Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(177)
- Faculty Publications (50)
- Article
Understanding the Advice of Commissions-Motivated Agents: Evidence from the Indian Life Insurance Market
By: Santosh Anagol, Shawn Cole and Shayak Sarkar
We conduct a series of field experiments to evaluate the quality of advice provided by life insurance agents in India. Agents overwhelmingly recommend unsuitable, strictly dominated products, which provide high commissions to the agent. Agents cater to the beliefs of... View Details
Keywords: Advice; Customers; Insurance; Service Operations; Motivation and Incentives; Ethics; India
- July 2014
- Article
Smart Money? The Effect of Education on Financial Outcomes
By: Shawn A. Cole, Anna Paulson and Gauri Kartini Shastry
Household financial decisions are important for household welfare, economic growth and financial stability. Yet, our understanding of the determinants of financial decision-making is limited. Exploiting exogenous variation in state compulsory schooling laws in both... View Details
- 2014
- Chapter
Comparative Regulation of Market Intermediaries: Insights from the Indian Life Insurance Market
By: Santosh Anagol, Shawn A. Cole and Shayak Sarkar
- 2012
- Chapter
Evidence from the Firm: A New Approach to Understanding Corruption
By: Shawn A. Cole and Anh Tran
Due to its clandestine nature, most of what we understand about corruption comes from survey evidence and self-reported perceptions of corruption: this limits both the range of questions that can be asked and the precision of answers that can be provided. This chapter... View Details
- Article
Marketing Complex Financial Products in Emerging Markets: Evidence from Rainfall Insurance in India
By: Sarthak Gaurav, Shawn A. Cole and Jeremy Tobacman
Recent financial liberalization in emerging economies has led to the rapid introduction of new financial products. Lack of experience with financial products, low levels of education, and low financial literacy may slow adoption of these products. This article reports... View Details
- 2010
- Other Unpublished Work
Is High School the Right Time to Teach Self-control? The Effect of Financial Education and Mathematics Courses on Savings Behavior
By: Shawn A. Cole and Gauri Kartini Shastry
Household financial behavior affects household welfare and the economy at large. Yet our understanding of how to improve financial decisions is limited. Recent literature and policy attention have focused on financial education, for example, in high school. We use... View Details
- March 2010 (Revised December 2010)
- Case
Danatbank
By: David A. Moss, Cole Bolton and Andrew Novo
In the summer of 1931, Germany was struggling with a deepening economic crisis. Production had fallen, unemployment was high, and bank deposits and gold were being withdrawn from the country at a rapid pace, threatening the value of the German mark. The country's third... View Details
- April 2009
- Teaching Note
First National Bank's Golden Opportunity (TN)
By: Shawn A. Cole
Teaching Note for [208072]. View Details
- April 2009
- Teaching Note
SKS Microfinance (TN)
By: Shawn A. Cole
Teaching Note for [208137]. View Details
- March 2009 (Revised September 2011)
- Case
UBS and Auction Rate Securities (A)
By: Daniel Baird Bergstresser, Shawn A. Cole and Siddharth Bhaskar Shenai
UBS, a global financial services company, must decide whether to continue to support the market for Auction Rate Securities in the face of a growing financial crisis. These instruments, underwritten by UBS, were marketed to clients as highly liquid and safe... View Details
- March 2009 (Revised October 2011)
- Supplement
UBS and Auction Rate Securities (B)
By: Daniel Baird Bergstresser, Shawn A. Cole and Siddharth Bhaskar Shenai
Supplement to 209119 View Details
Keywords: Debt Securities
- March 2009 (Revised April 2010)
- Supplement
UBS and Auction Rate Securities (C)
By: Daniel Baird Bergstresser, Shawn A. Cole and Siddharth Bhaskar Shenai
Supplement to 209119 and 209131 View Details
Keywords: Debt Securities
- February 2009 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Fannie Mae: Public or Private?
By: David A. Moss, Cole Bolton and Kimberly Hagan
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan established the President's Commission on Privatization to identify federal government functions that could be shifted to the private sector. One agency that the Commission considered was the Federal National Mortgage Association, or... View Details
- February 2009
- Article
Financial Development, Bank Ownership, and Growth. Or, Does Quantity Imply Quality?
By: Shawn A. Cole
- 2008
- Chapter
Where Does It Go? Spending by the Financially Constrained
By: Shawn A. Cole, Peter Tufano and John Thompson
- 2008
- Working Paper
Financial Development, Bank Ownership, and Growth. Or, Does Quantity Imply Quality?
By: Shawn A. Cole
In 1980, India nationalized its large private banks. This induced different bank ownership patterns across different towns, allowing credible identification of the effects of bank ownership on financial development, lending rates, and the quality of intermediation, as... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Fixing Market Failures or Fixing Elections? Agricultural Credit in India
By: Shawn A. Cole
This paper integrates theories of political budget cycles with theories of tactical electoral redistribution to test for political capture in a novel way. Studying banks in India, I find that government-owned bank lending tracks the electoral cycle, with agricultural... View Details
- May 2008 (Revised March 2009)
- Case
SKS Microfinance
By: Shawn A. Cole and Theresa Chen
Vikram Akula, CEO of SKS Microfinance, seeks a venture capital investment to fund his firm. SKS, one of the largest and fastest growing microfinance institutions in India, is a profitable, for-profit institution with a social mission. In what is one of the first... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Where Does It Go? Spending by the Financially Constrained
By: Shawn A. Cole, John Thompson and Peter Tufano
In this paper, we analyze the spending decisions of over 1.5 million Americans who vary in their degree of revealed credit constraints. Specifically, we analyze how these Americans spend their income tax refunds, using transaction-level data from a stored-value card... View Details