Publications

November–December 2023
Article

Look the Part? The Role of Profile Pictures in Online Labor Markets

By: Isamar Troncoso and Lan Luo

Profile pictures are a key component of many freelancing platforms, a design choice that can impact hiring and matching outcomes. In this paper, we examine how appearance-based perceptions of a freelancer’s fit for the job (i.e., whether a freelancer "looks the part"... View Details

Keywords: Freelancers; Gig Workers; Demographics; Prejudice and Bias; Selection and Staffing; Jobs and Positions; Analytics and Data Science

Purchase

2016
Working Paper

Financial Regulation in a Quantitative Model of the Modern Banking System

By: Juliane Begenau and Tim Landvoigt

How does the shadow banking system respond to changes in the capital regulation of commercial banks? This paper builds a quantitative general equilibrium model with commercial banks and shadow banks to study the unintended consequences of capital requirements. A key... View Details

Keywords: Capital; Commercial Banking

SSRN

2014
Working Paper

The Contaminating Effects of Building Instrumental Ties: How Networking Can Make Us Feel Dirty

By: Tiziana Casciaro, Francesca Gino and Maryam Kouchaki

To create social ties to support their professional or personal goals, people actively engage in instrumental networking. Drawing from moral psychology research, we posit that this intentional behavior has unintended consequences for an individual's morality. Unlike... View Details

Keywords: Networking; Morality; Dirtiness; Power; Networks; Moral Sensibility; Personal Development and Career; Power and Influence

SSRN

2022
Article

Gender Inequality in Research Productivity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: Ruomeng Cui, Hao Ding and Feng Zhu

We study the disproportionate impact of the lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak on female and male academics' research productivity in social science. The lockdown has caused substantial disruptions to academic activities, requiring people to work from home.... View Details

Keywords: Gender Inequality; Research Productivity; Telecommuting; COVID-19 Pandemic; Research; Performance Productivity; Gender; Equality and Inequality; Health Pandemics

October 14, 2019
Article

The Truth About Open Offices: There Are Reasons Why They Don't Produce the Desired Interactions

By: Ethan Bernstein and Ben Waber

It’s never been easier for workers to collaborate—or so it seems. Open, flexible, activity-based spaces are displacing cubicles, making people more visible. Messaging is displacing phone calls, making people more accessible. Enterprise social media such as Slack and... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Interpersonal Communication; Communication Technology; Design; Human Resources; Performance Productivity; Organizational Design

Register to Read

2020
Working Paper

Incentive Power and Knowledge Sharing Among Employees: Evidence from the Field

By: Wei Cai, Susanna Gallani and Jee-Eun Shin

There is consensus, both in the literature and in practice, about knowledge sharing within organizations being a key determinant of success. However, organizations struggle to sustain employees’ engagement in knowledge sharing. One challenge lies in the fact that,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Knowledge Sharing; Employee Driven Innovation; Innovation Appropriability; Contract Design; High-powered Incentives; Low-powered Incentives; Incentives; Pay-for-Performance; Rank-and-file; Employees; Knowledge Sharing; Innovation and Invention; Motivation and Incentives; Creativity; Performance

04 Mar 2013
Working Paper Summaries

The Dirty Laundry of Employee Award Programs: Evidence from the Field

Keywords: by Timothy Gubler, Ian Larkin & Lamar Pierce; Service

2022
Article

Values and Inequality: Prosocial Jobs and the College Wage Premium

By: Nathan Wilmers and Letian Zhang

Employers often recruit workers by invoking corporate social responsibility, organizational purpose, or other claims to a prosocial mission. In an era of substantial labor market inequality, commentators typically dismiss these claims as hypocritical: prosocial... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Equality and Inequality; Wages; Recruitment

Article

MIT Roundtable on Corporate Risk Management

By: Robert C. Merton

Against the backdrop of financial crisis, a distinguished group of academics and practitioners discusses the contribution of financial management and innovation to corporate growth and value, along with the pitfalls and unintended consequences of such innovation.... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Market Participation; Finance; Innovation and Invention; Growth and Development Strategy; Value; Distribution; Capital Structure; Risk Management; Business Ventures; Business Model; Strategy

2009
Working Paper

Gray Markets and Multinational Transfer Pricing

By: Romana L. Autrey and Francesco Bova

Gray markets arise when a manufacturer's products are sold outside of its authorized channels, for instance when goods designated for a foreign market are resold domestically. One method multinationals use to combat gray markets is to increase internal transfer prices... View Details

Keywords: Price; Multinational Firms and Management; Demand and Consumers; Distribution Channels; Business and Government Relations; Sales; Competitive Strategy

Research Summary

The Unexpected Effects of Workplace Transparency

By: Ethan S. Bernstein

Workplace transparency provides a foundation for learning and control, and therefore for satisfaction and productivity. Yet my research shows that an obsession with transparency-enhancing tools and structures can backfire, producing the unintended consequences of... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Privacy; Productivity; Field Experiments; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks; Human Resources; Leadership; United States; Europe; China; Japan

2021
Article

To Thine Own Self Be True? Incentive Problems in Personalized Law

By: Jordan M. Barry, John William Hatfield and Scott Duke Kominers

Recent years have seen an explosion of scholarship on “personalized law.” Commentators foresee a world in which regulators armed with big data and machine learning techniques determine the optimal legal rule for every regulated party, then instantaneously disseminate... View Details

Keywords: Personalized Law; Regulation; Regulatory Avoidance; Regulatory Arbitrage; Law And Economics; Law And Technology; Law And Artificial Intelligence; Futurism; Moral Hazard; Elicitation; Signaling; Privacy; Law; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Information Technology; AI and Machine Learning

SSRN