Publications

Article

Leaving It to Chance"—Passive Risk Taking in Everyday Life

By: Ruti Keinan and Yoella Bereby-Meyer

While risk research focuses on actions that put people at risk, this paper introduces the concept of "passive risk"—risk brought on or magnified by inaction. We developed a scale measuring personal tendency for passive risk taking (PRT), validated it using a 150... View Details

2014
Working Paper

Who Runs the International System? Power and the Staffing of the United Nations Secretariat

By: Paul Novosad and Eric Werker

National governments frequently pull strings to get their citizens appointed to senior positions in international institutions. We examine, over a 60 year period, the nationalities of the most senior positions in the United Nations Secretariat, ostensibly the world's... View Details

Keywords: International Relations; Global Range; Power and Influence

SSRN

Article

A 'Present' for the Future: The Unexpected Value of Rediscovery

By: Ting Zhang, Tami Kim, Alison Wood Brooks, Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton

Although documenting everyday activities may seem trivial, four studies reveal that creating records of the present generates unexpected benefits by allowing future rediscoveries. In Study 1, we use a "time capsule" paradigm to show that individuals underestimate the... View Details

Keywords: History; Information Management; Cognition and Thinking

September 2014
Article

Income Inequality and Social Preferences for Redistribution and Compensation Differentials

By: William R. Kerr

In cross-sectional studies, countries with greater income inequality typically exhibit less support for government-led redistribution and greater acceptance of wage inequality (e.g., United States versus Western Europe). If individual nations evolve along this pattern,... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Income; Government and Politics

2014
Working Paper

Putting Skin in the Game: Managerial Ownership and Bank Risk-Taking

By: Jan Bouwens and Arnt Verriest

This paper examines the relation between managerial ownership and bank risk exposure for a large sample of international financial institutions. We seek empirical evidence suggested by theories concerning conflicts between managers and owners over risk-taking. We argue... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Equity Ownership; Financial Risk; Banks; Motivation and Incentives; Risk Management; Employee Ownership; Corporate Governance; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry

2012
Chapter

Problem Solving and Search in Networks

By: David Lazer and Ethan Bernstein

This chapter examines the role that networks play in facilitating or inhibiting search for solutions to problems at both the individual and collective levels. At the individual level, search in networks enables individuals to transport themselves to a very different... View Details

Keywords: Network Organizations; Search; Problem Solving; Individual; Individuals And Teams; Collective; Cognitive Search; Network Search; Search Typology; Networks; Social and Collaborative Networks; Theory; Knowledge Sharing

2005
Article

Early Decisions: A Regulatory Framework

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

We describe a regulatory framework that helps consumers who have difficulty sticking to their own long-run plans. Early Decision regulations help long-run preferences prevail by allowing consumers to partially commit to their long-run goals, making it harder for a... View Details

Keywords: Hyperbolic Discounting; Self-control; Commitment; Consumer Behavior; Taxation; Attitudes

Article

Memory Lane and Morality: How Childhood Memories Promote Prosocial Behavior

By: F. Gino and S. Desai

Four experiments demonstrated that recalling memories from one's own childhood lead people to experience feelings of moral purity and to behave prosocially. In Experiment 1, participants instructed to recall memories from their childhood were more likely to help the... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Research; Emotions; Relationships; Judgments

Article

Inflation-Indexed Bonds and the Expectations Hypothesis

By: Carolin E. Pflueger and Luis M. Viceira

This paper empirically analyzes the Expectations Hypothesis (EH) in inflation-indexed (or real) bonds and in nominal bonds in the U.S. and in the U.K. We strongly reject the EH in inflation-indexed bonds and also confirm and update the existing evidence rejecting the... View Details

Keywords: TIPS; Breakeven Inflation; Return Predictability; Bond Risk Premia; Risk Management; Bonds; Financial Liquidity; Inflation and Deflation; United Kingdom; United States

March 2011
Article

What Do Dividends Tell Us About Earnings Quality

By: Douglas Skinner and Eugene F. Soltes

Over the past 30 years, there have been significant changes in the distribution of earnings (cross-sectional variation has increased, with increasing left skewness) as well as in corporate payout policy, with many fewer firms paying dividends and the emergence of stock... View Details

Keywords: Distribution; Business Earnings; Change; Policy; Stocks; Investment Return; Performance Consistency; Quality

2009
Working Paper

Watch What I Do, Not What I Say: The Unintended Consequences of the Homeland Investment Act

By: Dhammika Dharmapala, C. Fritz Foley and Kristin J. Forbes

This paper analyzes the impact on firm behavior of the Homeland Investment Act of 2004, which provided a one-time tax holiday for the repatriation of foreign earnings by U.S. multinationals. The analysis controls for endogeneity and omitted variable bias by using... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Multinational Firms and Management; Government Legislation; Taxation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Behavior; United States