Publications

Find at Harvard

29 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 29

Improving Legislative Outcomes (revised) Authors:Katherine L. Milkman, Mary Carol Mazza, Lisa L. Shu, Chia-Jung Tsay, and Max H. Bazerman Abstract Policies that would create net benefits for society but would also involve costs frequently... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2014
Teaching Note

Dr. Benjamin Hooks and Children's Health Forum

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Ai-Ling Malone

The case includes law, business, and public health perspectives on an African American leader's social entrepreneurship and leadership in other social movements. Later in his life, Dr. Benjamin Hooks championed the eradication of lead poisoning. Prior to that Hooks... View Details

Keywords: Leading Change; Health Disorders; Social Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Social Issues; United States

2025
Working Paper

Tax Elasticities of Top Donors: Evidence from Family Foundations

By: Simon Essig Aberg

High net-worth donors who give through a family foundation or donor-advised fund constitute the fastest growing segment of charitable giving in the United States. Using a novel database of foundation tax filings, I document facts about top donors, estimate how they... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Taxation; Motivation and Incentives

SSRN

November 2014
Article

The Dynamics of Firm Lobbying

By: William R. Kerr, William F. Lincoln and Prachi Mishra

We study the determinants of the dynamics of firm lobbying behavior using a panel data set covering 1998–2006. Our data exhibit three striking facts: (i) few firms lobby, (ii) lobbying status is strongly associated with firm size, and (iii) lobbying status is highly... View Details

Keywords: Lobbying; Political Economy; H-1B; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Policy; Immigration

2007
Other Unpublished Work

Say on Pay Vote and CEO Compensation: Evidence from the UK

By: Fabrizio Ferri and David Maber

In this study, we examine the effect on CEO pay of new legislation introduced in the United Kingdom (UK) at the end of 2002 that requires publicly-traded firms to submit an executive remuneration report to a non-binding shareholder vote ("say on pay") at the annual... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Corporate Governance; Government Legislation; Executive Compensation; Performance Improvement; Business and Shareholder Relations; United Kingdom

September 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Case

The Future of Iraq Project (A)

By: Noel Maurer and Sogomon Tarontsi

In March 2009, the government of Iraq decided to hold its first oil field auctions. The auctions were for service contracts on the country's southern oil fields; the winner would obtain the right to produce oil above a certain target for a fixed fee. The bidders... View Details

Keywords: Non-Renewable Energy; Foreign Direct Investment; Policy; Auctions; Production; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry; Iraq

Educators

November 2023
Article

Federated Electronic Health Records for the European Health Data Space

By: René Raab, Arne Küderle, Anastasiya Zakreuskaya, Ariel Dora Stern, Jochen Klucken, Georgios Kaissis, Daniel Rueckert, Susanne Boll, Roland Eils, Harald Wagener and Bjoern Eskofier

The European Commission's draft for the European Health Data Space (EHDS) aims to empower citizens to access their personal health data and share it with physicians and other health-care providers. It further defines procedures for the secondary use of electronic... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Cybersecurity; Information Management; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Health Industry

May 2023
Article

Equilibrium Effects of Pay Transparency

By: Zoë B. Cullen and Bobak Pakzad-Hurson

The public discourse around pay transparency has focused on the direct effect: how workers seek to rectify newly-disclosed pay inequities through renegotiations. The question of how wage-setting and hiring practices of the firm respond in equilibrium has received... View Details

Keywords: Pay Transparency; Online Labor Market; Privacy; Wage Gap; Corporate Disclosure; Wages; Negotiation

Find at Harvard

June 2014
Article

The Price of Wall Street's Power

By: Gautam Mukunda

Over and over again, executives make decisions that aren't in their companies' best interests, in response to pressure from Wall Street. Though many believe this happens because firms have a "fiduciary duty" to maximize shareholder returns, U.S. executives do not, as a... View Details

26 Feb 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Barriers to Acting in Time on Energy and Strategies for Overcoming Them

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman; Energy; Utilities

2009
Working Paper

Capitalizing On Innovation: The Case of Japan

By: Robert Dujarric and Andrei Hagiu

Japan's industrial landscape is characterized by hierarchical forms of industry organization, which are increasingly inadequate in modern sectors, where innovation relies on platforms and horizontal ecosystems of firms producing complementary products. Using three... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Markets and Industries; Government Legislation; Innovation and Invention; Industry Structures; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration; Manufacturing Industry; Japan

31 Jan 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Behavioral Decision Research, Legislation, and Society: Three Cases

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman

March 2025
Case

The Changing Climate on Wall Street

By: Clayton S. Rose, Maxim Pike Harrell and Michael Norris

Increasing and conflicting regulatory requirements and political pressures regarding climate change tested the leaders of U.S. financial institutions, as they struggled to determine how best to comply while managing their business and its risks.
In October 2024,... View Details

Educators

15 Jun 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Reaching for Yield in the Bond Market

Keywords: by Bo Becker & Victoria Ivashina

04 Sep 2001
Research & Ideas

Is Government Just Stupid? How Bad Decisions Are Made

organ donors. Most of us would be willing to trade our organs upon our deaths in exchange for access to organs if we needed them. This mutually beneficial trade occurs far too rarely. Environmentalists want to strengthen legislation to... View Details

Keywords: by Max H. Bazerman, Jonathan Baron & Katherine Shonk

2024
Working Paper

The Impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act on the Economic Development of the Western U.S.

By: Joe Long, Carlo Medici, Nancy Qian and Marco Tabellini

This paper investigates the economic consequences of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned immigration from China. The Act reduced the number of Chinese workers of all skill levels living in the United States. It also reduced the labor supply and the quality of... View Details

Keywords: Growth; Productivity; Economic Development; Business History; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Business and Government Relations; Prejudice and Bias; Government Legislation; Immigration; United States

14 Feb 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: February 14

frivolous patent-infringement claims made by “patent trolls” affect small firms’ ability to create jobs, raise capital, and survive. Our identification strategy exploits the staggered passage of anti-patent-troll laws at the state level. We find that the passage of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2018 (Revised September 2018)
Case

Donald Trump and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Robert Scherf

In January 2018, President Donald Trump was full of optimism. He had just signed the most substantial legislation of his young presidency, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), making major changes to the tax code. Echoing his campaign slogan—Make America Great Again—Trump... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Jobs and Positions; Government and Politics; Public Opinion; United States

Educators