Publications

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Article

On the Revelation of Preferences for Public Goods

By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont

28 Aug 2008
News

When CSR is neither profit nor public good

Motivating Effort in Contributing to Public Goods Inside Organizations: Field Experimental Evidence

We investigate the factors driving workers’ decisions to generate public goods inside an organization through a randomized solicitation of workplace improvement proposals in a medical center with 1200 employees. We find that pecuniary incentives, such as winning... View Details

April–May 2005
Article

History, Social Divisions and Public Goods in Rural India

By: Abhijit Banerjee, Lakshmi Iyer and Rohini Somanathan

Keywords: History; Goods and Commodities; Public Ownership; Society; India

July–August 2018
Article

Learning by Contributing: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Contribution to Crowdsourced Public Goods

By: Frank Nagle

As the economy becomes more information based, firms are increasingly using crowdsourced public goods as inputs for innovation and production. Counterintuitively, some firms pay their employees to contribute to the creation of these goods, which can be used freely by... View Details

Keywords: Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software; Competitive Strategy; Learning; Competitive Advantage

23 Apr 2014
News

Are Electronic Cigarettes a Public Good or Health Hazard?

23 Apr 2014
HBS Case

Are Electronic Cigarettes a Public Good or Health Hazard?

consequences, Quelch hopes he can motivate MBA students to think more deeply about the public health impacts of business decisions, as well as getting MPH students to think about the business forces that shape View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage; Advertising

2010
Chapter

Colonial Land Tenure, Electoral Competition, and Public Goods in India

By: Abhijit Banerjee and Lakshmi Iyer

Keywords: History; Public Sector; Political Elections; India

Article

Public Goods and Posterity: An Empirical Test of Intergenerational Altruism

By: Arthur C. Brooks

November 2023
Case

The Commons Project in Rwanda—Building Digital Infrastructure for the Global Public Good

By: Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui and Tom Quinn

In September 2022, The Commons Project Foundation (TCP) CEO Zhenya Lindgardt and her team met on a Zoom call to discuss building tools to help Rwandans manage their health data. They believed that helping Africa build digital infrastructure would improve much-needed... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Capital; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Health Care and Treatment; Information Management; Adaptation; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology Industry; Rwanda; United States

Educators

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1979
Article

An Incentive Compatible Planning Procedure for Public Good Production: A Corrigendum

By: Jerry R. Green and Jean-Jacques Laffont

2008
Chapter

Public Action for Public Goods: Theory and Evidence

By: Abhijit Banerjee, Lakshmi Iyer and Rohini Somanathan

This chapter focuses on the relationship between public action and access to public goods. It begins by developing a simple model of collective action which is intended to capture the various mechanisms that are discussed in the theoretical literature on collective... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Quality; Groups and Teams; Human Needs; Poverty; Welfare or Wellbeing; Public Administration Industry

2016
Article

Learning By Contributing: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Contributing to Public Goods

By: Frank Nagle

2008
Working Paper

Colonial Land Tenure, Electoral Competition and Public Goods in India

By: Abhijit Banerjee and Lakshmi Iyer

April 2, 2018
Article

The Right Way for Companies to Publicize Their Social Responsibility Efforts

By: Mark R. Kramer

It’s a common complaint. Companies keep trying to show the world that they are socially conscious and keep losing the battle. Anheuser-Busch and Hyundai even devoted this year’s Super Bowl ads to lauding their philanthropic efforts with decidedly mixed responses.... View Details

Keywords: Public Relations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Communication Strategy

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Fall 2021
Article

The Problem of Social Benefit

By: Frank Nagle

Economists have obsessed over the question of negative externalities, but market arrangements can also generate positive externalities. We should consider how to harness them for public good. View Details

Keywords: Externalities; Public Good; Economics; Social Issues