Publications

2012
Article

The Excess Burden of Government Indecision

By: Francisco J. Gomes, Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Luis M. Viceira

Governments are known for procrastinating when it comes to resolving painful policy problems. Whatever the political motives for waiting to decide, procrastination distorts economic decisions relative to what would arise with early policy resolution. In so doing, it... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Risk and Uncertainty; Investment Portfolio; Decision Choices and Conditions; Retirement; Policy; Government and Politics

1 Apr 2013
Interview

Restoring U.S. Competitiveness: Professor Michael Porter in an interview with Charlie Rose

By: Michael E. Porter

"There is an historic opportunity right now for business and government to work together [to restore U.S. competitiveness]." Professor Porter discusses the eight federal policy priorities that business leaders and policymakers, liberals and conservatives agree will... View Details

Keywords: U.S. Competitiveness; Competition; Policy; Global Strategy; Business and Government Relations; United States

26 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 26

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-034.pdf Tax Policy and the Efficiency of U.S. Direct Investment Abroad Authors:Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley, and James R. Hines Jr. Abstract Deferral of U.S. View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Dec 2016
News

How Trump can help Main Street businesses

2009
Working Paper

Watch What I Do, Not What I Say: The Unintended Consequences of the Homeland Investment Act

By: Dhammika Dharmapala, C. Fritz Foley and Kristin J. Forbes

This paper analyzes the impact on firm behavior of the Homeland Investment Act of 2004, which provided a one-time tax holiday for the repatriation of foreign earnings by U.S. multinationals. The analysis controls for endogeneity and omitted variable bias by using... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Multinational Firms and Management; Government Legislation; Taxation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Behavior; United States

Purchase

01 Jun 2012
News

What Industrial Policy?

01 Jan 2012
News

Gingrich's frightening fiscal fantasies

24 Jan 2012
News

Free-Market Socialism

2015
Book

MOVE: Putting America's Infrastructure Back in the Lead

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Americans are stuck. We live with travel delays on congested roads; shipping delays on clogged railways; and delays on repairs, project approvals, and funding due to gridlocked leadership. These delays affect us all, whether you are a daily commuter, a frequent flyer,... View Details

Purchase

August 2017
Article

Should Governments Invest More in Nudging?

By: Shlomo Benartzi, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman, Cass R. Sunstein, Richard H. Thaler, Maya Shankar, Will Tucker-Ray, William J. Congdon and Steven Galing

Governments are increasingly adopting behavioral science techniques for changing individual behavior in pursuit of policy objectives. The types of “nudge” interventions that governments are now adopting alter people’s decisions without coercion or significant changes... View Details

July 2018
Article

Revisiting the Classical View of Benefit-Based Taxation

By: Matthew Weinzierl

This article incorporates into modern optimal tax theory the classical logic of benefit‐based taxation in which an individual's benefit from the activities of the state is tied to his or her income‐earning ability. First‐best optimal policy is characterized... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Theory; Policy

17 Aug 2021
Op-Ed

Dispensing Justice: The Case for Legalizing Cannabis Nationally

lower total cost. Further, cannabis businesses pay a much higher share of net income as taxes, compared to other businesses of similar scale. That’s because, according to the Internal Revenue Code, businesses that “traffic” in Schedule I controlled substances aren’t... View Details

Keywords: by Ashish Nanda and Tabatha Robinson

13 Sep 2013
HBS Seminar

Nirupama Rao, NYC Wagner School of Public Service

13 Sep 2013
HBS Seminar

Nirupama Rao, NYU Wagner School of Public Service

2016
Working Paper

Popular Acceptance of Inequality Due to Innate Brute Luck and Support for Classical Benefit-Based Taxation

By: Matthew C. Weinzierl

U.S. survey respondents' views on distributive justice are shown to differ in two specific, related ways from what is conventionally assumed in modern optimal tax research. A large share of respondents, and in some cases a large majority, resist the full equalization... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Attitudes; Taxation; Theory; United States

June 15, 2021
Article

Cutting the Gordian Knot of Employee Health Care Benefits and Costs: A Corporate Model Built on Employee Choice

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Barak D. Richman

President Joe Biden’s promise to give every American access to affordable health insurance is well-intentioned, but his plan’s policy elements—a public option, a permanent expanded tax credit—require congressional approval and would expend significant political and... View Details

Keywords: Health Insurance; Health Insurance Marketplaces; Health Care Delivery; Health Care Financing; Health Care Industry; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Service Delivery; Cost Management; Health Industry; United States

2012
Working Paper

~Why Do We Redistribute so Much but Tag so Little? Normative Diversity, Equal Sacrifice and Optimal Taxation

By: Matthew Weinzierl

Tagging is a free lunch in conventional optimal tax theory because it eases the classic tradeoff between efficiency and equality. But tagging is used in only limited ways in tax policy. I propose one explanation: conventional optimal tax theory has yet to capture the... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Cost; Framework; Policy; Taxation; Analytics and Data Science; Performance Efficiency; United States