Publications

September 2013
Article

Testimonials Do Not Convert Patients from Brand to Generic Medication

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

Objectives: To assess whether the addition of a peer testimonial to an informational mailing increases conversion rates from brand name prescription medications to lower-cost therapeutic equivalents, and whether the testimonial's efficacy increases when... View Details

Keywords: Testimonial; Peer Information; Social Proximity; Communication; Generic Medication; Familiarity; Marketing Communications; Decision Choices and Conditions; Identity; Health Care and Treatment; Marketing Reference Programs; Power and Influence; Brands and Branding; Health Industry

2023
Article

Conduit Incentives: Eliciting Cooperation from Workers Outside of Managers' Control

By: Susanna Gallani

Can managers use monetary incentives to elicit cooperation from workers they cannot reward for their efforts? I study “conduit incentives,” an innovative incentive design, whereby managers influence bonus-ineligible workers’ effort by offering bonus-eligible employees... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Behavior Modification; Peer Monitoring; Persistence Of Performance Improvements; Crowding Out; Implicit Incentives; Compensation; Healthcare; Social Pressure; Image Motivation; Incentives; Motivation; Performance; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Compensation and Benefits; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Organizational Culture; Health Industry; California

21 Jan 2014
First Look

First Look: January 21

mechanism that amplifies interest rate volatility. I find strong support for these predictions in the time series of U.S. government bond returns. Publisher's link: http://www.people.hbs.edu/shanson/MBS_Paper_20140104.pdf Working Papers Separating Homophily and View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

07 Sep 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Entrepreneurs (Co-) Working in Close Proximity: Impacts on Technology Adoption and Startup Performance Outcomes

Keywords: by Maria P. Roche, Alexander Oettl, and Christian Catalini

2011
Other Unpublished Work

Lords of the Harvest: Third-Party Signaling and Regulatory Approval of Genetically Modified Organisms

By: Shon R. Hiatt and Sangchan Park

Little is known about the factors that influence regulatory agencies' decision making. We posit that regulatory agencies are influenced by the firms they regulate, but not exclusively via political influence as is argued in the traditional regulatory-capture... View Details

Keywords: Genetics; Decision Choices and Conditions; Reputation; Agribusiness; Power and Influence; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States

01 Aug 2022
What Do You Think?

Does Religious Belief Affect Organizational Performance?

research has concentrated on the influence that a CEO’s background can have on his or her attitude toward uncertainty and willingness to take risks, with subsequent outcomes for the organizations studied. But there hasn’t been much... View Details

Keywords: Re: James L. Heskett

2016
Chapter

User-Generated Content and Social Media

By: Michael Luca

This paper documents what economists have learned about user-generated content (UGC) and social media. A growing body of evidence suggests that UGC on platforms ranging from Yelp to Facebook has a large causal impact on economic and social outcomes ranging from... View Details

Keywords: User-generated Content; Crowdsourcing; Design Economics; Internet and the Web; Marketing; Economics; Media; Social Media

08 Aug 2013
News

Study finds online ratings vulnerable to bias

2023
Working Paper

The Effect of Childhood Environment on Political Behavior: Evidence from Young U.S. Movers, 1992–2021

By: Jacob R. Brown, Enrico Cantoni, Sahil Chinoy, Martin Koenen and Vincent Pons

We ask how childhood environment shapes political behavior. We measure young voters’ participation and party affiliation in nationally comprehensive voter files and reconstruct their childhood location histories based on their parents’ addresses. We compare outcomes of... View Details

Keywords: Political Parties; Government and Politics; Age; Residency; Voting

Purchase

June 2019
Article

Learning From Mum: Cross-National Evidence Linking Maternal Employment and Adult Children’s Outcomes

By: Kathleen L. McGinn, Mayra Ruiz Castro and Elizabeth Long Lingo

Analyses relying on two international surveys from over 100,000 men and women across 29 countries explore the relationship between maternal employment and adult daughters’ and sons’ employment and domestic outcomes. In the employment sphere, adult daughters, but not... View Details

Keywords: Female Labor Force Participation; Gender Attitudes; Household Labor; Maternal Employment; Social Class; Social Learning Theory; Social Mobility; Employment; Gender; Attitudes; Household; Labor; Learning; Outcome or Result

20 Nov 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, November 20, 2018

that adjustments grow more stringent and accurate in the months leading up to default and better predict lender default recovery rates. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=52018 Peer View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

February 2011
Article

Understanding Analysts’ Use and Under-use of Stock Returns and Other Analysts’ Forecasts when Forecasting Earnings

By: Michael B. Clement, Jeffrey Hales and Yanfeng Xue

We investigate analysts' use of stock returns and other analysts' forecast revisions in revising their own forecasts after an earnings announcement. We find that analysts respond more strongly to these signals when the signals are more informative about future earnings... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Forecasting and Prediction; Performance Evaluation; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Financial Services Industry

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Profile

Rocio Parra

culture and change, while Power and Influence will help me better navigate networks, politics and bias. My experience leading two HBS student clubs has also been great preparation for my job. I've learned to work with diverse... View Details

Keywords: Retail

31 Aug 2012
Working Paper Summaries

The Effect of Institutional Factors on the Value of Corporate Diversification

Keywords: by Venkat Kuppuswamy, George Serafeim & Belén Villalonga

Forthcoming
Article

Proximate (Co-)Working: Knowledge Spillovers and Social Interactions

By: Maria P. Roche, Alexander Oettl and Christian Catalini

We examine the influence of physical proximity on between-start-up knowledge spillovers at one of the largest technology coworking hubs in the United States. Relying on the exogenous assignment of office space to the hub’s 251 start-ups, we find that proximity... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Integration; Coworking; Microgeography; Business Startups; Technology Adoption; Diversity; Interpersonal Communication; Knowledge Sharing; Geographic Location

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15 Feb 2016
Research & Ideas

Want Your Employees to Plan Better for Retirement? Don't Do This

employee 401(k) contributions responded to savings information provided by their employers. The study was conducted to understand what kind of influence company-offered information can have. “We’ve uncovered a phenomenon that is probably... View Details

Keywords: Re: John Beshears; Financial Services

21 May 2014
HBS Seminar

Robert Kraut, Carnegie Mellon

2022
Working Paper

Failing Just Fine: Assessing Careers of Venture Capital-backed Entrepreneurs via a Non-wage Measure

By: Natee Amornsiripanitch, Paul Gompers, George Hu, Will Levinson and Vladimir Mukharlyamov

This paper proposes a non-pecuniary measure of career achievement, Seniority. Based on a database of over 5 million resumes, this metric exploits the variation in job titles and how long they take to attain. When non-monetary factors influence career choice, inference... View Details

Keywords: Career Outcomes; Founders; Personal Development and Career; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship