Publications

15 Dec 2016
HBS Seminar

Joel Isaac, University of Cambridge

Forthcoming
Article

The Institutional Sources of Economic Transformation: Explaining Variation in Energy Transitions

By: Jared Finnegan, Phillip Lipscy, Jonas Meckling and Florence Metz

Why are some governments more effective in promoting economic change than others? We develop a theory of the institutional sources of economic transformation. Institutions can facilitate transformation through two central mechanisms: insulation and compensation.... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Business and Government Relations; Supply and Industry; Demand and Consumers; Transformation; Economic Systems; Climate Change

August 2023
Article

Status and Mortality: Is There a Whitehall Effect in the United States?

By: Tom Nicholas

The influential Whitehall studies found that top-ranking civil servants in Britain experienced lower mortality than civil servants below them in the organizational hierarchy due to differential exposure to workplace stress. I test for a Whitehall effect in the United... View Details

Keywords: Mortality; Status; Working Conditions; Rank and Position; Welfare; Well-being; Health

November 2003
Article

The Macroeconomics of Happiness

By: Rafael Di Tella, Robert MacCulloch and Andrew J. Oswald

We show that macroeconomic movements have strong effects on the happiness of nations. First, we find that there are clear microeconomic patterns in the psychological well-being levels of a quarter of a million randomly sampled Europeans and Americans from the 1970s to... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Happiness

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April 2015 (Revised October 2024)
Case

The German Export Engine

By: Gunnar Trumbull, Jonathan Schlefer and Sophus A. Reinert

In fall of 2018, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel had logged significant successes. Germany was the largest exporter in the world, had maintained low unemployment through the 2008 financial crisis, and was gradually reforming its welfare state to meet future pension... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Economic Growth; Success; Leadership; Problems and Challenges; Germany

Educators

04 Sep 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Some Facts of High-Tech Patenting

Keywords: by Michael Webb, Nick Short, Nicholas Bloom, and Josh Lerner

2025
Working Paper

Turning Away from the State: Trade Shocks and Informal Insurance in Brazil

By: Paula Rettl

How does economic globalization affect vote choices? Conventional wisdom holds that voters who lose from economic integration support parties that propose expanding the welfare state. However, in the Global South, where the state is frequently weak or under-resourced,... View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Globalized Economies and Regions; Governance; Government Administration; Political Elections; Voting; Latin America; Brazil; South America

SSRN

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We examine the link between corporations and community by showing how corporate density interacts with the local social and cultural infrastructure to affect the growth and decline of the number of local nonprofits between 1987 and 2002. We focus on two... View Details

June 2023
Teaching Note

From Cradle to Heaven: Taikang Insurance Group

By: William C. Kirby and Noah B. Truwit

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 320-088. The case explores the rise of Taikang Insurance Group and its quest to be a leader of one of China's fastest-growing industries. Due to China's underdeveloped social welfare state, Taikang saw an opportunity for the private... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Government and Politics; Health Industry; China

October 1998 (Revised December 1999)
Case

Lockheed Martin IMS: Making a Contribution and a Profit

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Courtney Purrington

Examines Lockheed Martin's attempt to move from its traditional reliance on defense/aerospace contracts into providing outsourced government services in the social sector. The protagonist reflects on the past 24 years of rapid growth in the company and the myriad... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Partners and Partnerships; Diversification; Performance Effectiveness; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Welfare; Private Ownership; Public Ownership; Privatization; Strategic Planning; United States

Article

SOX after Ten Years: A Multidisciplinary Review

By: Suraj Srinivasan and John C. Coates IV

We review and assess research findings from 120+ papers in accounting, finance, and law to evaluate the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We describe significant developments in how the Act was implemented and find that despite severe criticism, the Act and... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Laws and Statutes; United States

SSRN

David Moss is the Paul Whiton Cherington Professor at Harvard Business School, where he teaches in the Business, Government, and the International Economy (BGIE) unit. He earned his B.A. from Cornell University and his Ph.D. from Yale. In 1992-1993, he served as a... View Details

Keywords: state government; state government; state government; state government; state government; state government; state government

Article

Gross National Happiness As an Answer to the Easterlin Paradox?

By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch

The Easterlin Paradox refers to the fact that happiness data are typically stationary in spite of considerable increases in income. This amounts to a rejection of the hypothesis that current income is the only argument in the utility function. We find that the... View Details

Keywords: Wealth and Poverty; Happiness; Employment; Income; Mathematical Methods; Welfare

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27 Jun 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Positive and Normative Judgments Implicit in US Tax Policy and the Costs of Unequal Growth and Recessions

Keywords: by Benjamin Lockwood & Matthew Weinzierl

03 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 3

disseminating information about peer behavior on savings. Low-saving employees received simplified plan enrollment or contribution increase forms. A randomized subset of forms stated the fraction of age-matched coworkers participating in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2022
Article

Conflicting Interests and the Effect of Fiduciary Duty: Evidence from Variable Annuities

By: Mark Egan, Shan Ge and Johnny Tang

We examine the variable annuity market to study conflicts of interest and the effect of fiduciary duty in brokerage markets. Insurers typically pay brokers higher commissions for selling more expensive annuities. Our results indicate that sales are four times as... View Details

Keywords: Variable Annuity; Brokers; Fiduciary Duty; Finance; Investment; Insurance; Conflict of Interests; Financial Services Industry; Insurance Industry; United States

SSRN

Dominant theories of state formation and nation-building lean heavily on the classic European tale of the simultaneous development of a ‘fiscal state’ and a ‘nation state’. However, this Euro-centered narrative does not factor in that more than two-thirds of the... View Details

December 2009
Article

Media Markets and Localism: Does Local News en Español Boost Hispanic Voter Turnout?

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Joel Waldfogel

Since the dawn of broadcasting, and especially in the past decade, Americans have turned their attention from local to more distant sources of news and entertainment. While the integration of media markets will raise the private welfare of many consumers, critics of a... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Ethnicity; Behavior; Local Range; Journalism and News Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

2022
Chapter

Key Success Factors in Environmental Entrepreneurship: The case of Wilderness Safaris

By: James E. Austin, Megan Epler Woods and Herman B. Leonard

This chapter analyzes the entrepreneurial conception and evolution of the Wilderness Safaris (WS) ecotourism enterprise operating in eight African countries. It illuminates a series of factors that contribute to positive environmental impact as well as financial... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Entrepreneurship