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• Article | Quarterly Journal of Economics | May 2020

  Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Inter-Generational Investment

  Nava Ashraf, Natalie Bau, Corinne Low and Kathleen McGinn

  Using a randomized control trial, we examine whether offering adolescent girls nonmaterial resources—specifically, negotiation skills—can improve educational outcomes in a low-income country. In so doing, we provide the first evidence on the effects of an intervention that increased noncognitive, interpersonal skills during adolescence. Long-run administrative data shows that negotiation training significantly improved educational outcomes over the next three years. The training had greater effects than two alternative treatments (offering girls a safe physical space with female mentors and offering girls information about the returns to education), suggesting that negotiation skills themselves drive the effect. Further evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment, which simulates parents’ educational investment decisions, and a midline survey suggests that negotiation skills improved girls’ outcomes by moving households’ human capital investments closer to the efficient frontier. This is consistent with an incomplete contracting model, where negotiation allows daughters to strategically cooperate with parents.

  Keywords: Negotiation; Competency and Skills; Training; Age; Gender; Education; Investment; Outcome or Result; Developing Countries and Economies;

  Citation:

  Ashraf, Nava, Natalie Bau, Corinne Low, and Kathleen McGinn. "Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Inter-Generational Investment." Quarterly Journal of Economics 135, no. 2 (May 2020): 1095–1151.  View Details

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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | March 2020

  The Boss Has the Wrong Idea

  Katherine B. Coffman, Alison Wood Brooks, Judith A. Clair, Katherine Chen, Manuela Collis and Kathleen L. McGinn

  Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 920-023 and 920-024.

  Citation:

  Coffman, Katherine B., Alison Wood Brooks, Judith A. Clair, Katherine Chen, Manuela Collis, and Kathleen L. McGinn. "The Boss Has the Wrong Idea." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 920-053, March 2020.  View Details

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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | January 2020

  How to Encourage Others to Give and When to Pass the Torch? Insights from The Philanthropy Connection

  Christine Exley and Kathleen McGinn

  This case follows the co-founder and president, Marla Felcher, of The Philanthropy Connection (TPC). TPC is a nonprofit organization that centers around collective giving: members of TPC make an annual contribution that is then distributed to select nonprofit organizations via grants. As Felcher works to maximize how much money they can give out via grants, this case allows for a deep dive into the motives for giving and how the organizational structure and processes can tap into why people give. As the case begins with Felcher’s founding of TPC and concludes with Felcher desiring to step down from her role as president, this case also allows for a rich discussion around if and when a nonprofit founder should step aside to let the next round of leaders takeover.

  Keywords: giving and philanthropy; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Motivation and Incentives; Nonprofit Organizations;

  Citation:

  Exley, Christine, and Kathleen McGinn. "How to Encourage Others to Give and When to Pass the Torch? Insights from The Philanthropy Connection." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 920-046, January 2020.  View Details

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