Publications

SSRN

January 2018
Article

The Effect of Cost Sharing on an Employee Weight Loss Program: A Randomized Trial

By: Leslie K. John, Andrea Troxel, William Yancy, Joelle Y. Friedman, Jingsan Zhu, Lin Yang, Robert Galvin, Karen Miller-Kovach, Scott Halpern, George Loewenstein and Kevin Volpp

Purpose: We tested the effects of employer subsidies on employee enrollment, attendance, and weight loss in a nationally-available weight management program.
Design: A randomized trial tested the impact of employer subsidy: 100%; 80% 50% and a hybrid 50% subsidy... View Details

Keywords: Affordable Care Act (ACA); Subsidies; Weight Loss; Obesity; Incentives; Behavioral Economics; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Compensation and Benefits; United States

Teaching Interest

Overview

Course Instructor, Economics Sophomore Tutorial: Psychology and Economics, Harvard College (2012-2015)
Course Assistant, Noticing: A Leadership Challenge, Harvard Kennedy School (Winter, 2015)
Teaching Fellow, Linear Algebra, Harvard College (Spring,... View Details

2016
Chapter

Dishonesty Explained: What Leads Moral People To Act Immorally

By: F. Gino and D. Ariely

The last two decades have witnessed what seems to be an increasing number of cases of dishonesty, from corporate corruption and employee misconduct to questionable behaviors during the financial crisis and individual acts of unethical behavior in many spheres of... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Ethics; Organizations; Attitudes; Financial Crisis

October 2020
Article

Why Time Poverty Matters for Individuals, Organisations, and Nations

By: Laura Giurge, Ashley V. Whillans and Colin West

Over the last two decades, global wealth has risen. Yet, material affluence has not translated into time affluence. Instead, most people today report feeling persistently “time poor”—like they have too many things to do and not enough time to do them. This is critical... View Details

Keywords: Time Poverty; Health; Well-being; Human Needs; Global Range

August 2017
Article

Should Governments Invest More in Nudging?

By: Shlomo Benartzi, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman, Cass R. Sunstein, Richard H. Thaler, Maya Shankar, Will Tucker-Ray, William J. Congdon and Steven Galing

Governments are increasingly adopting behavioral science techniques for changing individual behavior in pursuit of policy objectives. The types of “nudge” interventions that governments are now adopting alter people’s decisions without coercion or significant changes... View Details

19 Jul 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Government 'Nudges' Motivate Good Citizen Behavior

Beshears and colleagues, recently published in the journal Psychological Science. The paper, Should Governments Invest More in Nudges? answers its own question with a resounding “Yes.” “We suspected that nudges on an impact-per-cost basis... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

June 2015
Case

The Coca-Cola Company's Case for Creative Transformation

By: Thales S. Teixeira and Elizabeth Anne Watkins

In 2013, the Coca-Cola Company was awarded Creative Marketer of the Year by the Cannes Lions Festival (known as the "Oscar of Advertising") for the first time ever in history and nearly 50 years after the Festival's inception. Just one year before that, Jonathan... View Details

Keywords: Attention Economics; Creating Connections; Digital Marketing; Marketing Innovations; Social Networks; Advertising Content; Networked Brand; Beverage Industry; Coca-Cola; Digital Innovation; Digital Transition; Marketing; Marketing Communications; Innovation Strategy; Social and Collaborative Networks; Advertising; Creativity; Consumer Products Industry

Educators

Article

Chris Argyris (1923–2013)

By: Amy C. Edmondson

Chris Argyris, a pioneer in the fields of organization development, organizational learning, and action science, passed away on November 16, 2013. Argyris was born in Newark, New Jersey, on July 16, 1923, to Greek immigrant parents, and grew up in Irvington, New... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Personal Development and Career

September 2012 (Revised September 2012)
Case

Inkaterra

By: Diego Comin, Rohan Gopaldas and Diego Rehder

The case presents the unique business model of Inkaterra, a leading eco-tourism organization in Peru, and the different strategies the company can pursue to grow. Through the experience of Inkaterra the case studies two general issues. First, it discusses the potential... View Details

Keywords: Inkaterra; Ecotourism; Tourism; Environment; Peru; Informal Sector; Regulation; Economic Development; Bottom Of The Pyramid; Technology Diffusion; Competitiveness; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Natural Environment; Market Entry and Exit; Conflict Management; Tourism Industry; Peru

Educators

30 Aug 2006
Op-Ed

The Compensation Game

in setting executive pay, as we document in our research, directors have not been guided solely by the interests of shareholders. Instead, they have had various economic incentives, reinforced by social and View Details

Keywords: by Lucian Bebchuk & Rakesh Khurana

2016
Working Paper

Paying (for) Attention: The Impact of Information Processing Costs on Bayesian Inference

By: Scott Duke Kominers, Xiaosheng Mu and Alexander Peysakhovich

Human information processing is often modeled as costless Bayesian inference. However, research in psychology shows that attention is a computationally costly and potentially limited resource. We study a Bayesian individual for whom computing posterior beliefs is... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Economics

24 Oct 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Individual Experience of Positive and Negative Growth Is Asymmetric: Global Evidence from Subjective Well-being Data

Keywords: by Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, George W. Ward, Femke De Keulenaer, Bert Van Landeghem, Georgios Kavetsos & Michael I. Norton

Research Summary

Choice, Rationality and Welfare Measurement

By: Jerry R. Green

For the past century, economists have used the hypothesis that individual choice is based on rationality in their calculations of individual and collective welfare. The central ideas are that actual market choice reveal underlying preferences, and with a good set of... View Details

October 2015
Teaching Plan

The Coca-Cola Company's Case for Creative Transformation

By: Thales Teixeira

This Teaching Plan is to be used with the Video Case "The Coca-Cola Company's Case for Creative Transformation" (HBS No. 815-714) View Details

30 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

Looking Behind Bad Decisions

African government take a stand against an effective AIDS treatment drug? The inability of government to make wise tradeoffs—give up small losses for much larger gain—has been investigated by HBS professor Max Bazerman and his research colleagues for years. Much of... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

03 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Dealing with the ‘Irrational’ Negotiator

less attractive option. What was the result? The employee dropped the suit. When Deepak was in graduate school, an economics professor began his first day of class with the following statement: "I want you all to remember... View Details

Keywords: by Deepak Malhotra & Max H. Bazerman

10 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

High Commitment, High Performance Management

measures, and capabilities that are aligned with a focused, winning strategy. Psychological alignment: Managing with their heart, leaders create a firm that provides employees at all levels with a sense of higher purpose, meaning,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

December 2010
Article

Can Higher Prices Stimulate Product Use? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Zambia

By: Nava Ashraf, James Berry and Jesse M. Shapiro

The controversy over how much to charge for health products in the developing world rests, in part, on whether higher prices can increase use, either by targeting distribution to high-use households (a screening effect), or by stimulating use psychologically through a... View Details

Keywords: Price; Product; Information; Zambia