Publications

July 2012
Case

Generation Investment Management

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Matthew Preble

Examines the investment process of Generation Investment Management, a "sustainable" investing firm established in 2004 by David Blood and U.S. Vice President Al Gore. Places students in the position of David Lowish, director of global industrials, who must decide... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Energy Generation; Investment; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants; Welfare; Financial Services Industry; India; United Kingdom

06 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win?

discriminate, and that piracy may even result in higher profits to Microsoft! Finally, the paper investigates the societal welfare consequences of OSS availability by comparing different industry structures (monopoly and duopoly). We find... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

May 2010
Article

Elections and Discretionary Accruals: Evidence from 2004

By: Karthik Ramanna and Sugata Roychowdhury

We examine the accrual choices of outsourcing firms with links to U.S. congressional candidates during the 2004 elections, when corporate outsourcing was a major campaign issue. We find that politically connected firms with more extensive outsourcing activities have... View Details

Keywords: Political Economy; Accounting Information; Accruals Management; Campaign Contributions; Discretionary Accruals; Election Outcomes; Political Currency; Political Process; Social Issues; Political Elections; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Motivation and Incentives; Earnings Management; Welfare; United States

SSRN

Find at Harvard

03 Nov 2009
First Look

First Look: Nov. 3

water purification solution. We find that higher prices screen out those who use the product less. By contrast, we find no consistent evidence of sunk-cost effects. Welfare Payments and Crime Author:C. Fritz Foley Publication:The Review... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

03 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

How Companies Can Increase Market Rewards for Sustainability Efforts

flavijus For the first time, a link has been drawn between public sentiment about a company’s sustainability practices and how that company is valued in the market. The results are important both for investors searching for under-valued, socially responsible companies,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

22 Feb 2000
Research & Ideas

Social Capital Markets: Creating Value in the Nonprofit World

track how that cost structure changes due to the nonprofit's intervention. "If employees go off welfare and start earning wages and paying taxes, there's an inverse relationship. They end up contributing to society," he says.... View Details

Keywords: by Anne Kavanagh

02 Feb 2010
First Look

First Look: Feb. 2

welfare enhancing. In this case, the net cost of both contracting directly on an aggregate measure and exploiting career incentives based on disaggregated measures is smaller than the cost of contracting directly on disaggregate measures.... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2025
Article

Social Security and Trends in Wealth Inequality

By: Sylvain Catherine, Max Miller and Natasha Sarin

Recent influential work finds large increases in inequality in the U.S. based on measures of wealth concentration that notably exclude the value of social insurance programs. This paper shows that top wealth shares have not changed much over the last three decades when... View Details

Keywords: Wealth; Equality and Inequality; Taxation; Insurance; Welfare

Read Now

March 2000
Background Note

Fall Before Rising, A: The Story of Jai Jaikumar (A)

By: H. Kent Bowen, Richard Compton Squire, Sarah Patricia Vickers-Willis and Harry James Wilson

What is the relationship between good fortune, professional success, and a moral obligation to other people? Jai Jaikumar, who as a youth was saved by a shepherd woman after a tragic mountaineering accident in the Himalayas, and who later rose to the top of his... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; History; Personal Development and Career; Relationships; Familiarity; Perception; Welfare

April 2007 (Revised June 2007)
Case

Aid, Debt Relief, and Trade: An Agenda for Fighting World Poverty (A)

By: Laura Alfaro, Eric D. Werker and Renee Kim

At the 2005 Group of Eight summit, world leaders agreed to relieve the world's poorest countries' debt burdens and double aid to Africa by 2010. The announcement raised questions whether debt relief would really help the poor. By examining past aid trends and policies... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Borrowing and Debt; Capital; International Relations; Nonprofit Organizations; Poverty; Welfare; Africa

02 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 2, 2009

Working PapersTruth in Giving: Experimental Evidence on the Welfare Effects of Informed Giving to the Poor Authors:Christina Fong and Felix Oberholzer-Gee Abstract It is often difficult for donors to predict the value of charitable... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

18 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 18

transactional planners responded to these differences in standards of judicial review; that these differences in judicial scrutiny created differences in outcomes for the minority shareholders; and that differences in outcomes created a social View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

30 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

All Eyes on Slovakia’s Flat Tax

countries; seemingly successful governments that had managed to reform economies were defeated by newcomers that promised more emphasis on the welfare state. This clash was interesting to us. Many economists advocate including a tax... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

23 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 23

and Jonathan T. Kolstad Publication:American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (forthcoming) Abstract We consider the welfare economics of firm entry when input supply is inelastic. Prior studies suggest that with elastic supply of... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

11 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, April 11

identify the change to welfare when demand-enhancing effects are considered generally. Finally, we present some solutions to the challenge of identifying welfare effects, and we suggest guidelines for future... View Details

14 Jun 2016
First Look

June 14, 2016

parameter is calibrated to local interest rates. A quantitative exercise calibrated to Brazil finds welfare gains of the optimal fiscal policy to be economically substantial, and the optimal rule to not entail a countercyclical fiscal... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

17 Jul 2007
First Look

First Look: July 17, 2007

addressed by recent studies. They argue that business groups are responses to different economic conditions and that, from a welfare standpoint, they can sometimes be "paragons" and, at other times, "parasites." The... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

23 Jul 2024
Research & Ideas

Forgiving Medical Debt Won't Make Everyone Happier

The solution seems obvious. Forgiving medical debt should ease both financial and emotional burdens for the two in five people in the US who carry it. Yet a new comprehensive study that tracked more than 200,000 patients and randomly relieved more than $169 million of... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Health

July 2009 (Revised May 2010)
Case

The Millennium Challenge Corporation and Ghana

By: Alnoor Ebrahim and V. Kasturi Rangan

A U.S. government agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), provides aid to developing countries, focusing on poverty reduction through economic growth. It measures results through an economic rate of return based on increases in farmer incomes anticipated... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Investment Return; Measurement and Metrics; Welfare; Ghana; United States