Publications

SSRN

20 Apr 2017
Cold Call Podcast

Making Health Insurance That Consumers Actually Like

Keywords: Re: Regina E. Herzlinger; Insurance; Health

Web

Research - Behavioral Finance & Financial Stability

research here , and Jeffrey’s other research here . More Info Loan types and the bank lending channel By: Victoria Ivashina , Luc Laeven & Enrique Moral-Benito MAR 2022 There are four main types of commercial credit: asset-based loans, cash flow loans, trade View Details

June 2019
Article

Brokers vs. Retail Investors: Conflicting Interests and Dominated Products

By: Mark Egan

I study how brokers distort household investment decisions. Using a novel convertible bond dataset, I find that consumers often purchase dominated bonds—cheap and expensive versions of otherwise identical bonds coexist in the market. The empirical evidence suggests... View Details

Keywords: Brokers; Fiduciary Standard; Consumer Finance; Structured Products; Household; Investment; Decisions; Motivation and Incentives; Conflict of Interests

Find at Harvard

12 Nov 2014
Op-Ed

A Challenge to the New Congress: Pass Housing Finance Reform

conservatorship, experts from public, private, and academic worlds concurred: housing finance in the United States was mortally flawed. The private sector reaped the gains while the public sector absorbed the risk. In the aftermath of the... View Details

Keywords: by Nicolas Retsinas & Rob Couch; Construction; Real Estate

22 May 2019
News

Forgiving Student Loan Debt Leads to Better Jobs, Stronger Consumers

2008
Book

Borrowing to Live: Consumer and Mortgage Credit Revisited

By: Nicolas P. Retsinas and Eric S. Belsky

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Customers; Credit; Mortgages

Find at Harvard

October 2003 (Revised December 2020)
Case

Globalizing Consumer Durables: Singer Sewing Machine before 1914

By: Geoffrey Jones and David Kiron

Examines the global strategy of Singer, one of the world's first multinationals, before 1914. Singer, a U.S. pioneer of the modern sewing machine, established its first foreign factory in Scotland in 1867. Investments followed in manufacturing and marketing in other... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Multinational Firms and Management; Global Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Globalization

Educators

Web

Buy Now, Pay Later: Credit in a Consumer Society

HBS Quick Links MBA Executive Education Doctoral Programs Faculty and Research Alumni HBS Publishing Site Index HBS Home Contact Us Map/Directions Introduction Credit in Pre-Industrial Society Credit and the Market Economy: The Rise of Credit Reporting Credit in a... View Details

2010
Working Paper

Regulating for Legitimacy: Consumer Credit Access in France and America

By: J. Gunnar Trumbull

Theories of legitimate regulation have emphasized the role of governments either in fixing market failures to promote greater efficiency or in restricting the efficient functioning of markets in order to pursue public welfare goals. In either case, features of markets... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Financial Markets; Personal Finance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Welfare; France; United States

2008
Working Paper

Consumer Demand for Prize-Linked Savings: A Preliminary Analysis

By: P. Tufano, Nick Maynard and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve

This paper reports on a small-scale survey of the potential American demand for prize-linked savings accounts, an account that awards prizes as part of the saving product's return. In October 2006, Centra Credit Union launched a prize-linked savings pilot. As part of... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Income; Consumer Behavior; Personal Finance; Investment Return; Banks and Banking; Clarksville

01 Jun 2021
Cold Call Podcast

Running a Consumer Fintech Startup within Goldman Sachs

Keywords: Financial Services

22 Feb 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Consumer Demand for Prize-Linked Savings: A Preliminary Analysis

Keywords: by Peter Tufano, Nick Maynard & Jan-Emmanuel De Neve; Financial Services

January 2009
Teaching Note

Consumer Payment Systems — United States and Japan

By: Benjamin Edelman and Andrei Hagiu

Teaching Note for [909006] and [909007]. View Details

Keywords: Cash; Cost; Motivation and Incentives; Performance Efficiency; Technology; Alliances; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States; Japan

19 May 2022
News

Cratering Markets Blowing a Bigger Hole in Consumer Psychology

01 Jun 2021
News

Running a Consumer Fintech Startup within Goldman Sachs

2023
Working Paper

Who Invests in Crypto? Wealth, Financial Constraints, and Risk Attitudes

By: Darren Aiello, Scott R. Baker, Tetyana Balyuk, Marco Di Maggio, Mark J. Johnson and Jason Kotter

We provide a first look into the drivers of household cryptocurrency investing. Analyzing consumer transaction data for millions of U.S. households, we find that, except for high income early adopters, cryptocurrency investors resemble the general population. These... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Finance; Cryptocurrency; Fintech; Inflation; Portfolio Choice; Stimulus; Consumer Behavior; Risk and Uncertainty; Investment

SSRN

April 2024
Article

Pay-As-You-Go Insurance: Experimental Evidence on Consumer Demand and Behavior

By: Raymond Kluender

Pay-as-you-go contracts reduce minimum purchase requirements which may increase market participation. We randomize the introduction and price(s) of a novel pay-as-you-go contract to the California auto insurance market where 17 percent of drivers are uninsured. The... View Details

Keywords: Contracts; Consumer Behavior; Price; Personal Finance; Insurance Industry; California

October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

KOKO Networks: Bridging Energy Transition and Affordability with Carbon Financing

By: George Serafeim, Siko Sikochi and Namrata Arora

The problem was massive: two million hectares of African forests were lost annually to charcoal production for cooking, an area equivalent to 13 times Greater London, resulting in one billion tons of carbon emissions yearly. At the same time, an estimated 700,000... View Details

Keywords: Clean Tech; Digital; Carbon Credits; Carbon Offsetting; Climate Change; Entrepreneurship; Energy Sources; Environmental Sustainability; Health; Market Design; Business Startups; Transition; Environmental Regulation; Policy; Energy Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Africa; Kenya; Rwanda

Educators

March 2009
Background Note

Note on the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA)

By: Stuart C. Gilson

In 2005, new legislation was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by the President that introduced a number of major amendments to U.S. bankruptcy law, affecting both business and consumer bankruptcies. This legislation, called the Bankruptcy Abuse... View Details

Keywords: Government Legislation; Restructuring; Personal Finance; Laws and Statutes; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Corporate Finance

Educators