender

18 Apr 2016
News

How to Take the Bias Out of Interviews

March–April 2022
Article

School Choice in Chile

By: Jose Correa, Natalie Epstein, Rafael Epstein, Juan Escobar, Ignacio Rios, Nicolas Aramayo, Bastian Bahamondes, Carlos Bonet, Martin Castillo, Andres Cristi, Boris Epstein and Felipe Subiabre

Centralized school admission mechanisms are an attractive way of improving social welfare and fairness in large educational systems. In this paper, we report the design and implementation of the newly established school choice system in Chile, where over 274,000... View Details

Keywords: Early Childhood Education; Secondary Education; Middle School Education; Family and Family Relationships; Welfare; Chile

Register to Read

January 1982
Article

A Negativity Bias in Interpersonal Evaluation

By: T. M. Amabile and A. H. Glazebrook

Two studies were conducted to demonstrate a bias toward negativity in evaluations of persons or their work in particular social circumstances. In Study 1, subjects evaluated materials written by peers. Those working under conditions that placed them in low status... View Details

Keywords: Social Psychology; Status and Position; Prejudice and Bias; Performance Evaluation; Situation or Environment; Perception; Attitudes

January 2012 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA)'s Entry into the Retirement Market

By: Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy

This case examines Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA)'s decision to enter the retirement market with their new "Dimensional Managed DC" product, a complete retirement solution that aimed to provide investors with what they really wanted: the same standard of living in... View Details

Keywords: Retirement; Asset Management

Educators

Purchase

2007
Working Paper

Investor Sentiment in the Stock Market

By: Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler

Real investors and markets are too complicated to be neatly summarized by a few selected biases and trading frictions. The "top down" approach to behavioral finance focuses on the measurement of reduced form, aggregate sentiment and traces its effects to stock returns.... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Markets; Behavioral Finance; Stocks

Research Summary

Overview

By: Himabindu Lakkaraju

I develop machine learning tools and techniques which enable human decision makers to make better decisions. More specifically, my research addresses the following fundamental questions pertaining to human and algorithmic decision-making:

1. How to build... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning; Decision Analysis; Decision Support

05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Effects of Task Difficulty on Use of Advice

Keywords: by Francesca Gino & Don A. Moore; Consulting

May–June 2025
Article

Slowly Varying Regression Under Sparsity

By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Vassilis Digalakis Jr, Michael Lingzhi Li and Omar Skali Lami

We consider the problem of parameter estimation in slowly varying regression models with sparsity constraints. We formulate the problem as a mixed integer optimization problem and demonstrate that it can be reformulated exactly as a binary convex optimization problem... View Details

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Analytics and Data Science

13 Sep 2018
HBS Seminar

Ashley Swanson, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania

Forthcoming
Article

Reflexivity in Credit Markets

By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson and Lawrence J. Jin

Reflexivity is the idea that investors' biased beliefs affect market outcomes and that market outcomes in turn affect investors’ future biases. We develop a dynamic behavioral model of the credit cycle featuring this two-way feedback loop. Investors form beliefs about... View Details

Keywords: Reflexivity; Attitudes; Financial Markets; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment; Credit