Publications

May 2025
Article

The Diffusion of New Technologies

By: Aakash Kalyani, Marcela Carvalho, Nicholas Bloom, Tarek Hassan, Josh Lerner and Ahmed Tahoun

We identify phrases associated with novel technologies using textual analysis of patents, job postings, and earnings calls, enabling us to identify four stylized facts on the diffusion of jobs relating to new technologies. First, the development of economically... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Geography; Innovation; R＆D; Technological Innovation; Research and Development; Employment; Geographic Location

2025
White Paper

Data & Technology in Action: Community Colleges Advancing Economic Mobility

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Kerry McKittrick and Amanda Holloway

Keywords: Higher Education; Demographics; Economic Growth; Competency and Skills; Employment

01 Mar 2019
News

Research Brief: Unveiling the Truth about Transparency

Transparency in a Simple Labor Market,” she and Brown University’s Bobak Pakzad-Hurson drew on data from online platforms used by employers seeking temporary workers; they also conducted an experiment that involved managers and... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Myers

September 2020
Article

Relaxing Household Liquidity Constraints Through Social Security

By: Sylvain Catherine, Max Miller and Natasha Sarin

More than a quarter of working-age households in the United States do not have sufficient savings to cover their expenditures after a month of unemployment. Recent proposals suggest giving workers early access to a small portion of their future Social Security benefits... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Personal Finance; Employment; Welfare; Insurance; Government Legislation

October 1996 (Revised January 1997)
Case

MacTemps: Building Commitment in the Interim Workforce

MacTemps is a provider of temporary workers skilled in computer graphics and database management. Unlike many temporary agencies that treat temps as a commodity, MacTemps has attempted to build relationships with temps through offering benefits and training. This case... View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Organizational Design; Personal Development and Career; Employment Industry; Employment Industry

2021
White Paper

The Future of Boston's Workforce: The Path Forward from COVID-19

By: Will Dorsey Eden, Joseph B. Fuller and Rachel Lipson

In response to the unprecedented disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic on Greater Boston’s economy and workforce, the Boston Foundation, Skillworks, and the Project on Workforce at Harvard partnered to convene workforce leaders from across the region to address how might... View Details

Keywords: COVID; COVID-19; Workforce; Pandemic; Labor Market; Health Pandemics; Labor; Employment; Organizations; Cooperation; Strategic Planning; Boston

2020
Working Paper

Should Firms Move Talent from the Geographic Periphery to Hubs? A Strategic Human Capital Perspective

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Victoria Sevcenko and Tarun Khanna

A longstanding literature holds that firms should hire and move talent from the geographic periphery to hubs as a means to create value from human capital. They do so, however, at the risk of losing the worker to rivals located in the same geographic hub,... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Selection and Staffing; Employment; Residency; Technology Industry; India

2023
White Paper

The 2023 American Opportunity Index: Measuring Who Moves Ahead

By: Matthew Sigelman, Joseph B. Fuller, Nik Dawson, Alex Martin and Gad Levanon

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Personal Development and Career; Employment; Compensation and Benefits; United States

April 2011 (Revised May 2013)
Case

South Africa (A): Stuck in the Middle?

By: Richard H. K. Vietor and Diego Comin

Fifteen years after ending apartheid, formal unemployment in South Africa was still at 24%. While the country had grown at 4 to 5% annually during the 2000s, the financial crisis set it back by 1 million more unemployed. Moreover, it seemed as if the nation were stuck... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Inflation and Deflation; Policy; Employment; Wages; Competition; South Africa

June 2020
Supplement

Career Karma: Growth in a Time of Global Uncertainty (B)

By: Laura Huang and Elizabeth Jiang

This (B) case expands upon the journey of Career Karma’s three founders by presenting a fictionalized Investor Meeting scenario. View Details

April 2011 (Revised December 2012)
Supplement

South Africa (B): Getting Unstuck?

By: Richard H. K. Vietor and Diego Comin

15 years after ending apartheid, formal unemployment in South Africa was still at 24%. While the country had grown at 4 to 5% annually during the 2000s, the financial crisis set it back by 1 million more unemployed. Moreover, it seemed as if the nation were stuck... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Inflation and Deflation; Policy; Employment; Wages; Competition; South Africa

July 2006 (Revised February 2007)
Supplement

LinkedIn (B)

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Keywords: Employment Industry; Employment Industry

June 2020
Case

Career Karma: Growth in a Time of Global Uncertainty (A)

By: Laura Huang, Elizabeth Jiang and Brandon Yu

Career Karma is a startup focused on helping individuals looking to transition careers into computer engineering roles or similar fields by preparing them for formal technical training programs, or “coding bootcamps,” that would lead to a successful career pivot upon... View Details

September 27, 2013
Other Article

Closing the Opportunity Divide

By: Gerald Chertavian

Keywords: Opportunities; Equality and Inequality; Employment; Recruitment

May 2019
Teaching Note

Universal Basic Income, Job Guarantees, or None of the Above?

By: William R. Kerr and Jordan Bach-Lombardo

Teaching Note for HBS No. 819-035. View Details

Keywords: UBI; Job Guarantee; Public Policy; EITC; Employment; Labor; Social Issues; Income; Governance; Policy; Welfare

November 2018 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Universal Basic Income, Job Guarantees, or None of the Above?

By: William R. Kerr, Reilly Kiernan and Jordan Bach-Lombardo

How can policymakers and business leaders address AI and automation's potential for widespread labor market displacement? This case examines potential policy responses, looking closely at the United States' existing social safety net and the impacts of implementing... View Details

Keywords: UBI; Job Guarantee; Managing The Future Of Work; EITC; Employment; Labor; Social Issues; Income; Government and Politics; Policy; Problems and Challenges

December 2017
Case

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Sarah Mehta

It is July 2017, and Dr. Nteranya Sanginga, the director general of the Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), is making progress toward two of his primary strategic objectives for the nonprofit research Institute: 1) to scale the impact... View Details

Keywords: Scaling Technologies; Youth Unemployment; Innovation In Nonprofits; Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Cash Flow; Labor; Employment; Commercialization; Problems and Challenges; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa; Nigeria