Publications

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25 Jul 2023
Blog Post

Malcolm McClain (MBA/MPP 2023) Named First RISE Career Fellow

Malcolm McClain (MBA/MPP 2023) has been named the first recipient of the Harvard Business School (HBS) RISE (Recognizing Individuals Seeking Equity) Career Fellow, with his income supplemented for one year following graduation so he can... View Details

January 2011
Article

Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time

By: Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely

Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. We attempt to insert the desires of "regular" Americans into these debates, by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Policy; Perspective; Wealth; Equality and Inequality; Income; Demography; Debates; Welfare; Diversity; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; United States

Article

Are Buybacks Really Shortchanging Investment?

By: Jesse M. Fried and Charles C.Y. Wang

It’s no secret that the American economy is suffering from the twin ills of slow growth and rising income inequality. Many lay the blame at the doors of America’s largest public corporations. The charge? These firms prefer to distribute cash generated from their... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Investment; Stocks; Business and Shareholder Relations; Equality and Inequality; United States

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Article

Credit Access and Social Welfare: The Rise of Consumer Lending in the United States and France

By: Gunnar Trumbull

Research into the causes of the 2008 financial crisis has drawn attention to a link between growing income inequality in the United States and high household indebtedness. Most accounts trace the U.S. idea of credit-as-welfare to the period of wage stagnation and... View Details

Keywords: Household Finance; Welfare State; Credit; Personal Finance; Welfare; Borrowing and Debt; France; United States

January 2009
Article

Turbulent Firms, Turbulent Wages?

By: Diego A. Comin, Erica L. Groshen and Bess Rabin

Has greater turbulence among firms fueled rising wage instability in the U.S.? Gottschalk and Moffitt [1994] find that rising earnings instability was responsible for one third to one half of the rise in wage inequality during the 1980s. These growing transitory... View Details

Keywords: Wages; Production; Business Earnings; Fluctuation; Performance; Volatility; Relationships; Sales; Business Ventures; United States

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15 May 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 15, 2018

Income Inequality By: Nallareddy, Suresh, Ethan Rouen, and Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato Abstract—This paper studies the effects of corporate tax changes on income inequality.... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

21 Jul 2023
Blog Post

Malcolm McClain (MBA/MPP 2023) Named First RISE Career Fellow

Malcolm McClain (MBA/MPP 2023) has been named the first recipient of the Harvard Business School (HBS) RISE (Recognizing Individuals Seeking Equity) Career Fellow, with his income supplemented for one year following graduation so he can... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit / Government

January 2006 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Capitalism and Democracy in a New World

By: Bruce R. Scott, Sarah Potvin and Alison Adams

Focuses on the formulation of the Northwestern Ordinance as the core of a development strategy for capitalism and democracy in the United States. A precursor to the Constitution, the Northwestern Ordinance was based on the New England Model to achieve a broad and... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Economic Systems; Income; Laws and Statutes; Government and Politics; Growth and Development Strategy; Power and Influence; United States

December 2004
Supplement

Basic Statistics from the World Bank's World Development Indicators, 2004

By: David A. Moss, Sarah A. Brennan and Peter Epstein

Provides basic economic and social indicators for 145 countries, drawn from the World Bank's World Development Indicators (2004). The data include: population, land area, GNP per capita, real GDP growth, life expectancy, adult illiteracy, fertility rate, access to... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Wealth and Poverty; Standards; Economics; Society

September 2020 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Student Success at Georgia State University (A)

By: Michael W. Toffel, Robin Mendelson and Julia Kelley

Georgia State University had developed a reputation for driving student success by nearly doubling its graduation rate for students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. It did so while growing its student body and the proportion of Black/African... View Details

September 2017
Case

Christine Lagarde

By: Julie Battilana, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Vanessa Ampelas and Noemie Assenat

The case covers the youth and career trajectory of Christine Lagarde across her time at Baker & McKenzie, as a minister in the government of France and as the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The case highlights the challenges and opportunities she faced... View Details

Keywords: Change; Personal Development and Career; Power and Influence; Leadership; Gender; Leading Change

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Publications - Faculty & Research

2025 Article Social Security and Trends in Wealth Inequality By: Sylvain Catherine, Max Miller and Natasha Sarin Recent influential work finds large increases in inequality in the U.S. based on measures of... View Details

September 2022
Case

HPP: Tapping the Netherlands’ Potential

By: Brian Trelstad and Idelès Kaandorp

Stichting Het Potentieel Pakken (HPP) was launched to solve a systemic problem in the Dutch Labor Market: gender inequity that was leading to a large number of women to work part-time in fields that were in desperately short supply of labor, like health care, child... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Grants; Scaling And Growth; Nonprofit Organizations; Opportunities; Gender; Income; Employment; Health Care and Treatment; Human Capital; Mission and Purpose; Motivation and Incentives; Growth and Development Strategy; Employment Industry; Health Industry; Education Industry; Consulting Industry; Europe; Netherlands

08 Aug 2023
Research & Ideas

Black Employees Not Only Earn Less, But Deal with Bad Bosses and Poor Conditions

positive work culture, and a healthy work-life balance. “When we think about racial gaps in the United States, we tend to mostly measure relative income levels.” At a time when many companies are looking to recruit and retain more people... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

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Faculty & Research

Amano, Tomomichi, and Tomomi Tanaka. "Balancing Digital Safety and Innovation." Harvard Business Review 103, no. 3 (May–June 2025): 120–127. Social Security and Trends in Wealth Inequality By: Sylvain Catherine, Max Miller and Natasha... View Details

August 2018
Case

Christine Lagarde

By: Julie Battilana, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Vanessa Ampelas and Noemie Assenat

For a modular presentation of the same material, please see “Christine Lagarde (A): A French Prime Minister Calls” (HBS No. 419-017), “Christine Lagarde (B): Being a Public Servant” (HBS No. 419-018), and “Christine Lagarde (C): Managing the IMF” (HBS No. 419-019).... View Details

Keywords: Change; Personal Development and Career; Power and Influence; Leadership; Gender; Leading Change