Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(949)
- Faculty Publications (151)
- June 2017
- Article
The Political Economy of Financial Innovation: Evidence from Local Governments
By: Christophe Pérignon and Boris Vallée
We examine the toxic loans sold by investment banks to local governments. Using proprietary data, we show that politicians strategically use these products to increase chances of being re-elected. Consistent with greater incentives to hide the cost of debt, toxic loans... View Details
- March 17, 2017
- Article
How Economics Can Shape Precision Medicines
By: Ariel Dora Stern, Brian M. Alexander and Amitabh Chandra
Many public and private efforts in coming years will focus on research in precision medicine, developing biomarkers to indicate which patients are likely to benefit from a certain treatment so that others can be spared the cost—financial and physical—of being treated... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Seeking to Belong: How the Words of Internal and External Beneficiaries Influence Performance
By: Paul Green, Francesca Gino and Bradley R. Staats
In this paper, we examine how connecting to beneficiaries of one’s work increases performance and argue that beneficiaries internal to an organization (i.e., one’s own colleagues) can serve as an important source of motivation, even in jobs that—on the surface—may seem... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised April 2018)
- Background Note
Introduction to Incentive-based Sales Compensation Systems
By: Willy Shih
This background note explains the structure of incentive-based sales compensation systems. View Details
- 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
- August 2016 (Revised June 2017)
- Case
Oversight Systems
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Amram Migdal
The case, set in May 2016, discusses sales strategy and managing sales and service at Oversight Systems, an Atlanta, Georgia–based software firm that developed analytics for organizations to monitor their data for errors, fraud, and operational inefficiencies. Included... View Details
- Spring 2016
- Article
Performance Responses to Competition Across Skill-Levels in Rank Order Tournaments: Field Evidence and Implications for Tournament Design
By: Kevin J. Boudreau, Karim R. Lakhani and Michael E. Menietti
Tournaments are widely used in the economy to organize production and innovation. We study individual contestant-level data from 2,796 contestants in 774 software algorithm design contests with random assignment. Precisely conforming to theory predictions, the... View Details
- Working Paper
Covenant-Light Contracts and Creditor Coordination
By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina
In 2015, 70% of newly issued leveraged loans had weaker enforcement features, called covenant-light or "cov-lite"; this is nearly a three-time increase in cov-lite issuance compared to a previous peak in 2007. We evaluate whether this development can be attributed to... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Greening Walmart: Progress and Controversy
By: Rebecca Henderson and James Weber
In 2005, Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, launched a sustainability initiative aimed at reducing waste and making the company more environmentally and socially conscious. By 2015, the company had made progress on multiple dimensions: energy efficiency in its... View Details
- November 2015
- Article
Cannibalization and Option Value Effects of Secondary Markets: Evidence from the U.S. Concert Industry
By: Victor Manuel Bennett, Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu
We examine how reducing search frictions in secondary markets affects the value appropriated by firms in primary markets. We characterize two effects on primary market firms caused by intermediaries entering secondary markets: the "cannibalization" and "option value"... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
The Integrity of Private Third-party Compliance Monitoring
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Government agencies are increasingly turning to private, third-party monitors to inspect and assess regulated entities’ compliance with law. The integrity of these regulatory regimes rests on the validity of the information third-party monitors provide to regulators.... View Details
Keywords: Regulation; Compliance; Compliance Policies; Conflict Of Interest; Independent Third Party; Inspection; Audit Quality; Auditor; Audit; Environment; Production; Supply Chain; Quality; Government Administration; Working Conditions; Safety; Labor; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governance Compliance; Manufacturing Industry; Public Administration Industry; Accounting Industry; Service 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
- December 2014
- Article
Market Competition, Earnings Management, and Persistence in Accounting Profitability Around the World
We examine how cross-country differences in product, capital, and labor market competition, and earnings management affect mean reversion in accounting return on assets. Using a sample of 48,465 unique firms from 49 countries, we find that accounting returns mean... View Details
- Spring 2014
- Article
Attracting Long-Term Investors Through Integrated Thinking and Reporting: A Clinical Study of a Biopharmaceutical Company
By: Andrew Knauer and George Serafeim
Faced with a large percentage of investors that chase short-term returns, companies could benefit by attracting investors with longer-term horizons and incentives that are more consistent with the long-term strategy of the company. The managers of most companies take... View Details
Keywords: Investing; Asset Management; Long-term Investing; Short-termism; Sustainability; Integrated Reporting; Leadership & Corporate Accountability; Pharmaceuticals; Leadership; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Investment; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Finance; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry
- December 2013
- Article
Land Politics and Local State Capacities: The Political Economy of Urban Change in China
By: Meg Rithmire
Despite common national institutions and incentives to remake urban landscapes to anchor growth, generate land-lease revenues, and display a capacious administration, Chinese urban governments exhibit varying levels of control over land. This article uses a paired... View Details
- November 2013
- Article
Which U.S. Market Interactions Affect CEO Pay? Evidence from UK Companies
By: Joseph Gerakos, Joseph Piotroski and Suraj Srinivasan
This paper examines how different types of interactions with U.S. markets by non-U.S. firms are associated with higher level of CEO pay, greater emphasis on incentive-based compensation, and smaller pay gap with U.S. firms. Using a sample of CEOs of UK firms and using... View Details
- September 2013 (Revised June 2016)
- Case
The Morning Star Company: Self-Management at Work
By: Francesca Gino, Bradley R. Staats, Brian J. Hall and Tiffany Y. Chang
Morning Star, a collection of affiliated companies, had grown steadily since 1970 when Chris Rufer, president and founder, started the business hauling tomatoes to processing plants in a truck. The company's main products continued to be tomato-based, including a... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Sharing Design Rights: A Commons Approach for Developing Infrastructure
By: Nuno Gil and Carliss Y. Baldwin
This study empirically investigates the relationship between design structure and organization structure in the context of new infrastructure development projects. Our research setting is a capital program to develop new school buildings in the city of Manchester, UK.... View Details
- July–August 2013
- Article
Complementary Goods: Creating, Capturing, and Competing for Value
By: Taylan Yalcin, Elie Ofek, Oded Koenigsberg and Eyal Biyalogorsky
This paper studies the strategic interaction between firms producing strictly complementary products. With strict complements, a consumer derives positive utility only when both products are used together. We show that value-capture and value-creation problems arise... View Details
- June 2013
- Article
Are There Too Many Safe Securities? Securitization and the Incentives for Information Production
By: Samuel G. Hanson and Adi Sunderam
We present a model that helps explain several past collapses of securitization markets. Originators issue too many informationally insensitive securities in good times, blunting investor incentives to become informed. The resulting endogenous scarcity of informed... View Details