Publications

Educators

2008
Working Paper

The Cost of Property Rights: Establishing Institutions on the Philippine Frontier Under American Rule, 1898-1918

By: Lakshmi Iyer and Noel Maurer

We examine three reforms to property rights introduced by the United States in the Philippines in the early 20th century: the redistribution of large estates to their tenants, the creation of a system of secure land titles, and a homestead program to encourage... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Rights; Property; Business and Government Relations; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Philippines

24 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 24, 2007

Working PapersPoverty, Social Divisions, and Conflict in Nepal Authors:Quy-Toan Do and Lakshmi Iyer Abstract We conduct an econometric analysis of the economic and social factors which contributed to the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2010 (Revised March 2011)
Case

Ben Bernanke: Person of the Year?

By: Lakshmi Iyer and Matthew C. Weinzierl

In response to the economic and financial crisis of 2008–2009, the Federal Reserve greatly expanded the scale and scope of its activities. Though lauded by many experts for its actions, the Fed and its chairman, Ben Bernanke, faced harsh criticism from some public... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Central Banking; Governance Controls; Policy; Crisis Management; Power and Influence; Public Administration Industry; United States

Educators

2013
Working Paper

Religion, Politician Identity and Development Outcomes: Evidence from India

By: Sonia Bhalotra, Guilhem Cassan, Irma Clots-Figueras and Lakshmi Iyer

This paper investigates whether the religious identity of state legislators in India influences development outcomes, both for citizens of their religious group and for the population as a whole. To control for politician identity to be correlated with constituency... View Details

Keywords: Politician Identity; Infant Mortality; Primary Education; India; Muslim; Fairness; Religion; Government and Politics; India

2008
Chapter

Public Action for Public Goods: Theory and Evidence

By: Abhijit Banerjee, Lakshmi Iyer and Rohini Somanathan

This chapter focuses on the relationship between public action and access to public goods. It begins by developing a simple model of collective action which is intended to capture the various mechanisms that are discussed in the theoretical literature on collective... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Quality; Groups and Teams; Human Needs; Poverty; Welfare or Wellbeing; Public Administration Industry

19 Nov 2013
First Look

First Look: November 19

fundamentals are significantly lower only in low precision countries. Publisher's link: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1160416 Working Papers Path-Breakers: How Does Women's Political Participation Respond to Electoral Success? By: Bhalotra, Sonia, Irma Clots-Figueras, and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2008
Working Paper

The Cost of Property Rights: Establishing Institutions on the Philippine Frontier Under American Rule, 1898-1918

By: Lakshmi Iyer and Noel Maurer

We examine three reforms to property rights introduced by the United States in the Philippines in the early 20th century: the redistribution of large estates to their tenants, the creation of a system of secure land titles, and a homestead program to encourage... View Details

Keywords: Property; Ownership; Rights; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Cost; History; Philippines; United States

10 Feb 2009
First Look

First Look: February 10, 2009

average in the period 1953-2005, it was particularly high in the early 1980s and negative in the early 2000s. This paper specifies and estimates a model in which the nominal term structure of interest rates is driven by five state... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2012
Working Paper

An Outside-Inside Evolution in Gender and Professional Work

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Kathleen McGinn and Deborah Kolb

We study the process by which a professional service firm reshaped its activities and beliefs over nearly two decades as it adapted to shifts in the social discourse regarding gender and work. Analyzing archival data from the firm over eighteen years and... View Details

Keywords: Professional Service Firms; Social Institutions; Organizational Learning; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Employment; Gender; Society; Service Industry

SSRN

September–October 2022
Article

Seeking Purity, Avoiding Pollution: Strategies for Moral Career Building

By: Erin Reid and Lakshmi Ramarajan

This study builds theory on how people construct moral careers. Analyzing interviews with 102 journalists, we show how people build moral careers by seeking jobs that allow them to fulfill both the institution’s moral obligations and their own material aims. We... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Moral Sensibility

September–October 2017
Article

Blurring the Boundaries: The Interplay of Gender and Local Communities in the Commercialization of Social Ventures

By: Stefan Dimitriadis, Matthew Lee, Lakshmi Ramarajan and Julie Battilana

This paper examines the critical role of gender in the commercialization of social ventures. We argue that cultural beliefs about what is perceived to be appropriate work for each gender influence how founders of social ventures incorporate commercial activity into... View Details

Keywords: Community; Cultural Beliefs; Social Enterprise; Gender; Local Range; Commercialization; Culture

Find at Harvard

October 2013
Article

Shattering the Myth of Separate Worlds: Negotiating Non-Work Identities at Work

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan and Erin M. Reid

How much of our self is defined by our work? Fundamental changes in the social organization of work are destabilizing the relationship between work and the self. As a result, parts of the self traditionally considered outside the domain of work, i.e., "non-work"... View Details

Keywords: Identity; Diversity; Strategy; Jobs and Positions; Work-Life Balance

Find at Harvard

Article

Caste and Entrepreneurship in India

By: Lakshmi Iyer, Tarun Khanna and Ashutosh Varshney

It is now widely accepted that the lower castes have risen in Indian politics. Has there been a corresponding change in the economy? Using comprehensive data on enterprise ownership from the Economic Censuses of 1990, 1998, and 2005, we document substantial caste... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Income; Entrepreneurship; Rank and Position; India

Find at Harvard

2009
Chapter

Checking Your Identities at the Door? Positive Relationships Between Non-Work and Work Identities

By: Nancy Rothbard and Lakshmi Ramarajan

In this chapter we examine factors that enable individuals to experience compatibility between their work and non-work identities. Specifically, we suggest that identity compatibility is influenced by (a) the extent to which individuals can control the co-activation of... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Identity; Adaptation

December 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Teaching Note

India 2014: The Challenges of Governance

By: Lakshmi Iyer

22 Jul 2013
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Meeting Management Challenges in India

Lakshmi Iyer believes the problem has more to do with intellectual pirates than the cinematic kind. Modern Indian Art: The Birth Of A Market Before 1995, there was little market for twentieth-century Indian... View Details

Keywords: Re: Tarun Khanna & Rohit Deshpande

21 Jun 2011
First Look

First Look: June 21

case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/411105-PDF-ENG Dharavi: Developing Asia's Largest Slum (B) Lakshmi Iyer and John D. MacomberHarvard Business School Supplement 711-107 In July 2009, as investors... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

The Power of Political Voice: Women's Political Representation and Crime in India

By: Lakshmi Iyer, Anandi Mani, Prachi Mishra and Petia Topalova

Using state-level variation in the timing of political reforms, we find that an increase in female representation in local government induces a large and significant rise in documented crimes against women in India. Our evidence suggests that this increase is good... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Crime and Corruption; Rank and Position; Performance Effectiveness; Gender; Government and Politics; India