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  • March 2022
  • Module Note

A Behavioral Science Perspective on Motivation and Incentives
By: John Beshears and Ashley Whillans
This module note for instructors describes a module that integrates insights from the behavioral science of motivation into the economic analysis of incentive systems.  View Details
Keywords: Motivation; Incentives; Behavioral Science; Behavioral Economics; Motivation and Incentives; Economics; Analysis; Human Resources
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  • February 2022
  • Teaching Note

Stoy Foods
By: John Beshears
Teaching Note for the "Stoy Foods" Exercise (Harvard Business School Exercise 918-044, 918-045, 918-046, and 918-047).  View Details
Keywords: Motivation; Framing; Job Design; Family Business
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  • February 2022
  • Teaching Note

Magrabi: Fulfilling the Vision for the Future
By: John Beshears
Teaching Note for “Magrabi: Fulfilling the Vision for the Future” (Harvard Business School Case No. 920-009).  View Details
Keywords: Habit; Retail; Sales Effectiveness
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  • February 2022
  • Module Note

Behavioral Economics and Choice Architecture
By: John Beshears
This module note for instructors describes a module on the design of choice architecture solutions to organizational problems.  View Details
Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Choice Architecture; Organizations; Problems and Challenges; Decision Choices and Conditions; Economics
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  • February 2022
  • Article

Borrowing to Save? The Impact of Automatic Enrollment on Debt
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and William L. Skimmyhorn
Does automatic enrollment into a retirement plan increase financial distress due to increased borrowing outside the plan? We study a natural experiment created when the U.S. Army began automatically enrolling newly hired civilian employees into the Thrift Savings Plan....  View Details
Keywords: Retirement Savings; Automatic Enrollment; Choice Architecture; Nudge; Financial Distress; Retirement; Saving; Borrowing and Debt; Behavior
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  • January 2022
  • Teaching Note

Negotiating for Equal Pay: The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (A) and (B)
By: John Beshears and Christine Exley
Teaching note for "Negotiating for Equal Pay: The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (A) and (B), nos. 920-029 and 920-030.  View Details
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  • Article

Megastudies Improve the Impact of Applied Behavioural Science
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Dena Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Pepi Pandiloski, Yeji Park, Aneesh Rai, Max Bazerman, John Beshears, Lauri Bonacorsi, Colin Camerer, Edward Chang, Gretchen Chapman, Robert Cialdini, Hengchen Dai, Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, Ayelet Fishbach, James J. Gross, Samantha Horn, Alexa Hubbard, Steven J. Jones, Dean Karlan, Tim Kautz, Erika Kirgios, Joowon Klusowski, Ariella Kristal, Rahul Ladhania, Jens Ludwig, George Loewenstein, Barbara Mellers, Sendhil Mullainathan, Silvia Saccardo, Jann Spiess, Gaurav Suri, Joachim H. Talloen, Jamie Taxer, Yaacov Trope, Lyle Ungar, Kevin G. Volpp, Ashley Whillans, Jonathan Zinman and Angela L. Duckworth
Policy-makers are increasingly turning to behavioural science for insights about how to improve citizens’ decisions and outcomes. Typically, different scientists test different intervention ideas in different samples using different outcomes over different time...  View Details
Keywords: Policy Making; Behavioral Science; Behavior; Change; Decision Making; Policy
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  • Article

Using Fresh Starts to Nudge Increased Retirement Savings
By: John Beshears, Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman and Shlomo Benartzi
We conducted a field experiment to study the effect of framing future moments in time as new beginnings (or “fresh starts”). University employees (N=6,082) received mailings with an opportunity to choose between increasing their contributions to a savings plan...  View Details
Keywords: Choice Architecture; Randomized Field Experiment; Savings; New Beginning; Fresh Start; Saving; Retirement; Behavior
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  • July 2021
  • Article

Creating Exercise Habits Using Incentives: The Trade-off Between Flexibility and Routinization
By: John Beshears, Hae Nim Lee, Katherine L. Milkman, Robert Mislavsky and Jessica Wisdom
Habits involve regular, cue-triggered routines. In a field experiment, we tested whether incentivizing exercise routines—paying participants each time they visit the gym within a planned, daily two-hour window—leads to more persistent exercise than offering flexible...  View Details
Keywords: Behavior And Behavioral Decision Making; Healthcare; Exercise; Habit; Routine; Health; Behavior; Decision Making
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  • Article

A Megastudy of Text-Based Nudges Encouraging Patients to Get Vaccinated at an Upcoming Doctor's Appointment
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Mitesh S. Patel, Linnea Gandhi, Heather N. Graci, Dena M. Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Modupe Akinola, John Beshears, Jonathan E. Bogard, Alison Buttenheim, Christopher F. Chabris, Gretchen B. Chapman, James J. Choi, Hengchen Dai, Craig R. Fox, Amir Goren, Matthew D. Hilchey, Jillian Hmurovic, Leslie K. John, Dean Karlan, Melanie Kim, David Laibson, Cait Lamberton, Brigitte C. Madrian, Michelle N. Meyer, Maria Modanu, Jimin Nam, Todd Rogers, Renante Rondina, Silvia Saccardo, Maheen Shermohammed, Dilip Soman, Jehan Sparks, Caleb Warren, Megan Weber, Ron Berman, Chalanda N. Evans, Christopher K. Snider, Eli Tsukayama, Christophe Van den Bulte, Kevin G. Volpp and Angela L. Duckworth
Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment (N = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via...  View Details
Keywords: Vaccination; COVID-19; Nudge; Influenza; Field Experiment; Health; Communication Strategy; Behavior
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  • March 2021
  • Article

Active Choice, Implicit Defaults, and the Incentive to Choose
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
Home-delivered prescriptions have no delivery charge and lower copayments than prescriptions picked up at a pharmacy. Nevertheless, when home delivery is offered on an opt-in basis, the take-up rate is only 6%. We study a program that makes active choice of either home...  View Details
Keywords: Active Choice; Defaults; Implicit Defaults; Incentives; Consumer Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions; Motivation and Incentives
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  • November 2020 (Revised March 2022)
  • Teaching Note

Social Salary Setting at Spiber
By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 920-050. The case tells the story of Spiber, a Japanese technology start-up company. To reflect the company’s values, the leadership team implemented a new and unique salary-setting process: each employee had the authority to choose their...  View Details
Keywords: Compensation; General Management; Employee Benefits; Incentives; Motivation; Compensation and Benefits; Fairness; Motivation and Incentives; Management; Happiness; Negotiation; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan
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  • Article

Nudging: Progress to Date and Future Directions
By: John Beshears and Harry Kosowsky
Nudges influence behavior by changing the environment in which decisions are made, without restricting the menu of options and without altering financial incentives. This paper assesses past empirical research on nudging and provides recommendations for future work in...  View Details
Keywords: Nudge; Choice Architecture; Behavioral Economics; Behavioral Science; Behavior; Change; Situation or Environment; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decision Making
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  • August 2020
  • Article

Do Physician Incentives Increase Patient Medication Adherence?
By: Edward Kong, John Beshears, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, Kevin Volpp, George Loewenstein, Jonathan Kolstad and James J. Choi
We conducted a randomized experiment (911 primary care practices and 8,935 nonadherent patients) to test the effect of paying physicians for increasing patient medication adherence in three drug classes: diabetes medication, antihypertensives, and statins. We measured...  View Details
Keywords: Health Economics; Medication Adherence; Physician Payment Incentives; Primary Care; Quality Improvement; Health Care and Treatment; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior
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  • 2020
  • Working Paper

Optimal Illiquidity
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, Christopher Clayton, Christopher Harris, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
We calculate the socially optimal level of illiquidity in an economy populated by households with taste shocks and present bias (Amador, Werning, and Angeletos 2006). The government chooses mandatory contributions to respective spending/savings accounts, each with a...  View Details
Keywords: Illiquidity; Social Security; Econometric Models
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  • 2020
  • Chapter

Building Emergency Savings Through Employer-Sponsored Rainy-Day Savings Accounts
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, J. Mark Iwry, David C. John, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
Roughly half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. When financial shocks occur during their working life, many of these households tap into their retirement savings accounts. We explore the practical considerations and challenges associated with helping households...  View Details
Keywords: Savings; Household; Saving
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  • June 2020 (Revised March 2020)
  • Case

Social Salary Setting at Spiber
By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears
Can a “set your own salary” system boost employee happiness and motivation? Spiber made synthetic silk built from proteins mimicking the proteins found in spider silk, the world’s toughest known material by weight. Kazuhide Sekiyama and Junichi Sugahara established...  View Details
Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Happiness; Negotiation Tactics; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Biotechnology Industry; Japan; United States
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  • March 2020
  • Article

Which Early Withdrawal Penalty Attracts the Most Deposits to a Commitment Savings Account?
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, Christopher Harris, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and Jung Sakong
Previous research has shown that some people voluntarily use commitment contracts that restrict their own choice sets. We study how people divide money between two accounts: a liquid account that permits unrestricted withdrawals and a commitment account that is...  View Details
Keywords: Quasi-hyperbolic Discounting; Present Bias; Sophistication; Naiveté; Commitment; Flexibility; Savings; Contract Design; Defined Contribution Retirement Plan; 401 (K); IRA; Saving; Behavior; Contracts; Design; Interest Rates
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  • December 2019 (Revised December 2021)
  • Case

Negotiating for Equal Pay: The U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (A)
By: Christine Exley, John Beshears, Manuela Collis and Davis Heniford
In 2019, members of the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (WNT) filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation. The case describes the history of the WNT's quest for equal pay leading up to this event.  View Details
Keywords: Equal Pay; Negotiation; Compensation and Benefits; Equality and Inequality; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Negotiation Tactics; Corporate Governance; Lawsuits and Litigation; Sports; Sports Industry; United States
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  • December 2019 (Revised December 2021)
  • Supplement

Negotiating for Equal Pay: The U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (B)
By: Christine Exley, John Beshears, Manuela Collis and Davis Heniford
Supplements the (A) case and describes the events following it  View Details
Keywords: Equal Pay; Negotiation; Compensation and Benefits; Equality and Inequality; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Ethics; Negotiation Tactics; Corporate Governance; Lawsuits and Litigation; Sports; Sports Industry; United States
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