Publications

2018
Book

High-Skilled Migration to the United States and Its Economic Consequences

By: Gordon H. Hanson, William R. Kerr and Sarah Turner

Immigration policy is one of the most contentious public policy issues in the United States today. High-skilled immigrants represent an increasing share of the U.S. workforce, particularly in science and engineering fields. These immigrants affect economic growth,... View Details

Keywords: Immigration; Policy; Economics; Outcome or Result; United States

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13 May 2015
Video

Professor Kathleen McGinn on working mothers as positive role models for their children

20 May 2015
News

Want a financially successful daughter? Be a working mom

February 2010
Article

The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution

By: N. Gregory Mankiw and Matthew C. Weinzierl

Should the income tax include a credit for short taxpayers and a surcharge for tall ones? The standard Utilitarian framework for tax analysis answers this question in the affirmative. Moreover, a plausible parameterization using data on height and wages implies a... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Wages; Personal Characteristics

Article

Targeting Weather Insurance Markets

By: Anita Mukherjee, Shawn Cole and Jeremy Tobacman

The suitability of insurance products often depends greatly on individual circumstances. This paper examines the challenges of heterogeneity in a relatively new product, weather‐indexed insurance. This index insurance product has been launched in over a dozen... View Details

Keywords: Index Insurance; Labor Markets; Self-insurance; Self-protection; Weather; Insurance; Markets; Household; Risk Management

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11 Sep 2012
First Look

First Look: September 11

economies to land politics. Dalian, benefitting from early access to foreign capital, consolidated control over urban territory through the designation of a development zone, which realigned local economic interests and introduced dual... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Winter 2024
Article

Is Pay Transparency Good?

By: Zoë B. Cullen

Countries around the world are enacting pay transparency policies to combat pay discrimination. Since 2000, 71 percent of OECD countries have done so. Most are enacting transparency horizontally, revealing pay between coworkers doing similar work within a firm. While... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Wages; Knowledge Sharing; Job Design and Levels; Negotiation; Performance Productivity; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives

27 Sep 2017
HBS Seminar

Judith Chevalier, Yale School of Management

June 2023
Article

The Salary Taboo: Privacy Norms and the Diffusion of Information

By: Zoë Cullen and Ricardo Perez-Truglia

The limited diffusion of salary information has implications for labor markets, such as wage discrimination policies and collective bargaining. Access to salary information is believed to be limited and unequal, but there is little direct evidence on the sources of... View Details

Keywords: Search Costs; Privacy; Norms; Compensation; Financial Industry; Field Experiment; Knowledge Dissemination; Equality and Inequality; Gender; Compensation and Benefits; Societal Protocols

Article

On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women's Financial Control Impacts Labor Supply and Gender Norms

By: Natalia Rigol, Simone Schaner, Rohini Pande, Erica Field and Charity Troyer Moore

Can increasing control over earnings incentivize a woman to work, and thereby influence norms around gender roles? We randomly varied whether rural Indian women received bank accounts, training in account use, and direct deposit of public sector wages into their own... View Details

Keywords: Social Norms; Employment; Wages; Gender; Banks and Banking; Perception

22 Jul 2015
News

The Kids of Working Moms Are All Right

03 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

Why a Failed Startup Might Be Good for Your Career After All

years it took to achieve them. For example, the title “software engineer” received a seniority rating of 2, signifying the median person earns this title two years after graduating college. That person’s boss, a “senior software... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

05 Oct 2015
News

Study finds that daughters benefit when moms work

01 Jan 2024
Blog Post

Answers to Your Top Questions about Financial Aid at HBS

At HBS, we are committed to ensuring that an MBA is both affordable and accessible to students from all backgrounds. First off, don’t worry, you do not need to apply for financial aid until after you have applied and been admitted to the... View Details

09 Jan 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Economic Transition and Private-Sector Labor Demand: Evidence from Urban China

Keywords: by Lakshmi Iyer, Xin Meng, Nancy Qian & Xiaoxue Zhao

Research Summary

Savings among microentrepreneurs

Poverty is often characterized not only by low average income, but also by highly variable income and expenditures, and by a lack of access to insurance services that can help smooth consumption. While commitment devices such as defaults and direct deposits from... View Details

Article

The Supply Chain Economy: New Policies to Drive Innovation and Jobs

By: Mercedes Delgado and Karen G. Mills

The debate in economic policymaking about the drivers of innovation and job creation has long centered on manufacturing versus services. The predominant view is that manufacturing drives innovation, wages, and growth, and that services provide less innovation and... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Industries; Supply Chain; Economy; Policy; Innovation and Invention; Jobs and Positions

2011
Working Paper

'Last-place Aversion': Evidence and Redistributive Implications

By: Ilyana Kuziemko, Ryan W. Buell, Taly Reich and Michael I. Norton

Why do low-income individuals often oppose redistribution? We hypothesize that an aversion to being in "last place" undercuts support for redistribution, with low-income individuals punishing those slightly below themselves to keep someone "beneath" them. In laboratory... View Details

Keywords: Wages; Surveys; Wealth and Poverty; Behavior; Income; Research; Rank and Position; Attitudes; Personal Characteristics; Economics