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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,863)
- People (1)
- News (290)
- Research (1,272)
- Events (18)
- Multimedia (9)
- Faculty Publications (667)
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- 2014
- Article
Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men
By: Alison Wood Brooks, Laura Huang, Sarah Kearney and Fiona Murray
Entrepreneurship is a central path to job creation, economic growth, and prosperity. In the earliest stages of start-up business creation, the matching of entrepreneurial ventures to investors is critically important. The entrepreneur's business proposition and... View Details
Brooks, Alison Wood, Laura Huang, Sarah Kearney, and Fiona Murray. "Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 12 (March 25, 2014): 4427–4431.
- August 2021
- Article
Hoping for the Worst? A Paradoxical Preference for Bad News
By: Kate Barasz and Serena Hagerty
Nine studies investigate when and why people may paradoxically prefer bad news—e.g., hoping for an objectively worse injury or a higher-risk diagnosis over explicitly better alternatives. Using a combination of field surveys and randomized experiments, the research... View Details
Keywords: Decision Avoidance; Difficult Decisions; Judgment And Decision Making; Medical Decision-making; Decision Making; Behavior
Barasz, Kate, and Serena Hagerty. "Hoping for the Worst? A Paradoxical Preference for Bad News." Journal of Consumer Research 48, no. 2 (August 2021): 270–288.
- 2023
- Working Paper
Rising Markups and the Role of Consumer Preferences
By: Hendrik Döpper, Alexander MacKay, Nathan H. Miller and Joel Stiebale
We characterize the evolution of markups for consumer products in the United States
from 2006 to 2019. We use detailed data on prices and quantities for products in more
than 100 distinct product categories to estimate demand systems with flexible... View Details
Keywords: Market Power; Markups; Demand Estimation; Consumer Products; Retailers; Product; Price; Demand and Consumers; Consumer Behavior
Döpper, Hendrik, Alexander MacKay, Nathan H. Miller, and Joel Stiebale. "Rising Markups and the Role of Consumer Preferences." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 22-025, October 2021. (Revised March 2023. Direct download.)
- November 2012
- Article
An Age Penalty in Racial Preferences
By: Deborah A. Small, Devin G. Pope and Michael I. Norton
We document an age penalty in racial discrimination: charitable behavior toward African American children decreases-and negative stereotypical inferences increase-with the age of those children. Using data from an online charity that solicits donations for school... View Details
Keywords: Stereotyping; Charitable Giving; Prejudice; Prosocial Behavior; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Age; Race; Prejudice and Bias
Small, Deborah A., Devin G. Pope, and Michael I. Norton. "An Age Penalty in Racial Preferences." Social Psychological & Personality Science 3, no. 6 (November 2012): 730–737.
- 04 Feb 2009
- Working Paper Summaries
Unravelling in Two-Sided Matching Markets and Similarity of Preferences
Keywords: by Hanna Halaburda
- May 1994
- Article
The Work Preference Inventory: Assessing Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Orientations
By: T. M. Amabile, K. G. Hill, B. A. Hennessey and E. M. Tighe
The Work Preference Inventory (WPI) is designed to assess individual differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations. Both the college student and the working adult versions aim to capture the major elements of intrinsic motivation (self-determination,... View Details
Keywords: Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Measurement and Metrics; Higher Education; Employees; Personal Characteristics
Amabile, T. M., K. G. Hill, B. A. Hennessey, and E. M. Tighe. "The Work Preference Inventory: Assessing Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Orientations." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 66, no. 5 (May 1994): 950–967.
- April 2020
- Article
Field Comparisons of Incentive-Compatible Preference Elicitation Techniques
By: Shawn A. Cole, A. Nilesh Fernando, Daniel Stein and Jeremy Tobacman
Knowledge of consumer demand is important for firms, policy makers, and economists. One common tool for incentive-compatible demand elicitation, the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism, has been widely used in laboratory settings but rarely evaluated for... View Details
Keywords: Incentive-compatible Elicitation; Experimental Methods; Weather Insurance; Rainfall Insurance; Agricultural Extension; Demand and Consumers
Cole, Shawn A., A. Nilesh Fernando, Daniel Stein, and Jeremy Tobacman. "Field Comparisons of Incentive-Compatible Preference Elicitation Techniques." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 172 (April 2020): 33–56.
- 2025
- Working Paper
A Preference for Revision Absent Improvement
By: Ximena Garcia-Rada, Leslie K. John, Ed O’Brien and Michael I. Norton
People regularly encounter revised stimuli (e.g., revised versions of products, new editions of
books, tweaked recipes, and technological updates). In principle, a world of constant revision
should benefit people by affording them the most up-to-date offerings. In... View Details
Keywords: Product Change; Versioning; Expectancy Effects; Heuristics; Intuitive Processing; Product Marketing; Change; Perception; Consumer Behavior
Garcia-Rada, Ximena, Leslie K. John, Ed O’Brien, and Michael I. Norton. "A Preference for Revision Absent Improvement." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-087, February 2019. (Revised April 2025.)
- 2019
- Article
Preferences for Experienced Versus Remembered Happiness
By: Cassie Mogilner and Michael I. Norton
Consider two types of happiness: one experienced on a moment-to-moment basis, the other a reflective evaluation where people feel happy looking back. Though researchers have measured and argued the merits of each, we inquired into which happiness people say they want.... View Details
Keywords: Well-being; Life Satisfaction; Experience; Retrospective; Time; Happiness; Satisfaction; Welfare; Perception
Mogilner, Cassie, and Michael I. Norton. "Preferences for Experienced Versus Remembered Happiness." Journal of Positive Psychology 14, no. 2 (2019): 244–251.
- Article
De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in Preferences and Optimal Redistribution
By: Benjamin B Lockwood and Matthew Weinzierl
The prominent but unproven intuition that preference heterogeneity reduces redistribution in a standard optimal tax model is shown to hold under the plausible condition that the distribution of preferences for consumption relative to leisure rises, in terms of... View Details
Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Income; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Taxation; Microeconomics; Macroeconomics
Lockwood, Benjamin B., and Matthew Weinzierl. "De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in Preferences and Optimal Redistribution." Journal of Public Economics 124 (April 2015): 74–80. (Also NBER Working Paper Series, No. 17784, September 2014 and Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-063, January 2012.)
- June 1984 (Revised August 1994)
- Case
ARPPS: Adjustable Rate Perpetual Preferred Stock
By: Jay O. Light
Keywords: Stocks
Light, Jay O. "ARPPS: Adjustable Rate Perpetual Preferred Stock." Harvard Business School Case 284-096, June 1984. (Revised August 1994.)
- April 15, 2019
- Article
Why Anxious Customers Prefer Human Customer Service
By: Michelle A. Shell and Ryan W. Buell
Shell, Michelle A., and Ryan W. Buell. "Why Anxious Customers Prefer Human Customer Service." Harvard Business Review (website) (April 15, 2019).
- 2010
- Working Paper
Preference Intensities and Risk Aversion in School Choice: A Laboratory Experiment
By: Flip Klijn, Joana Pais and Marc Vorsatz
We experimentally investigate in the laboratory two prominent mechanisms that are employed in school choice programs to assign students to public schools. We study how individual behavior is influenced by preference intensities and risk aversion. Our main results show... View Details
Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Education; Marketplace Matching; Risk and Uncertainty; Behavior; Personal Characteristics
Klijn, Flip, Joana Pais, and Marc Vorsatz. "Preference Intensities and Risk Aversion in School Choice: A Laboratory Experiment." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 10-093, April 2010.
- 20 Jan 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
Income Inequality and Social Preferences for Redistribution and Compensation Differentials
Keywords: by William R. Kerr
- 2014
- Working Paper
De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in Preferences and Optimal Redistribution
By: Benjamin B Lockwood and Matthew Weinzierl
The prominent but unproven intuition that preference heterogeneity reduces redistribution in a standard optimal tax model is shown to hold under the plausible condition that the distribution of preferences for consumption relative to leisure rises, in terms of... View Details
Lockwood, Benjamin B., and Matthew Weinzierl. "De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in Preferences and Optimal Redistribution." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-063, January 2012. (Updated September 2014. NBER Working Paper Series, No. 17784. Published in Journal of Public Economics.)
- December 1988
- Article
Ordinal Independence in Non-Linear Utility Theory
By: Jerry R. Green and Bruno Jullien
Individual behavior under uncertainty is characterized using a new axiom, ordinal independence, which is a weakened form of the von Neumann-Morgcnslern independence axiom. It states that if two distributions share a tail in common, then this tail can be modified... View Details
Keywords: Preferences
Green, Jerry R., and Bruno Jullien. "Ordinal Independence in Non-Linear Utility Theory." Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 1, no. 4 (December 1988): 355–387.
- Article
Unravelling in Two-Sided Matching Markets and Similarity of Preferences
This paper investigates the causes and welfare consequences of unravelling in two-sided matching markets. It shows that similarity of preferences is an important factor driving unravelling. In particular, it shows that under the ex-post stable mechanism (the mechanism... View Details
Halaburda, Hanna. "Unravelling in Two-Sided Matching Markets and Similarity of Preferences." Games and Economic Behavior 69, no. 2 (July 2010): 365–393.
- 2008
- Working Paper
Unravelling in Two-Sided Matching Markets and Similarity of Preferences
By: Hanna Halaburda
This paper investigates the causes and welfare consequences of unravelling in two-sided matching markets. It shows that similarity of preferences is an important factor driving unravelling. In particular, it shows that under the ex-post stable mechanism (the mechanism... View Details
Halaburda, Hanna. "Unravelling in Two-Sided Matching Markets and Similarity of Preferences." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 09-068, November 2008.
- 17 Feb 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Preference Heterogeneity and Optimal Capital Income Taxation
- Article
Naturals and Strivers: Preferences and Beliefs about Sources of Achievement
By: Chia-Jung Tsay and Mahzarin R. Banaji
To understand how talent and achievement are perceived, three experiments compared the assessments of "naturals" and "strivers." Professional musicians learned about two pianists, equal in achievement but who varied in the source of achievement: the "natural" with... View Details