Filter Results:
(173)
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(273)
- News (52)
- Research (173)
- Multimedia (1)
- Faculty Publications (92)
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(273)
- News (52)
- Research (173)
- Multimedia (1)
- Faculty Publications (92)
Sort by
- 2025
- Book
Space to Grow: Unlocking the Final Economic Frontier
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau
Your guide--using the compelling stories of changemakers and the tools of economics--to the transformation and future possibilities of the business and economics of space.
Space is a place of unparalleled possibility for humanity, and it's undergoing a... View Details
Space is a place of unparalleled possibility for humanity, and it's undergoing a... View Details
Keywords: Transformation; Economics; Innovation and Invention; Market Entry and Exit; Aerospace Industry
Weinzierl, Matthew, and Brendan Rosseau. Space to Grow: Unlocking the Final Economic Frontier. Harvard Business Review Press, 2025.
- 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
Iyer, Lakshmi, and Matthew C. Weinzierl. "Ben Bernanke: Person of the Year?" Harvard Business School Case 710-051, January 2010. (Revised March 2011.)
- Article
Space, the Final Economic Frontier
After decades of centralized control of economic activity in space, NASA and U.S. policymakers have begun to cede the direction of human activities in space to commercial companies. NASA garnered more than 0.7% of GDP in the mid-1960s but is only around 0.1% of GDP... View Details
Weinzierl, Matthew C. "Space, the Final Economic Frontier." Journal of Economic Perspectives 32, no. 2 (Spring 2018): 173–192.
- December 2013 (Revised December 2014)
- Case
Reform in the Chicago Public Schools
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Katrina Flanagan
In 2012, the Chicago Teachers' Union went on strike over proposed reforms by the city's mayor, Rahm Emanuel. At the heart of the reforms, and the strike, was frustration over many decades of underperformance in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and a surge of... View Details
Keywords: Public Education; Public Goods; Samuelson Rule; Externalities And Pigouvian Corrections; Tiebout Sorting And Efficiency; Education; Labor Unions; Public Administration Industry; Education Industry; Chicago
Weinzierl, Matthew, and Katrina Flanagan. "Reform in the Chicago Public Schools." Harvard Business School Case 714-027, December 2013. (Revised December 2014.)
- June 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
The Lunar Gateway, Moon vs. Mars, and the Political Governance of Space Activities
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Mehak Sarang
In 2017, the Trump Administration made a bold claim—that they would return the next man and the first woman to the lunar surface by 2024, this time to establish a sustainable presence to enable further exploration in the solar system. With the Artemis Program, NASA has... View Details
Keywords: Space; Space Economy; Aerospace; Nasa; Governance; Policy; International Relations; Infrastructure
Weinzierl, Matthew C., and Mehak Sarang. "The Lunar Gateway, Moon vs. Mars, and the Political Governance of Space Activities." Harvard Business School Case 721-059, June 2021. (Revised December 2021.)
- 19 May 2015
- First Look
First Look: May 19
the conventional financial system and the real economy. Publisher's link: http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.29.2.213 May 2015 Journal of Public Economics De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in Preferences and Optimal Redistribution By: Lockwood,... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
- Article
Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice
By: N. Gregory Mankiw, Matthew C. Weinzierl and Danny Yagan
We highlight and explain eight lessons from optimal tax theory and compare them to the last few decades of OECD tax policy. As recommended by theory, top marginal income tax rates have declined, marginal income tax schedules have flattened, redistribution has risen... View Details
Mankiw, N. Gregory, Matthew C. Weinzierl, and Danny Yagan. "Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice." Journal of Economic Perspectives 23, no. 4 (Fall 2009): 147–174.
- February 2015 (Revised August 2019)
- Case
Equality of Opportunity and Outcome in the U.S.
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Alastair Su
Equality of opportunity is endorsed universally even though, or more likely because, it can mean such different things to different people. What definition of equality of opportunity ought to figure into policy decisions? How close, or far, is the United States from... View Details
Keywords: Equality Of Opportunity; Justice; Opportunities; Equality and Inequality; Policy; United States
Weinzierl, Matthew, and Alastair Su. "Equality of Opportunity and Outcome in the U.S." Harvard Business School Case 715-028, February 2015. (Revised August 2019.)
- Research Summary
Overview
My academic research centers on uncovering and closing gaps between the theory and reality of tax policy. My main contribution has been to identify and address a mismatch between the goals for taxation typically assumed in theory and the goals the public and... View Details
- October 2011
- Article
The Surprising Power of Age-Dependent Taxes
This article provides a new, empirically driven application of the dynamic Mirrleesian framework by studying a feasible and potentially powerful tax reform: age-dependent labor income taxation. I show analytically how age dependence improves policy on both the... View Details
Weinzierl, Matthew C. "The Surprising Power of Age-Dependent Taxes." Review of Economic Studies 78, no. 4 (October 2011): 1490–1518. (Also Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 11-114, May 2011.)
- October 2014
- Article
The Promise of Positive Optimal Taxation: Normative Diversity and a Role for Equal Sacrifice
A prominent assumption in modern optimal tax research is that the objective of taxation is Utilitarian. I present new survey evidence that most people disagree with this assumption, preferring tax policies based at least in part on a classic alternative objective: the... View Details
Weinzierl, Matthew. "The Promise of Positive Optimal Taxation: Normative Diversity and a Role for Equal Sacrifice." Journal of Public Economics 118 (October 2014): 128–142. (Also NBER Working Paper Series, No. 18599.)
- 11 Apr 2017
- First Look
First Look at New Research, April 11
Advances in Strategic Management Innovation Policies By: Nanda, Ramana, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf Abstract—Past work has shown that failure tolerance by principals has the potential to stimulate innovation... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
A Welfarist Role for Nonwelfarist Rules: An Example with Envy
I propose and formalize an argument for why economists working in the welfarist normative tradition should include nonwelfarist principles in how they judge economic policy. The key idea behind this argument is that the world is too complex, and our ability to model it... View Details
Weinzierl, Matthew. "A Welfarist Role for Nonwelfarist Rules: An Example with Envy." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-021, September 2016. (Revised July 2017.)
- 2020
- Working Paper
Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation
By: Benjami Lockwood, Afras Y. Sial and Matthew C. Weinzierl
Economists typically check the robustness of their results by comparing them across plausible ranges of parameter values and model structures. A preferable approach to robustness—for the purposes of policymaking and evaluation—is to design policy that takes these... View Details
Lockwood, Benjami, Afras Y. Sial, and Matthew C. Weinzierl. "Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 28098, November 2020.
- 2020
- Working Paper
Prioritarianism and Optimal Taxation
By: Matti Tuomala and Matthew C. Weinzierl
Prioritarianism has been at the center of the formal approach to optimal tax theory since its modern starting point in Mirrlees (1971), but most theorists’ use of it is motivated by tractability rather than explicit normative reasoning. We characterize analytically and... View Details
Keywords: Prioritarianism; Optimal Taxation; Utilitarianism; Redistribution; Inverse-optimum; Taxation; Theory
Tuomala, Matti, and Matthew C. Weinzierl. "Prioritarianism and Optimal Taxation." Harvard Business School Working Paper, December 2020.
- January 2009 (Revised October 2011)
- Case
Barack Obama and the Bush Tax Cuts (A)
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Eric D. Werker
As his inauguration approached, President-elect Obama faced a financial sector meltdown, a costly bailout, and massive government deficits. With the economy in recession, interest rates near zero, and joblessness on the rise, Obama needed to decide whether, and how... View Details
Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Management; Policy; Government Administration; Taxation; United States
Weinzierl, Matthew C., and Eric D. Werker. "Barack Obama and the Bush Tax Cuts (A)." Harvard Business School Case 709-037, January 2009. (Revised October 2011.)
- Fall 2014
- Article
Seesaws and Social Security Benefits Indexing
The price indexation of Social Security benefit payments has emerged in recent years as a flashpoint of debate in the United States. I characterize the direct effects that changes in that price index would have on retirees who differ in their initial wealth at... View Details
Weinzierl, Matthew. "Seesaws and Social Security Benefits Indexing." Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (Fall 2014): 137–196.
- March 2022 (Revised March 2023)
- Case
Commercial Space Stations, Chickens and Eggs, and Demand for Activity in Low-Earth Orbit
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Brendan L. Rosseau
With the International Space Station set to retire in January 2031, NASA has made clear its desire to transition to commercially-led space stations in low-earth orbit (LEO). But the history of commercial station attempts has been fraught, characterized by a lack of... View Details
- 01 Jul 2014
- First Look
First Look: July 1
have profoundly shaped the scope and range of organizational scholarship devoted to sexual minorities by showing that scholars using such contrasted frames have been drawn to very different research questions with respect to sexual... View Details
Keywords: Carmen Nobel
- 12 Oct 2011
- First Look
First Look: October 12
form of corporate social responsibility (CSR) through a sustainable business model that also generates superior financial performance. Read the paper: http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/?p=4538 An Exploration of Optimal Stabilization Policy Authors:N. Gregory Mankiw... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne