Publications

Article

On the Causality and Cause of Returns to Organizational Status: Evidence from the Grands Crus Classés of the Médoc

By: Daniel Malter

This paper identifies the causal symbolic effect of status on the prices organizations charge for their products. I exploit the classification of the châteaux of the Médoc, which sorted 61 wine producers into five growth classes in 1855, as a fixed hierarchical symbol... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Status; Quality Signals; Conspicuous Consumption; Wine Classification Of 1855; Grand Cru; Status and Position; Quality; Reputation; Price; France

2022
Working Paper

Distributional Consequences of Monetary Policy Across Races: Evidence from the U.S. Credit Register

By: Laura Alfaro, Ester Faia and Camelia Minoiu

We examine the consequences of monetary policy on racial disparities, focusing on the role of bank lending to firms through collateral and selection channels. Leveraging comprehensive loan-level data from the U.S. credit register (Y-14Q) of the Federal Reserve, we show... View Details

Keywords: Monetary Policy Transmission; Inequity; Credit Registry; Wealth; Collateral Channel; Selection; Racial Disparity; Racial Inequality; Equality and Inequality; Banks and Banking; Credit; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Banking Industry; United States

April 2015
Article

Incentivizing Calculated Risk-Taking: Evidence from an Experiment with Commercial Bank Loan Officers

By: Shawn Cole, Martin Kanz and Leora Klapper

This paper uses a series of experiments with commercial bank loan officers to test the effect of performance incentives on risk assessment and lending decisions. We first show that while high-powered incentives lead to greater screening effort and more profitable... View Details

Keywords: Banking; Management Processes; Credit Products; Experimental Economics; Risk Management; Motivation and Incentives; Management Practices and Processes; Financing and Loans; Banking Industry

2013
Working Paper

From Green Users to Green Voters

By: Diego Comin and Johannes Rode

We estimate the effect of the diffusion of photovoltaic (PV) systems on the fraction of votes obtained by the German Green Party. The logistic diffusion of PV systems offers a new identification strategy. We take first differences and instrument adoption rates (i.e.... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Political Elections; Technology Adoption; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology Industry; Public Administration Industry; Germany

15 Sep 2014
News

How Keeping a Diary Can Surprise You

Article

Ensembles of Overfit and Overconfident Forecasts

By: Y. Grushka-Cockayne, V.R.R. Jose and K. C. Lichtendahl

Firms today average forecasts collected from multiple experts and models. Because of cognitive biases, strategic incentives, or the structure of machine-learning algorithms, these forecasts are often overfit to sample data and are overconfident. Little is known about... View Details

Keywords: Decision Analysis; Data Science; Forecasting and Prediction; Data and Data Sets

05 Oct 2016
What Do You Think?

Can the US Economy Regain the Growth and Prosperity of the Past?

that assume a 3.5 percent average growth rate over the next 10 years—something that would have profound implications for the global economy—largely through reductions in taxes and government regulation.... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

22 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

When Will the Hot Housing Market Finally Start to Cool?

Texas, to Nevada, where the tax rates are significantly lower. That is causing disruptions in those local markets because of the influx of new people. The delta between the cost of homes in California or in... View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette

2021
Working Paper

Closing Costs, Refinancing, and Inefficiencies in the Mortgage Market

By: David Hao Zhang

In the US, borrowers often finance the price of mortgage origination by agreeing to higher mortgage rates for a given principal amount. I show that for standard fixed-rate, prepayable mortgages this contractual feature has two consequences. First, it leads to increased... View Details

Keywords: Mortgage Market; Refinancing; Mortgages; Consumer Behavior

Fall 2014
Article

Seesaws and Social Security Benefits Indexing

By: Matthew Weinzierl

The price indexation of Social Security benefit payments has emerged in recent years as a flashpoint of debate in the United States. I characterize the direct effects that changes in that price index would have on retirees who differ in their initial wealth at... View Details

Keywords: Retirement; Compensation and Benefits; United States

We propose that managers adept at thinking about their cultural assumptions (cultural metacognition) are more likely than others to develop affect-based trust in their relationships with people from different cultures, enabling creative collaboration. Study 1, a... View Details

Article

State Activism and the Hidden Incentives Behind Bank Acquisitions

By: Christopher Marquis, Doug Guthrie and Juan Almandoz

A number of studies have shown that, as a result of the ambiguity of U.S. legal mandates, organizations have considerable latitude in how they comply with regulations. In this paper, we address how the different agendas of the federal and state governments increase... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Opportunities; Government Legislation; Acquisition; Forecasting and Prediction; Banks and Banking; Motivation and Incentives; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Management Practices and Processes; Research; United States

January 2021
Article

How Personality and Policy Predict Pandemic Behavior: Understanding Sheltering-in-Place in 55 Countries at the Onset of COVID-19

By: Friedrich M. Götz, Andrés Gvirtz, Adam D. Galinsky and Jon M. Jachimowicz

The spread of COVID-19 within any given country or community at the onset of the pandemic depended in part on the sheltering-in-place rate of its citizens. The pandemic led us to revisit one of psychology’s most fundamental and most basic questions in a high-stakes... View Details

Keywords: COVID; COVID-19; Pandemic; Shelter-in-place; Personality; Government; Interactionism; Health Pandemics; Behavior; Personal Characteristics; Policy; Governance Compliance

April 2010
Article

Low-energy Limit for Tunnelling Subject to an Eckart Potential Barrier

By: Samuel H Lipoff and Dudley R Herschbach

For two-body s-wave collisions subject to tunnelling though an Eckart potential barrier, cross-sections and rate coefficients in the low-energy regime can be evaluated in analytic form. These provide criteria for approach to the Wigner limit and a generic plot... View Details

Research Summary

On the Political Economy of Stabilization Programs

By: Laura Alfaro

This paper provides a political economy explanation for temporary exchange-rate-based stabilization programs by focusing on the distributional effects of real exchange-rate appreciation. I propose an economy in which agents are endowed with either tradable or... View Details

June 2018 (Revised February 2019)
Teaching Note

Rose Electronics Distributing Company

By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld

Itamar Frankenthal (HBS ’13) wanted a $4.5 million bank loan to partially finance his planned acquisition of a small company, Rose Electronics. He received nine proposals which varied widely in term, interest rate, amortization schedule, and covenants. Frankenthal had... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Acquisition; Decision Making; Electronics Industry

2012
Working Paper

When Supply-Chain Disruptions Matter

By: William Schmidt and Ananth Raman

Supply-chain disruptions have a material effect on company value, but this impact can vary considerably. Thus, it is important for managers and investors to recognize the types of disruptions and the organizational factors that lead to the worst outcomes. Prior... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain; Operations; Performance Efficiency

2017
Working Paper

Investment Timing with Costly Search for Financing

By: Samuel Antill

I develop a dynamic model of investment timing in which firms must first choose when to search for external financing. Search is costly and the arrival of investors is uncertain, leading to delay in financing and investment. Depending on parameters, my model can... View Details

Keywords: Real Options; Search And Bargaining; Time-varying Financial Conditions; Investment; Venture Capital; Mathematical Methods