Publications

April 1978 (Revised May 1993)
Teaching Note

Child Care Task Force, Teaching Note

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

Keywords: Welfare; Health Industry

2016
Working Paper

Entrepreneurship and Public Health Insurance

By: Gareth Olds

I examine the relationship between public health insurance and firm formation. Developing a variant of regression discontinuity, I find the Child Health Insurance Program lowered the child uninsured rate by 40% and increased self-employment by 15%. Monte Carlo evidence... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Entrepreneurship

2022
Working Paper

The Lifesaving Benefits of Convenient Infrastructure: Quantifying the Mortality Impact of Abandoning Shallow Tubewells Contaminated by Arsenic in Bangladesh

By: Nina Buchmann, Erica Field, Rachel Glennerster and Reshmaan Hussam

We document the consequences of a public health campaign which led to the sudden abandonment of local water infrastructure by one-fifth of Bangladesh’s population. Households who experienced quasi-randomly distributed arsenic contamination, and thus were likely to... View Details

Keywords: Child Mortality; Arsenic; Unintended Consequences; Health Disorders; Safety; Outcome or Result; Bangladesh

May 25, 2016
Comment

How Consumers and Businesses are Reshaping Public Health

By: John A. Quelch

Healthcare and education are two issues in which citizens around the world, rich and poor, are passionately interested. It has long been appreciated that the way that a society treats its youngest and oldest members says much about its moral maturity. Economic... View Details

25 May 2016
Research & Ideas

How Consumers and Businesses are Reshaping Public Health

passionately interested. It has long been appreciated that the way that a society treats its youngest and oldest members says much about its moral maturity. Economic development specialists also attest to the importance of health care in... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch; Health

12 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Can Consumers be Trusted with Their Own Health Care?

Consumers today have more control than ever over the way they choose goods and services—from browsing freely at grocery stores to managing their own financial assets. Perhaps consumers should also have a greater sense of empowerment when it comes to their View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health

15 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

A Mass Crisis Can Overwhelm Health Care. Liberia Found a Solution.

quickly and efficiently for COVID-19 in the US, he says. The training modules cover four areas including epidemic surveillance; maternal and child health care; identifying Malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV; and... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Health

11 Jun 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Throwing the Baby Out with the Drinking Water: Unintended Consequences of Arsenic Mitigation Efforts in Bangladesh

Keywords: by Nina Buchmann, Erica Field, Rachel Glennerster, and Reshmaan Hussam

August 2020
Article

Contextual Determinants of Parental Reflective Functioning: Children with Autism versus Their Typically Developing Siblings

By: Yael Enav, Dana Erhard-Weiss, Amit Goldenberg, Marguerite Knudston, Antonio Y. Hardan and James J. Gross

In this study, we examined parental reflective functioning using the Parental Developmental Interview when parents were talking about their interactions with their child with autism versus the child’s typically developing siblings. Our sample included 30 parents who... View Details

Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorders; Family Functioning And Support; Parents; Reflective Functioning; Siblings; Health Disorders; Family and Family Relationships

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March 2014
Teaching Note

Oral Rehydration Therapy

By: Nava Ashraf and Natalie Kindred

This Teaching Note accompanies the case "Oral Rehydration Therapy" (911-035). The case highlights the puzzlingly high rate of diarrhea-related child mortality in developing countries despite the existence of a simple, effective treatment: oral rehydration therapy... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Innovation Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Developing Countries and Economies; Technological Innovation; Distribution Channels; Emerging Markets; Consumer Behavior; Performance Consistency; Performance Evaluation; Health Industry; Africa; Asia

December 2010
Case

Oral Rehydration Therapy

By: Nava Ashraf and Claire Qureshi

This case highlights the puzzlingly high rate of diarrhea-related child mortality in developing countries despite the existence of a simple, effective treatment: oral rehydration therapy (ORT). ORT treated extreme dehydration caused by diarrhea, which was a leading... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Innovation Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Developing Countries and Economies; Technological Innovation; Distribution Channels; Emerging Markets; Consumer Behavior; Performance Consistency; Performance Evaluation; Health Industry; Africa; Asia

Educators

2015
Working Paper

Do-gooders and Go-getters: Career Incentives, Selection, and Performance in Public Service Delivery

By: Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Scott S. Lee

We study how career incentives affect who selects into public health jobs and, through selection, their performance while in service. We collaborate with the Government of Zambia to experimentally vary the salience of career incentives in a newly created health worker... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Health Industry; Zambia

2016
Working Paper

Immigrant Entrepreneurs and the Social Safety Net

By: Gareth Olds

This paper explores the role of public health insurance in small business ownership among immigrants, a group with high rates of entrepreneurship. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 created a five-year “waiting period” for legal... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Entrepreneurship; Welfare or Wellbeing; Immigration

20 Jul 2010
First Look

First Look: July 20

Online World David J. Collis, Peter W. Olson, and Mary FureyHarvard Business School Case 709-464 An abstract is unavailable at this time. Purchase this case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/709464-PDF-ENG Pratham—Every Child in... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

03 Nov 2015
First Look

November 3, 2015

November 2015 Quarterly Journal of Economics Behavioral Hazard in Health Insurance By: Baicker, Katherine, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Joshua Schwartzstein Abstract—A fundamental implication of standard moral hazard models is overuse of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

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; Health Industry; Health Industry; Health Industry; Health Industry; Europe; Netherlands

Educators

September 2003 (Revised October 2010)
Case

A Pain in the Hip

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer

Describes in detail the process of diagnosing the cause of a sore hip in a young girl. Referred to the emergency room by her pediatrician, the child is subjected to a set of diagnostic tests over a two-day period, each designed to reduce the uncertainty surrounding the... View Details

Keywords: Production; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Performance Improvement; Health Industry

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January 2022
Article

Rational Habit Formation: Experimental Evidence from Handwashing in India

By: Reshmaan Hussam, Atonu Rabbani, Giovanni Reggiani and Natalia Rigol

We test the predictions of the rational addiction model, reconceptualized as rational habit formation, in the context of handwashing in rural India. To track handwashing, we design soap dispensers with timed sensors. We test for rational habit formation by informing... View Details

Keywords: Handwashing; Habit; Monitoring; Behavior; Health; Motivation and Incentives

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July 2019 (Revised October 2022)
Case

Jai Vakeel Foundation: Addressing Disability

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Kairavi Dey

Jai Vakeel, a nonprofit organization in India, serves individuals with Intellectual Disability (ID), those with an IQ below 70. The organization was founded by the parents of a child with Down Syndrome, and they (and their next generation) steadily built the... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Nonprofit Organizations; Transition; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Family Business; Health Care and Treatment; India

Educators