Publications

Purchase

November 2013
Article

Simplification and Saving

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

The daunting complexity of important financial decisions can lead to procrastination. We evaluate a low-cost intervention that substantially simplifies the retirement savings plan participation decision. Individuals received an opportunity to enroll in a retirement... View Details

Keywords: Retirement Savings; Simplification; Procrastination; Behavioral Economics; Saving; Motivation and Incentives; Retirement

August 2023
Article

Anti-Corruption, Government Subsidies, and Innovation: Evidence from China

By: Lily Fang, Josh Lerner, Chaopeng Wu and Qi Zhang

We leverage an exogenous shock—the crackdown on corrupt Chinese officials beginning in 2012—and examine how the allocation of research subsidies and innovative outcomes were affected. We argue that the staggered removal of provincial heads on corruption charges during... View Details

Keywords: Government Subsidies; Research and Development; Innovation and Invention; Crime and Corruption; Government and Politics; China

Purchase

February 2016
Article

Labor Unemployment Insurance and Earnings Management

By: Yiwei Dou, Mozaffar N. Khan and Youli Zou

There is relatively little prior evidence on the potential impact of rank and file employees on financial reporting choices outside union negotiations. We contribute to the literature by providing new evidence that firms appear to manage long-run earnings upward in... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Employment; Insurance; Financial Reporting

04 Jun 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Prosocial Bonuses Increase Employee Satisfaction and Team Performance

Keywords: by Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Michael I. Norton, Elizabeth W. Dunn & Jordi Quoidbach

14 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Understaffed and Overworked: What Now?

this?" 2. Remember the little picture At a time when her team was filled with fear and feeling burnt out, Andrus used small successes as a motivational tool. First, make sure everyone understands the... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Michelman

2023
Working Paper

Location-Specificity and Geographic Competition for Remote Workers

By: Thomaz Teodorovicz, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Evan Starr

The precipitous growth of remote work has given rise to a new phenomenon: geographic competition between localities for the physical presence of remote workers. Remote workers with high general human capital may create value for their new destinations and reverse net... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Human Capital; Geographic Location; Civil Society or Community; Motivation and Incentives

November 2014
Article

The Impact of Corporate Sustainability on Organizational Processes and Performance

By: Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

We investigate the effect of corporate sustainability on organizational processes and performance. Using a matched sample of 180 U.S. companies, we find that corporations that voluntarily adopted sustainability policies by 1993—termed as High Sustainability... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Management; Sustainability Research; Sustainability Reporting; Sustainability Targets; Corporate Social Responsibility; Corporate Accountability; Reporting; Corporate Governance; Investor Clientele; Investor Communication; Stock Market; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Performance; United States

Article

Price and Quality Decisions by Self-Serving Managers

By: Marco Bertini, Daniel Halbheer and Oded Koenigsberg

We present a theory of price and quality decisions by managers who are self-serving. In the theory, firms stress the price or quality of their products, but not both. Accounting for this, managers exploit any uncertainty about the cause of market outcomes to credit... View Details

Keywords: Causal Reasoning; Self-serving Bias; Strategic Orientation; Managerial Decision-making; Price; Quality; Decision Making; Theory

TeachingInterests

Venture Capital and Private Equity (MBA)

By: Archie L. Jones

The growth of private equity internationally has been dramatic, to the point that the asset class has been both lauded as the savior and vilified as the cause of our current economic malaise. Over the past two decades, private equity- ranging from venture... View Details

2015
Working Paper

Executives' Financial Preferences and Shareholder Tax Outcomes

By: Gerardo Pérez Cavazos and Andreya M. Perez-Silva

We demonstrate that executives’ personal financial preferences impact both layers of shareholder taxes, corporate taxes and corporate payouts. We reconstruct executives’ insider equity portfolios to quantify their personal incentives and analyze stock sales that reveal... View Details

Keywords: Executives; Capital Gain; Dividends; Effective Tax Rate; Tax Avoidance; Taxation; Management Teams; Business and Shareholder Relations

September 2007
Article

Related Lending and Economic Performance: Evidence from Mexico

By: Noel Maurer and Stephen Haber

Related lending, a widespread practice in LDCs, is widely held to encourage bankers to loot their banks at the expense of minority shareholders and depositors. We argue that neither looting nor credit misallocation are necessary outcomes of related lending. On... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Crisis; Financing and Loans; History; Business and Shareholder Relations; Banking Industry; Mexico

24 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

Value Maximization and Stakeholder Theory

recognizes that communication with and motivation of an organization's managers, employees, and partners is extremely difficult. What this means in practice is that if we tell... View Details

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen

28 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

that their options for radical change appeared highly constrained. During the years of Cole and Tempel, the key to improving performance was believed to lie in diversification. The Unilever "fleet" sailed in a variety of... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

Teaching Interest

Venture Capital and Private Equity (MBA)

By: Josh Lerner

The growth of private equity internationally has been dramatic, to the point that the asset class has been both lauded as the savior and vilified as the cause of our current economic malaise. Over the past two decades, private equity- ranging from venture capital to... View Details

2015
Working Paper

Strategy-Proofness, Investment Efficiency, and Marginal Returns: An Equivalence

By: John William Hatfield, Fuhito Kojima and Scott Duke Kominers

We show that a mechanism induces an agent to make efficient ex ante investment choices if and only if it rewards that agent with his marginal surplus; additionally, for an ex post efficient mechanism, these properties are equivalent to strategy-proofness for the agent.... View Details

Keywords: Strategy-proofness; Investment Efficiency; Providing Marginal Rewards; Vickrey-Clarke-Groves Mechanisms; Mechanism Design; Market Design; Human Capital

December 2010
Article

Management and the Financial Crisis (We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us...)

By: William A. Sahlman

The financial crisis of 2008-2009 has revealed that our broad model of corporate governance is broken, independent of the shortcomings in the regulatory system. Managers and boards of directors in scores of systemically important firms failed to protect employees,... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Human Capital; Ethics; Policy; Corporate Governance; Financial Crisis; Finance; Business and Shareholder Relations

2023
Working Paper

When Does Gamified Training Improve Performance? The Roles of Office and Leader Engagement

By: Ryan W. Buell, Wei Cai and Tatiana Sandino

Gamified training is a novel management control system in which companies use gamification techniques to engage and motivate employees to learn. This study empirically examines the performance consequences of gamified training using data from a natural field... View Details

Keywords: Gamified Training; Management Control Systems; Employee Engagement; Employees; Learning; Training; Motivation and Incentives; Performance

2017
Working Paper

The Benefits of Selective Disclosure: Evidence from Private Firms

By: Joan Farre-Mensa

Private firms’ ability to communicate confidentially with selected investors implies that valuation disagreements between firms and investors are larger at public firms than at private ones. Consistent with the notion that misvaluation concerns lead public firms to... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Equity; Private Companies; Corporate Cash; Precautionary Motives; Share Issuance; IPOs; Selective Disclosure; Private Ownership; Cash; Market Timing; Corporate Finance; Public Ownership; Corporate Disclosure; United States

2009
Working Paper

Management and the Financial Crisis (We have met the enemy and he is us...)

By: William A. Sahlman

The financial crisis of 2008-9 has revealed that our broad model of corporate governance is broken, independent of the shortcomings in the regulatory system. Managers and boards of directors in scores of systemically important firms failed to protect employees,... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Governing and Advisory Boards; Ethics; Corporate Governance; Financial Crisis