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- 2021
- Working Paper
COVID-19, Government Performance, and Democracy: Survey Experimental Evidence from 12 Countries
By: Michael Becher, Nicholas Longuet Marx, Vincent Pons, Sylvain Brouard, Martial Foucault, Vincenzo Galasso, Eric Kerrouche, Sandra León Alfonso and Daniel Stegmueller
Beyond its immediate impact on public health and the economy, the COVID-19 pandemic has put democracy under stress. While a common view is that people should blame the government rather than the political system for bad crisis management, an opposing view is that...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Cognitive Uncertainty in Intertemporal Choice
By: Benjamin Enke and Thomas Graeber
This paper studies the relevance of cognitive uncertainty – subjective uncertainty over one's utility-maximizing action – for understanding and predicting intertemporal choice. The main idea is that when people are cognitively noisy, such as when a decision is complex,...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Consumer Choice and Corporate Bankruptcy
By: Samuel Antill and Megan Hunter
Using an incentivized randomized experiment, we estimate the causal effect of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on consumer demand for the bankrupt firm's products. Knowledge of Hertz's Chapter 11 bankruptcy reduces consumers' willingness-to-pay for Hertz by 35%. We show...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Cognitive Uncertainty
By: Benjamin Enke and Thomas Graeber
Because many economic decisions are difficult, people may exhibit cognitive uncertainty: subjective uncertainty about what the optimal action is. In the presence of such cognitive uncertainty, people implicitly compress objective probabilities towards a cognitive...
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- 2020
- Working Paper
What Can Economics Say About Alzheimer's Disease?
By: Amitabh Chandra, Courtney Coile and Corina Mommaerts
Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) affects one in ten people aged 65 or older and is the most expensive disease in the United States. We describe the central economic questions raised by AD. While there is overlap with the economics of aging, the defining features of the...
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- July 2020
- Article
Higher Economic Inequality Intensifies the Financial Hardship of People Living in Poverty by Fraying the Community Buffer
By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Barnabas Szaszi, Marcel Lukas, David Smerdon, Jaideep Prabhu and Elke U. Weber
The current research investigates whether higher economic inequality disproportionately intensifies the financial hardship of low-income individuals. We propose that higher economic inequality increases financial hardship for low-income individuals by reducing their...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Determinants of Small Business Reopening Decisions After COVID Restrictions Were Lifted
The COVID-19 pandemic led to dramatic economic disruptions, including government-imposed restrictions that temporarily shuttered millions of American businesses. We use a nation-wide survey of thousands of small business owners to establish three main facts about...
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- March 2020
- Article
A Revolution in Economics? It's Just Getting Started...
By: Shawn A. Cole, William Pariente and Anja Sautmann
We have each experienced thrills and pain while supporting the mission of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which facilitated many of the experiments described in the 2019 Nobel Prize citation. J-PAL in many ways seeks to fulfill what Angrist and Pischke...
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- September 2019 (Revised February 2020)
- Teaching Note
Commonwealth Bank of Australia: Unbanklike Experimentation
By: Ryan W. Buell and Leslie K. John
Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.
This Teaching Note explains the theory of the case and teaching plan for the case: Commonwealth Bank of Australia: Unbanklike Experimentation (619-018). In August 2017,... View Details
This Teaching Note explains the theory of the case and teaching plan for the case: Commonwealth Bank of Australia: Unbanklike Experimentation (619-018). In August 2017,... View Details
- 2010
- Article
Budgeting, Psychological Contracts, and Budgetary Misreporting
By: Susanna Gallani, Ranjani Krishnan, Eric J. Marinich and Michael D. Shields
This study examines the effect of psychological contract breach on budgetary misreporting. Psychological contracts are mental models or schemas that govern how employees understand their exchange relationships with their employers. Psychological contract breach leads...
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- Article
Handshaking Promotes Deal-Making by Signaling Cooperative Intent
By: Juliana Schroeder, Jane L. Risen, Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton
We examine how a simple handshake—a gesture that often occurs at the outset of social interactions—can influence deal-making. Because handshakes are social rituals, they are imbued with meaning beyond their physical features. We propose that during mixed-motive...
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- November 2018
- Article
Global Evidence on Economic Preferences
By: Armin Falk, Anke Becker, Thomas Dohmen, Benjamin Enke, David Huffman and Uwe Sunde
This article studies the global variation in economic preferences. For this purpose, we present the Global Preference Survey (GPS), an experimentally validated survey data set of time preference, risk preference, positive and negative reciprocity, altruism, and trust...
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- October 2018 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Commonwealth Bank of Australia: Unbanklike Experimentation
By: Ryan W. Buell and Leslie K. John
Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.
In August 2017, Commonwealth Bank of Australia was looking for ways to differentiate itself from competing banks and was also trying to improve the financial well-being of... View Details
In August 2017, Commonwealth Bank of Australia was looking for ways to differentiate itself from competing banks and was also trying to improve the financial well-being of... View Details
- October 2018 (Revised September 2020)
- Case
Testing Autonomy in Pittsburgh
By: Mitchell Weiss and Brittany Urick
Pittsburgh’s mayor had been among the first to welcome self-driving vehicles but was now one of many needing to react after a pedestrian fatality involving an autonomous Uber in Arizona. He had originally preferred to roll out “the red carpet” instead of the “red...
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Keywords:
Public Entrepreneurship;
Government Innovation;
Government Experimentation;
Autonomous Vehicles;
Mayor;
Mayor Peduto;
Cities;
Mobility;
Automation;
Uber;
Argo Ai;
Aurora Innovation;
Aptiv;
Entrepreneurship;
Public Sector;
Innovation and Invention;
Transportation;
City;
Safety;
Business and Government Relations;
Transportation Industry;
Auto Industry;
United States;
Pennsylvania;
Pittsburgh
- December 2016
- Article
The Effects of Endowment Size and Strategy Method on Third Party Punishment
By: Jillian J. Jordan, Katherine McAuliffe and David G. Rand
Numerous experiments have shown that people often engage in third-party punishment (3PP) of selfish behavior. This evidence has been used to argue that people respond to selfishness with anger, and get utility from punishing those who mistreat others. Elements of the...
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- August 2, 2016
- Article
Uncalculating Cooperation Is Used to Signal Trustworthiness
By: Jillian J. Jordan, Moshe Hoffman, Martin A. Nowak and David G. Rand
Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an...
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- March 2016 (Revised January 2020)
- Teaching Note
Behavioural Insights Team (A) and (B)
By: Michael Luca and Patrick Rooney
The Behavioural Insights Team case introduces students to the concept of choice architecture and the value of experimental methods (sometimes called A/B testing) within organizational contexts. The exercise provides an opportunity for students to apply these principles...
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- March 2016
- Teaching Note
Evive Health and Workplace Influenza Vaccinations
By: John Beshears
Evive Health is a company that manages communication campaigns on behalf of health insurance plans and large employers. Using big data techniques and insights from behavioral economics, Evive deploys targeted and effective messages that improve individuals' health...
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Keywords:
Vaccination;
Influenza;
Flu Shot;
Preventive Care;
Health Care;
Behavioral Economics;
Choice Architecture;
Nudge;
Experimental Design;
Randomized Controlled Trial;
RCT;
Causal Inference;
Insurance;
Consumer Behavior;
Health Care and Treatment;
Health Testing and Trials;
Communication Strategy;
Insurance Industry;
Health Industry
- March 2016
- Case
Evive Health and Workplace Influenza Vaccinations
By: John Beshears
Evive Health is a company that manages communication campaigns on behalf of health insurance plans and large employers. Using big data techniques and insights from behavioral economics, Evive deploys targeted and effective messages that improve individuals' health...
View Details
Keywords:
Vaccination;
Influenza;
Flu Shot;
Preventive Care;
Health Care;
Behavioral Economics;
Choice Architecture;
Nudge;
Experimental Design;
Randomized Controlled Trial;
RCT;
Causal Inference;
Consumer Behavior;
Health Care and Treatment;
Health Testing and Trials;
Communication Strategy;
Health Industry
- April 2015
- Article
Incentivizing Calculated Risk-Taking: Evidence from an Experiment with Commercial Bank Loan Officers
By: Shawn Cole, Martin Kanz and Leora Klapper
This paper uses a series of experiments with commercial bank loan officers to test the effect of performance incentives on risk assessment and lending decisions. We first show that while high-powered incentives lead to greater screening effort and more profitable...
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