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- Faculty Publications (151)
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- All HBS Web (407)
- Faculty Publications (151)
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- February 2023
- Article
Increasing the Demand for Workers with a Criminal Record
By: Zoë Cullen, Will Dobbie and Mitchell Hoffman
State and local policies increasingly restrict employers’ access to criminal records, but without
addressing the underlying reasons that employers may conduct criminal background checks.
Employers may thus still want to ask about a job applicant’s criminal record... View Details
Cullen, Zoë, Will Dobbie, and Mitchell Hoffman. "Increasing the Demand for Workers with a Criminal Record." Quarterly Journal of Economics 138, no. 1 (February 2023): 103–150.
- 2023
- Working Paper
Money, Time, and Grant Design
By: Kyle Myers and Wei Yang Tham
The design of research grants has been hypothesized to be a useful tool for
influencing researchers and their science. We test this by conducting two thought
experiments in a nationally representative survey of academic researchers. First,
we offer participants a... View Details
Myers, Kyle, and Wei Yang Tham. "Money, Time, and Grant Design." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 24-037, December 2023.
- August 2017
- Article
Voter Registration Costs and Disenfranchisement: Experimental Evidence from France
By: Céline Braconnier, Jean-Yves Dormagen and Vincent Pons
A large-scale randomized experiment conducted during the 2012 French presidential and parliamentary elections shows that voter registration requirements have significant effects on turnout, resulting in unequal participation. We assigned 20,500 apartments to one... View Details
Braconnier, Céline, Jean-Yves Dormagen, and Vincent Pons. "Voter Registration Costs and Disenfranchisement: Experimental Evidence from France." American Political Science Review 111, no. 3 (August 2017): 584–604. (Also Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-098, March 2016.)
- September 16, 2022
- Article
A Causal Test of the Strength of Weak Ties
By: Karthik Rajkumar, Guillaume Saint-Jacques, Iavor I. Bojinov, Erik Brynjolfsson and Sinan Aral
The authors analyzed data from multiple large-scale randomized experiments on LinkedIn’s People You May Know algorithm, which recommends new connections to LinkedIn members, to test the extent to which weak ties increased job mobility in the world’s largest... View Details
Rajkumar, Karthik, Guillaume Saint-Jacques, Iavor I. Bojinov, Erik Brynjolfsson, and Sinan Aral. "A Causal Test of the Strength of Weak Ties." Science 377, no. 6612 (September 16, 2022).
- April, 2023
- Article
Reducing Information Barriers to Solar Adoption: Experimental Evidence from India
By: Meera Mahadevan, Robyn C. Meeks and Takashi Yamano
Off-grid solar technologies hold promise for unelectrified and low-quality electricity settings; however, their adoption remains low. Important barriers to adoption, such as incomplete information remain relatively unexplored in developing countries. In collaboration... View Details
Keywords: Technology Adoption; Renewable Energy; Knowledge Sharing; Developing Countries and Economies; India
Mahadevan, Meera, Robyn C. Meeks, and Takashi Yamano. "Reducing Information Barriers to Solar Adoption: Experimental Evidence from India." Energy Economics 120 (April, 2023).
- March 2024
- Article
Human Capital Affects Religious Identity: Causal Evidence from Kenya
By: Livia Alfonsi, Michal Bauer, Julie Chytilová and Edward Miguel
We study how human capital and economic conditions causally affect the choice of religious denomination. We utilize a longitudinal dataset monitoring the religious history of more than 5,000 Kenyans over 20 years, in tandem with a randomized experiment (deworming) that... View Details
Alfonsi, Livia, Michal Bauer, Julie Chytilová, and Edward Miguel. "Human Capital Affects Religious Identity: Causal Evidence from Kenya." Art. 103215. Journal of Development Economics 167 (March 2024).
- Article
The (Perceived) Meaning of Spontaneous Thoughts
By: Carey K. Morewedge, Colleen Giblin and Michael I. Norton
Spontaneous thoughts, the output of a broad category of uncontrolled and inaccessible higher-order mental processes, arise frequently in everyday life. The seeming randomness by which spontaneous thoughts arise might give people good reason to dismiss them as... View Details
Keywords: Spontaneous Thoughts; Self-Insight; Meaning; Attribution; Judgment And Decision Making; Decision Making; Cognition and Thinking
Morewedge, Carey K., Colleen Giblin, and Michael I. Norton. "The (Perceived) Meaning of Spontaneous Thoughts." Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143, no. 4 (August 2014): 1742–1754.
- April 2019
- Article
Shooting the Messenger
By: Leslie John, Hayley Blunden and Heidi Liu
Eleven experiments provide evidence that people have a tendency to “shoot the messenger,” deeming innocent bearers of bad news unlikeable. In a preregistered lab experiment, participants rated messengers who delivered bad news from a random drawing as relatively... View Details
Keywords: Judgment; Communication; Sense-making; Attribution; Disclosure; Interpersonal Communication; Perception; Judgments; Motivation and Incentives
John, Leslie, Hayley Blunden, and Heidi Liu. "Shooting the Messenger." Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 148, no. 4 (April 2019): 644–666.
- September 2013
- Article
Converging to the Lowest Common Denominator in Physical Health
By: Leslie K. John and Michael I. Norton
Objective: This research examines how access to information on peer health behaviors affects one's own health behavior. Methods: We report the results of a randomized field experiment in a large corporation in which we introduced walkstations (treadmills... View Details
John, Leslie K., and Michael I. Norton. "Converging to the Lowest Common Denominator in Physical Health." Special Issue on Health Psychology Meets Behavioral Economics. Health Psychology 32, no. 9 (September 2013): 1023–1028.
- March 24, 2020
- Article
Delayed Negative Effects of Prosocial Spending on Happiness
By: Armin Falk and Thomas Graeber
Does prosocial behavior promote happiness? We test this longstanding hypothesis in a behavioral experiment that extends the scope of previous research. In our Saving a Life paradigm, every participant either saved one human life in expectation by triggering a targeted... View Details
Falk, Armin, and Thomas Graeber. "Delayed Negative Effects of Prosocial Spending on Happiness." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 12 (March 24, 2020): 6463–6468.
- Research Summary
Optimal Decision Making Under Uncertainty
Inventory control problems in supply chains. In this stream of theoretical research, Professor Goh has investigated how inventory should be optimally managed in supply chains. Specifically, he has studied how supply chains can make decisions to operate... View Details
- January 23, 2023
- Article
Digital Public Health Interventions at Scale: The Impact of Social Media Advertising on Beliefs and Outcomes Related to COVID Vaccines
By: Susan Athey, Kristen Grabarz, Michael Luca and Nils Wernerfelt
Public health organizations increasingly use social media advertising campaigns in pursuit of public health goals. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of about $40 million of social media advertisements that were run and experimentally tested on Facebook and... View Details
Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Public Health; Vaccines; Social Media; Advertising; Power and Influence; Health Care and Treatment
Athey, Susan, Kristen Grabarz, Michael Luca, and Nils Wernerfelt. "Digital Public Health Interventions at Scale: The Impact of Social Media Advertising on Beliefs and Outcomes Related to COVID Vaccines." e2208110120. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120, no. 5 (January 23, 2023).
- August 2021
- Article
Hoping for the Worst? A Paradoxical Preference for Bad News
By: Kate Barasz and Serena Hagerty
Nine studies investigate when and why people may paradoxically prefer bad news—e.g., hoping for an objectively worse injury or a higher-risk diagnosis over explicitly better alternatives. Using a combination of field surveys and randomized experiments, the research... View Details
Keywords: Decision Avoidance; Difficult Decisions; Judgment And Decision Making; Medical Decision-making; Decision Making; Behavior
Barasz, Kate, and Serena Hagerty. "Hoping for the Worst? A Paradoxical Preference for Bad News." Journal of Consumer Research 48, no. 2 (August 2021): 270–288.
- April 2020
- Article
Field Comparisons of Incentive-Compatible Preference Elicitation Techniques
By: Shawn A. Cole, A. Nilesh Fernando, Daniel Stein and Jeremy Tobacman
Knowledge of consumer demand is important for firms, policy makers, and economists. One common tool for incentive-compatible demand elicitation, the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism, has been widely used in laboratory settings but rarely evaluated for... View Details
Keywords: Incentive-compatible Elicitation; Experimental Methods; Weather Insurance; Rainfall Insurance; Agricultural Extension; Demand and Consumers
Cole, Shawn A., A. Nilesh Fernando, Daniel Stein, and Jeremy Tobacman. "Field Comparisons of Incentive-Compatible Preference Elicitation Techniques." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 172 (April 2020): 33–56.
- 2016
- Working Paper
Do Network Dynamics Undermine Idea-based Network Advantages? Experimental Results from an Entrepreneurship Bootcamp
By: Rembrand Koning
Do networks plentiful in ideas provide early stage startups with performance advantages? On the one hand, network positions that provide access to a multitude of ideas are thought to increase team performance. On the other hand, research on network formation argues... View Details
Koning, Rembrand. "Do Network Dynamics Undermine Idea-based Network Advantages? Experimental Results from an Entrepreneurship Bootcamp." Working Paper, August 2016.
- 2024
- Article
Neyman Meets Causal Machine Learning: Experimental Evaluation of Individualized Treatment Rules
By: Michael Lingzhi Li and Kosuke Imai
A century ago, Neyman showed how to evaluate the efficacy of treatment using a randomized experiment under a minimal set of assumptions. This classical repeated sampling framework serves as a basis of routine experimental analyses conducted by today’s scientists across... View Details
Li, Michael Lingzhi, and Kosuke Imai. "Neyman Meets Causal Machine Learning: Experimental Evaluation of Individualized Treatment Rules." Journal of Causal Inference 12, no. 1 (2024).
- 05 Apr 2010
- Research & Ideas
HBS Cases: iPads, Kindles, and the Close of a Chapter in Book Publishing
bookstores—the whole physical distribution system—is on the cusp of changing fundamentally." Olson has a particularly informed view of the issue. Before arriving at HBS in 2008, he was CEO of Random House. In a recent unpublished... View Details
- September 2023
- Article
Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy: Experimental Evidence from Nine Countries during the COVID-19 Pandemic
By: Vincenzo Galasso, Vincent Pons, Paola Profeta, Martin McKee, David Stuckler, Michael Becher, Sylvain Brouard and Martial Foucault
We study the impact of public health messages on intentions to vaccinate and vaccination uptakes, especially among hesitant groups. We performed an experiment comparing the effects of egoistic and altruistic messages on COVID-19 vaccine intentions and behaviour. We... View Details
Keywords: COVID-19; Vaccination; Vaccine Hesitancy; Information Campaigns; Health Pandemics; Behavior; Information
Galasso, Vincenzo, Vincent Pons, Paola Profeta, Martin McKee, David Stuckler, Michael Becher, Sylvain Brouard, and Martial Foucault. "Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy: Experimental Evidence from Nine Countries during the COVID-19 Pandemic." BMJ Global Health 8, no. 9 (September 2023).
- Article
A Prescriptive Analytics Framework for Optimal Policy Deployment Using Heterogeneous Treatment Effects
By: Edward McFowland III, Sandeep Gangarapu, Ravi Bapna and Tianshu Sun
We define a prescriptive analytics framework that addresses the needs of a constrained decision-maker facing, ex ante, unknown costs and benefits of multiple policy levers. The framework is general in nature and can be deployed in any utility maximizing context, public... View Details
Keywords: Prescriptive Analytics; Heterogeneous Treatment Effects; Optimization; Observed Rank Utility Condition (OUR); Between-treatment Heterogeneity; Machine Learning; Decision Making; Analysis; Mathematical Methods
McFowland III, Edward, Sandeep Gangarapu, Ravi Bapna, and Tianshu Sun. "A Prescriptive Analytics Framework for Optimal Policy Deployment Using Heterogeneous Treatment Effects." MIS Quarterly 45, no. 4 (December 2021): 1807–1832.
- 2024
- Working Paper
The Wade Test: Generative AI and CEO Communication
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Bart S. Vanneste and Amirhossein Zohrehvand
Can generative artificial intelligence (Gen-AI) transform the role of the CEO? This study investigates
whether Gen-AI can mimic a human CEO and whether employees display aversion to Gen-AI
communication. We present a framework of Gen-AI aversion that distinguishes... View Details
Choudhury, Prithwiraj, Bart S. Vanneste, and Amirhossein Zohrehvand. "The Wade Test: Generative AI and CEO Communication." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 25-008, August 2024. (Revised May 2025.)