Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(10,466)
- Faculty Publications (1,139)
- 2022
- Article
Alleviating Time Poverty Among the Working Poor: A Pre-Registered Longitudinal Field Experiment
By: A.V. Whillans and Colin West
Poverty entails more than a scarcity of material resources—it also involves a shortage of time. To examine the causal benefits of reducing time poverty, we conducted a longitudinal feld experiment over six consecutive weeks in an urban slum in Kenya with a sample of... View Details
Keywords: Time; Subjective Well Being; Administrative Costs; Friction; Poverty; Well-being; Money; Perception; Kenya
- January 10, 2022
- Article
The Link Between Income, Income Inequality, and Prosocial Behavior Around the World: A Multiverse Approach
By: Lucia Macchia and Ashley V. Whillans
The questions of whether high-income individuals are more prosocial than low-income individuals and whether income inequality moderates this effect have received extensive attention. We shed new light on this topic by analyzing a large-scale dataset with a... View Details
- 2022
- Chapter
A Compass for Decision Making
By: Lynn S. Paine
Book Abstract: The second edition of Responsible Leadership offers orienting knowledge on how to lead in a world of contested values—a world where leadership work extends beyond leaders and direct reports to a whole range of stakeholders inside and outside an... View Details
- 2022
- Book
L'entreprise, une affaire de cœur
By: Hubert Joly and Caroline Lambert
A remarkable turnaround by a leader with a remarkable philosophy: Find your noble purpose. Put people at the center. Unleash human magic.
"It was fall in Minnesota. It was getting cold and we were supposed to die." This is how Hubert Joly describes the early,... View Details
"It was fall in Minnesota. It was getting cold and we were supposed to die." This is how Hubert Joly describes the early,... View Details
- January 2022
- Article
Rational Habit Formation: Experimental Evidence from Handwashing in India
By: Reshmaan Hussam, Atonu Rabbani, Giovanni Reggiani and Natalia Rigol
We test the predictions of the rational addiction model, reconceptualized as rational habit formation, in the context of handwashing in rural India. To track handwashing, we design soap dispensers with timed sensors. We test for rational habit formation by informing... View Details
- Article
Small States in an Age of Empires: The Duchy of Parma's Colonial Moment, 1750–1770
By: Arnaud Orain and Sophus A. Reinert
Often thought of as the "Athens of Italy" during the Enlightenment, and as a microcosm of the Italian peninsula and of the eighteenth century alike, the Duchy of Parma played a unique role in the culture and politics of the age. This essay focuses on its "colonial... View Details
- December 2021 (Revised May 2025)
- Case
Bed Bath & Beyond: The New Strategy to Drive Shareholder Value
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel W. Fisher
At one time, Bed Bath & Beyond was one of the most successful specialty retailers in the United States—its growth and profit margins far exceeded both peer retailers in the home goods market as well as many other discount retailers. But in 2014, its stock price peaked,... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Limits to Bank Deposit Market Power
By: Juliane Begenau and Erik Stafford
Claims about the market power of bank deposits in the banking literature are numerous and far reaching. Recently, a causal narrative has emerged in the banking literature: market power in bank deposits, measured as imperfect pass-through of short-term market rates on... View Details
- December 10, 2021
- Editorial
Go Ahead and Ask for More Time on That Deadline
By: A.V. Whillans and A.V. Whillans
Unrealistic deadlines don’t help anyone—and yet more often than not, employees avoid asking for extensions even when they know more time would help them do a better job. Through a series of studies with more than 4,000 working adults, the author illustrates how despite... View Details
- December 2021 (Revised January 2023)
- Case
Katerra (A)
By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn
In April 2020, Katerra executives struggled with a series of decisions that would determine the fate of one of the best-funded construction startups in history. Katerra was founded in 2015 by technology-industry executive Michael Marks and commercial real estate... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Stock Investors' Returns Are Exaggerated
By: Jesse M. Fried, Paul Ma and Charles C.Y. Wang
The stock market generates less wealth than it appears. We show that total shareholder return (TSR), the standard measure of stock investor performance, substantially exaggerates returns earned by these investors in aggregate, and thus by most investors. The main... View Details
- 2021
- Chapter
Leadership in Times of Upheaval: The Rise of the Empathic Leader
By: Amy C. Edmondson and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
In times of upheaval, such as in a crisis, leaders often feel compelled to embody a commanding, confident style of leadership that provides answers, eschews dissent and remains aloof. Similarly, followers may be drawn to leaders who provide ready answers, with... View Details
- November 2021 (Revised December 2022)
- Case
Babban Gona: Great Farm
By: Kristin Fabbe, Tarun Khanna, Caroline M. Elkins, Zeke Gillman, Eleni Kyrkopoulou and Thomaz Teodorovicz
In 2020, Babban Gona was one of the world’s largest farming operations with over 140,000 acres of maize farms, an area over ten times as large as Manhattan, and over 80,000 member-farmers in Nigeria. According to the company, the average Nigerian farmer’s net income... View Details
- November 2021 (Revised December 2024)
- Case
Kermit PPI
By: Kyle Myers, Matt Grennan and Sarah Mehta
Launched in 2011, Kermit PPI helped hospitals save money on expensive orthopedic implants and devices by enabling them to renegotiate their contracts with device manufacturers and better monitor compliance. In 2021, as they look to grow, they are entertaining two... View Details
- Article
Using Fresh Starts to Nudge Increased Retirement Savings
By: John Beshears, Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman and Shlomo Benartzi
We conducted a field experiment to study the effect of framing future moments in time as new beginnings (or “fresh starts”). University employees (N=6,082) received mailings with an opportunity to choose between increasing their contributions to a savings plan... View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
Cognitive Uncertainty in Intertemporal Choice
By: Benjamin Enke and Thomas Graeber
This paper studies the relevance of cognitive uncertainty – subjective uncertainty over one's utility-maximizing action – for understanding and predicting intertemporal choice. The main idea is that when people are cognitively noisy, such as when a decision is complex,... View Details
- October 7, 2021
- Article
Carbon Might Be Your Company’s Biggest Financial Liability
By: Robert G. Eccles and John Mulliken
The price of carbon may be zero in many places today, but it’s unlikely to remain zero for long. That means that many companies have hidden liabilities on their books. To cover their carbon short position, executives can take several steps: Measure the position in... View Details
- October 1, 2021
- Article
An Evaluation of Cross-efficiency Methods: With an Application to Warehouse Performance.
By: B.M. Balk, M.R. De Koster, Christian Kaps and J.L. Zofio
Cross-efficiency measurement is an extension of Data Envelopment Analysis that allows for tie-breaking ranking of the Decision Making Units (DMUs) using all the peer evaluations. In this article we examine the theory of cross-efficiency measurement by comparing a... View Details
- October 2021
- Article
Communicating Resource Scarcity and Interpersonal Connection
By: Grant E. Donnelly, Anne V. Wilson, Ashley V. Whillans and Michael I. Norton
Consumers often cite insufficient time or money as an excuse for rejecting social invitations. We explore the effectiveness of these excuses in preserving interpersonal relationships. Six studies—including perceptions of couples planning their wedding—demonstrate that... View Details
- Article
Health Equity, Schooling Hesitancy, and the Social Determinants of Learning
By: Meira Levinson, Alan C. Geller, Joseph G. Allen and John D. Macomber
At least 62 million K-12 students in North America—disproportionately low-income children of color— have been physically out of school for over a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These children are at risk of significant academic, social, mental, and physical harm... View Details