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- HBS Book
Workplace Conditions
By: Jill Maben, Jane Ball and Amy C. EdmondsonAs part of the Elements of Improving Quality and Safety in Healthcare Series, this Element reviews the evidence for three workplace conditions that matter for improving quality and safety in healthcare: staffing; psychological safety, teamwork, and speaking up; and staff health and well-being at work. The authors propose that these are environmental prerequisites for improvement. They examine the relationship between staff numbers and skills in delivering care and the attainment of quality of care and the ability to improve it. They present evidence for the importance of psychological safety, teamwork, and speaking up, noting that these are interrelated and critical for healthcare improvement.

- HBS Book
Workplace Conditions
By: Jill Maben, Jane Ball and Amy C. EdmondsonAs part of the Elements of Improving Quality and Safety in Healthcare Series, this Element reviews the evidence for three workplace conditions that matter for improving quality and safety in healthcare: staffing; psychological safety, teamwork, and speaking up; and staff health and well-being at work. The authors propose that these are...
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- Journal of Financial Economics 149, no. 2 (August 2023): 218–234.
Financing the Litigation Arms Race
By: Samuel Antill and Steven R. GrenadierUsing a dynamic real-option model of litigation, we show that the increasingly popular practice of third-party litigation financing has ambiguous implications for total ex-post litigant surplus. A defendant and a plaintiff bargain over a settlement payment. The defendant takes costly actions to avoid deadweight losses associated with large transfers to the plaintiff. Litigation financing bolsters the plaintiff, leading to larger deadweight losses. However, by endogenously deterring the defendant from taking costly actions, litigation financing can nonetheless improve the joint surplus of the plaintiff and defendant. In contrast to popular opinion, litigation financing does not necessarily encourage high-risk frivolous lawsuits.
- Journal of Financial Economics 149, no. 2 (August 2023): 218–234.
Financing the Litigation Arms Race
By: Samuel Antill and Steven R. GrenadierUsing a dynamic real-option model of litigation, we show that the increasingly popular practice of third-party litigation financing has ambiguous implications for total ex-post litigant surplus. A defendant and a plaintiff bargain over a settlement payment. The defendant takes costly actions to avoid deadweight losses associated with large...
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- D^3 Digital Reskilling Lab
Remote Work across Jobs, Companies, and Space
By: Stephen Hansen, Peter John Lambert, Nick Bloom, Steven J. Davis, Raffaella Sadun and Bledi TaskaThe pandemic catalyzed an enduring shift to remote work. To measure and characterize this shift, we examine more than 250 million job vacancy postings across five English-speaking countries. Our measurements rely on a state-of-the-art language-processing framework that we fit, test, and refine using 30,000 human classifications. We achieve 99% accuracy in flagging job postings that advertise hybrid or fully remote work, greatly outperforming dictionary methods and also outperforming other machine-learning methods.
- D^3 Digital Reskilling Lab
Remote Work across Jobs, Companies, and Space
By: Stephen Hansen, Peter John Lambert, Nick Bloom, Steven J. Davis, Raffaella Sadun and Bledi TaskaThe pandemic catalyzed an enduring shift to remote work. To measure and characterize this shift, we examine more than 250 million job vacancy postings across five English-speaking countries. Our measurements rely on a state-of-the-art language-processing framework that we fit, test, and refine using 30,000 human classifications. We achieve 99%...
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- Featured Case
Barton Malow: Building From the Top-Down
By: Hise O. Gibson and Alicia DadlaniIn 2023, Detroit-based Barton Malow completed the first high-rise building in the U.S. built from the top-down using LIFTbuild, a patented methodology that aimed to make construction safer and more efficient. By completing building work at ground level and then automatically lifting and locking floors into place, the new process eliminated many of the dangers and inefficiencies of constructing buildings at height. The century-old construction firm hoped its novel methodology would pave the way for a better way to build but found that innovating a well-established industry was challenging. CEO Ryan Maibach must determine how to grow the business and increase adoption of LIFTbuild.
- Featured Case
Barton Malow: Building From the Top-Down
By: Hise O. Gibson and Alicia DadlaniIn 2023, Detroit-based Barton Malow completed the first high-rise building in the U.S. built from the top-down using LIFTbuild, a patented methodology that aimed to make construction safer and more efficient. By completing building work at ground level and then automatically lifting and locking floors into place, the new process eliminated many of...
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- Featured Case
The Business of Campaigns
By: Vincent Pons and Mel MartinIn 2022, the U.S. Congress examined the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act, the latest in a long series of campaign finance reforms. According to its authors, the law would be the “most consequential overhaul of federal campaign finance” in 20 years. In addition to prohibiting campaign spending by foreign nationals, the reform would require organizations to disclose their major political donors in order to curtail the rise of “dark money” following the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC. The emergence of new online conduits also spurred an increase in small campaign contributions, which some hoped might counterbalance the influence of large donors.
- Featured Case
The Business of Campaigns
By: Vincent Pons and Mel MartinIn 2022, the U.S. Congress examined the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act, the latest in a long series of campaign finance reforms. According to its authors, the law would be the “most consequential overhaul of federal campaign finance” in 20 years. In addition to prohibiting campaign spending by...
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- HBS Working Paper
Learning to Use: Stack Overflow and Technology Adoption
By: Daniel Jay Brown and Maria P. RocheIn this paper, we examine the potential impact of Q&A websites on the adoption of technologies. Using data from Stack Overflow – one of the most popular Q&A websites worldwide – and implementing an instrumental-variable approach, we find that users whose questions are answered within 24 hours are significantly more likely to adopt the technologies that they ask about in their next job than users whose questions are answered later or not at all. In analyzing heterogeneous effects, we detect that this relationship is driven entirely by users located in or in close proximity to technological hubs, is stronger for more established technologies, and for users who have already asked more questions about a focal technology.
- HBS Working Paper
Learning to Use: Stack Overflow and Technology Adoption
By: Daniel Jay Brown and Maria P. RocheIn this paper, we examine the potential impact of Q&A websites on the adoption of technologies. Using data from Stack Overflow – one of the most popular Q&A websites worldwide – and implementing an instrumental-variable approach, we find that users whose questions are answered within 24 hours are significantly more likely to adopt the technologies...
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- HBS Working Paper
Black Empowerment and White Mobilization: The Effects of the Voting Rights Act
By: Andrea Bernini, Giovanni Facchini, Marco Tabellini and Cecilia TestaThe 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) paved the road to Black empowerment. How did southern whites respond? Leveraging newly digitized data on county-level voter registration rates by race between 1956 and 1980, and exploiting pre-determined variation in exposure to the federal intervention, we document that the VRA increases both Black and white political participation. Consistent with the VRA triggering countermobilization, the surge in white registrations is concentrated where Black political empowerment is more tangible and salient due to the election of African Americans in county commissions. Additional analysis suggests that the VRA has long-lasting negative effects on whites’ racial attitudes.
- HBS Working Paper
Black Empowerment and White Mobilization: The Effects of the Voting Rights Act
By: Andrea Bernini, Giovanni Facchini, Marco Tabellini and Cecilia TestaThe 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) paved the road to Black empowerment. How did southern whites respond? Leveraging newly digitized data on county-level voter registration rates by race between 1956 and 1980, and exploiting pre-determined variation in exposure to the federal intervention, we document that the VRA increases both Black and white...
Initiatives & Projects
Impact-Weighted Accounts Project
Seminars & Conferences
- 15 Sep 2023
Boston Conference on Markets and Competition
Recent Publications
(Not) Paying for Diversity: Repugnant Market Concerns Associated with Transactional Approaches to Diversity Recruitment
- September 2023 |
- Article |
- Administrative Science Quarterly
Top Talent, Elite Colleges, and Migration: Evidence from the Indian Institutes of Technology
- September 2023 |
- Article |
- Journal of Development Economics
Turning Away From the State: Trade Shocks and Informal Insurance in Brazil
- 2022 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
How to Build a Life: How to Apologize Like a Pro
- August 17, 2023 |
- Article |
- The Atlantic
Targeting, Personalization, and Engagement in an Agricultural Advisory Service
- 2023 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
Ava Labs: Structure and Challenges of Establishing a Blockchain
- August 2023 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
OOFOS Recovery Footwear
- August 2023 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Zurich Insurance (B)
- August 2023 |
- Supplement |
- Faculty Research