Publications

15 Dec 2005
News

Generosity Can Unite Us

January 2013
Case

Omidyar Network: Pioneering Impact Investment

By: Michael Chu and Lauren Barley

Omidyar Network, having deployed to date over $500 million in ways ranging from donations to commercial equity capital, must decide whether to back Anudip, an Indian organization dedicated to providing the rural unemployed and marginalized with livelihoods linked to... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Investment; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; India

10 Sep 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Don’t Take ‘No’ for an Answer: An Experiment with Actual Organ Donor Registrations

Keywords: by Judd B. Kessler & Alvin E. Roth

2022
Working Paper

Beliefs About Giving Across Contexts

By: Christine L. Exley, John-Henry Pezzuto and Marta Serra-Garcia

A rich literature investigates prosocial behavior by exploiting a variety of methods, the validity of which has been debated. While this literature has compared behavior inside and outside of the laboratory, an open question is how participants view prosocial behavior... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Behavior; Behavior; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Values and Beliefs

Spring 2014
Article

The Market for Blood

By: Robert Slonim, Carmen Wang and Ellen Garbarino

Donating blood, "the gift of life," is among the noblest activities and it is performed worldwide nearly 100 million times annually. The economic perspective presented here shows how the gift of life, albeit noble and often motivated by altruism, is heavily influenced... View Details

Keywords: Altruism; Philanthropy; Analysis Of Health Care Markets; Market Design; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Health

2014
Working Paper

Don't Take 'No' for an Answer: An Experiment with Actual Organ Donor Registrations

By: Judd B. Kessler and Alvin E. Roth

Over 10,000 people in the U.S. die each year while waiting for an organ. Attempts to increase organ transplantation have focused on changing the registration question from an opt-in frame to an active choice frame. We analyze this change in California and show it... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Health Care and Treatment; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Health Industry

May 1998 (Revised May 1999)
Case

Biopure Corp.

By: John T. Gourville

It is early 1998 and Biopure Corp., a small biopharmaceutical firm with no sales revenues in its ten-year history, has just received government approval to release Oxyglobin, a revolutionary new "blood substitute" designed to replace the need for donated animal blood... View Details

Keywords: Segmentation; Marketing Strategy; Engineering; Budgets and Budgeting; Sales; Transformation; Markets; Debates; Product Launch; Pharmaceutical Industry

September 2010 (Revised April 2012)
Case

Better World Books

By: Michael I. Norton, Fiona Wilson, Jill Avery and Thomas J. Steenburgh

Better World Books, a young start-up, provides a socially conscious alternative to Amazon, collecting and selling used books to keep them out of the waste stream, while donating a portion of their profits to support global literacy efforts. The case presents an... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Online Technology; Retail Industry

Research Summary

Reforming Social Science

By: Max H. Bazerman

Social science research affects all of us. When researchers learned organ donation rates are higher in countries where human organs are automatically available for donation unless you specifically “opt-out” of the system, as opposed to countries like the U.S., where... View Details

February 2006 (Revised October 2006)
Case

The Children's Investment Fund, 2005

By: Randolph B. Cohen and Joshua B. Sandbulte

TCI, The Children's Investment Fund, is a London-based hedge fund. The firm donates a significant fraction of the fees it earns to a charitable foundation. In 2005, TCI took a large stake in Deutsche Borse, the stock exchange in Frankfurt. Its battle with management... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Financial Markets; Investment Activism; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Financial Services Industry; London; Germany

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Keenan studies barriers to and motivators of prosocial behavior, using a combination of field, laboratory, and online experimental methods. Her recent work investigates donors’ aversion to overhead spending by nonprofits, including its negative effects on the... View Details

August 2019 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Lemonade: Disrupting Insurance with Instant Everything, Killer Prices, and a Big Heart

By: Elie Ofek and Danielle Golan

Launching its first products in the fall of 2016 in New York, insurtech startup Lemonade was on a mission to disrupt the insurance market by using AI and behavioral economics principles. The company offered renters, homeowners, and condo insurance and mainly targeted... View Details

Keywords: AI; Business Startups; Insurance; Technological Innovation; Business Model; Disruption; Brands and Branding; Growth and Development Strategy; Global Strategy; Decision Making; Insurance Industry; Technology Industry

Article

Maimonides' Ladder: States of Mutual Knowledge and the Perception of Charitability

By: Julian De Freitas, Peter DiScioli, Kyle A. Thomas and Steven Pinker

Why do people esteem anonymous charitable giving? We connect normative theories of charitability (captured in Maimonides’ Ladder of Charity) with evolutionary theories of partner choice to test predictions on how attributions of charitability are affected by states of... View Details

Keywords: Charity; Reciprocity; Partner Choice; Common Knowledge; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Knowledge; Perception

November 1999 (Revised July 2001)
Case

New Profit Inc.: Governing the Nonprofit Enterprise

By: Robert S. Kaplan

New Profit, Inc. (NPI) is an innovative venture philanthropy fund. Founded by social entrepreneur Venessa Kirsch, NPI intends to raise large donations from individuals who wish to invest in nonprofit enterprises that could have a significant social impact and the... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Nonprofit Organizations; Venture Capital; Social Entrepreneurship; Corporate Governance; Performance Evaluation; Financial Statements; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Service Industry

Article

Prosocial Bonuses Increase Employee Satisfaction and Team Performance

By: Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Michael I. Norton and Jordi Quoidbach

In three field studies, we explore the impact of providing employees and teammates with prosocial bonuses, a novel type of bonus spent on others rather than on oneself. In Experiment 1, we show that prosocial bonuses in the form of donations to charity lead to happier... View Details

Keywords: Satisfaction; Groups and Teams; Performance; Compensation and Benefits; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Banking Industry; Sports Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Canada; Belgium; Australia

2013
Working Paper

Prosocial Bonuses Increase Employee Satisfaction and Team Performance

By: Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Michael I. Norton, Elizabeth W. Dunn and Jordi Quoidbach

In two field studies, we explore the impact of providing employees and teammates with prosocial bonuses, a novel type of bonus spent on others rather than on oneself. In Experiment 1, we show that prosocial bonuses in the form of donations to charity lead to happier... View Details

Keywords: Satisfaction; Groups and Teams; Performance; Compensation and Benefits; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Banking Industry; Sports Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Canada; Belgium; Australia

Article

The Persuasive 'Power' of Stigma?

By: Michael I. Norton, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Dana R. Carney and Dan Ariely

We predicted that able-bodied individuals and white Americans would have a difficult time saying no to persuasive appeals offered by disabled individuals and black Americans, due to their desire to make such interactions proceed smoothly. In two experiments, we show... View Details

Keywords: Persuasion; Stigma; Interactions; Interracial Relations; Power and Influence; Personal Characteristics; Interpersonal Communication; Attitudes