Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,329)
- Faculty Publications (625)
- May 2021
- Case
The SMA Foundation: Steering Therapeutic Research and Development in a Rare Disease
By: Amitabh Chandra, Spencer Lee-Rey and Caroline Marra
This case explores incentives for rare disease drug development by chronicling the role of the Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Foundation in forming strategic partnerships with the scientific research community and pharmaceutical developers to transform the trajectory... View Details
- May 13, 2021
- Article
The Big Benefits of Employee Ownership
By: Thomas Dudley and Ethan Rouen
Wealth inequality in the U.S. has been increasing for decades: The richest 1% own a majority of all business wealth, and the top 10% own more than 90%. Companies, which have played a vital role in the growth in inequality can also play one in reducing it. One place to... View Details
- Article
Does Observability Amplify Sensitivity to Moral Frames? Evaluating a Reputation-Based Account of Moral Preferences
By: Valerio Capraro, Jillian J. Jordan and Ben Tappin
A growing body of work suggests that people are sensitive to moral framing in economic games involving prosociality, suggesting that people hold moral preferences for doing the “right thing”. What gives rise to these preferences? Here, we evaluate the explanatory power... View Details
- May 2021
- Article
Preparing for a Pandemic: Accelerating Vaccine Availability
By: Amrita Ahuja, Susan Athey, Arthur Baker, Eric Budish, Juan Camilo Castillo, Rachel Glennerster, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Kremer, Jean Lee, Canice Prendergast, Christopher M. Snyder, Alex Tabarrok, Brandon Joel Tan and Witold Wiecek
Vaccinating the world’s population quickly in a pandemic has enormous health and economic benefits. We analyze the problem faced by governments in determining the scale and structure of procurement for vaccines. We analyze alternative approaches to procurement, arguing... View Details
- May 2021
- Article
The Firm Next Door: Using Satellite Images to Study Local Information Advantage
By: Jung Koo Kang, Lorien Stice-Lawrence and Forester Wong
We use novel satellite data that track the number of cars in the parking lots of 92,668 stores for 71 publicly listed U.S. retailers to study the local information advantage of institutional investors. We establish car counts as a timely measure of store-level... View Details
- April 2021
- Exercise
Valuing Employment Exercise
By: George Serafeim, Ethan Rouen and Katie Panella
The Valuing Employment exercise can be used to show the importance of impact measurement in designing incentives and contracts. The exercise has two phases. In the first phase, participants play the role of managers at the State of Massachusetts Infrastructure... View Details
- April 2021
- Case
The Incentive for Legacy: Tsinghua University Education Foundation
By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao and Spencer C.N. Hagist
Vivian Yuan seeks to bolster the Tsinghua University Education Foundation's fundraising efforts and investment goals in a new era of Chinese higher education. Competing with elite members of China's C9 League of top universities, she must develop a set of incentives... View Details
- April 2021 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
Project Restart: Deciding the Future of English Football
By: Nour Kteily and Deepak Malhotra
In March 2020, the English Premier League football (soccer) season was suspended partway through due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Two months later the season remained in limbo, with a looming deadline to decide whether to attempt to complete the season or curtail it—and... View Details
- April 2021
- Article
Today's Surgeon Compensation Models Fall Short: Aligning Incentives to Create More Equitable and Value-based Compensation Models
By: Susanna Gallani, Mary Witkowski, Lauren Haskins, Haley Jeffcoat, Vinita Mujumdar and Frank Opelka
Modern medicine is undergoing a transformation that involves innovative surgical approaches, increased medical treatment options, clinical care pathways that require collaboration beyond hospital walls, and health data captured by electronic health records and other... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes?
By: Benjamin Enke, Uri Gneezy, Brian Hall, David Martin, Vadim Nelidov, Theo Offerman and Jeroen van de Ven
Despite decades of research on heuristics and biases, empirical evidence on the effect of large incentives—as present in relevant economic decisions—on cognitive biases is scant. This paper tests the effect of incentives on four widely documented biases: base rate... View Details
- March 29, 2021
- Editorial
Research: A Little Recognition Can Provide a Big Morale Boost
By: Shibeal O'Flaherty, Michael Sanders and A.V. Whillans
As organizations large and small face the twin challenges of increasingly strained budgets and burned out workforces, what can managers do to keep employees engaged—without breaking the bank? In this piece, the authors share new research on the power of symbolic awards... View Details
- March 2021
- Article
Active Choice, Implicit Defaults, and the Incentive to Choose
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
Home-delivered prescriptions have no delivery charge and lower copayments than prescriptions picked up at a pharmacy. Nevertheless, when home delivery is offered on an opt-in basis, the take-up rate is only 6%. We study a program that makes active choice of either home... View Details
- Article
CDS Trading and Nonrelationship Lending Dynamics
By: Jung Koo Kang, Christopher Williams and Regina Wittenberg-Moerman
We investigate how credit default swaps (CDSs) affect lenders’ incentives to initiate new lending relationships. We predict that CDSs reduce adverse selection that nonrelationship lead arrangers face when competing for loans. Consistently, we find that a loan is... View Details
- Article
Job Loss, Credit and Crime in Colombia
By: Gaurav Khanna, Carlos Medina, Anant Nyshadham, Christian Posso and Jorge Tamayo
We investigate the effects of job displacement, as a result of mass layoffs, on criminal arrests using a matched employer-employee-crime dataset from Medellín, Colombia. Job displacement leads to immediate and persistent earnings losses and higher probability of arrest... View Details
- March 2021
- Article
The Impact of the General Data Protection Regulation on Internet Interconnection
By: Ran Zhuo, Bradley Huffaker, KC Claffy and Shane Greenstein
The Internet comprises thousands of independently operated networks, where bilaterally negotiated interconnection agreements determine the flow of data between networks. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes strict restrictions on... View Details
- February 2021
- Case
The Tulsa Massacre and the Call for Reparations
By: Mihir Desai, Ruth Page, Suzanne Antoniou and Leanne Fan
How should historic social injustices be addressed? Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their descendants, including Representative Regina Goodwin of Tulsa, believe they should be addressed through reparations and have consequently continued to push the government... View Details
Keywords: Costs And Consequences; Decisions; Judgment And Decision-making; Lawsuit; Leading Change; Conflict Resolution; Perspective Taking; Prejudice; Bias; Reparations; Decision Making; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cost vs Benefits; Judgments; Race; Ethics; Fairness; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Conflict Management; Governance; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Government and Politics; Government Legislation; History; Lawsuits and Litigation; Legal Liability; Mission and Purpose; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Motivation and Incentives; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Oklahoma; Tulsa; United States
- 2021
- Working Paper
Does Observability Amplify Sensitivity to Moral Frames? Evaluating a Reputation-Based Account of Moral Preferences
By: Valerio Capraro, Jillian J. Jordan and Ben Tappin
A growing body of work suggests that people are sensitive to moral framing in economic games involving prosociality, suggesting that people hold moral preferences for doing the “right thing”. What gives rise to these preferences? Here, we evaluate the explanatory power... View Details
- January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
- Teaching Note
Maritz Automotive
By: Ashley V. Whillans and Lamar Pierce
This case focuses on Charlotte Blank, the Chief Behavioral Officer at Maritz, as she tries to assist a major automotive manufacturer (CarCo) with increasing their sales by prepaying monthly bonuses to independently franchised car dealers and clawing them back if the... View Details
- January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
- Teaching Note
Ureed.com: The Marketplace for Language
This case explores the growth of Ureed, an online marketplace for translation services that is powered by a workforce consisting of remote freelancers who are based in the United Arab Emirates. Nour Al Hassan, the founder and CEO faced the challenge of how best to... View Details
- January 2021
- Case
Value-Based Insurance Design at Onex
By: Joshua Schwartzstein, Amitabh Chandra and Amram Migdal
The operating executives of Health and Benefits for Onex Partners, Megan Jackson Frye and Sam Camens, faced a challenge: Healthcare costs for employees of Onex’s portfolio companies were continuing to rise above the consumer price index, reflecting broader trends... View Details
Keywords: Decision Making; Cost vs Benefits; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Finance; Behavioral Finance; Insurance; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Markets; Demand and Consumers; Consumer Behavior; Social Psychology; Behavior; Interests; Motivation and Incentives; Perception; Health Industry; Insurance Industry; North America; United States