Filter Results
:
(63)
Show Results For
-
All HBS Web
(309)
- Faculty Publications (63)
Show Results For
-
All HBS Web
(309)
- Faculty Publications (63)
- 2020
- Working Paper
Revenue Collapses and the Consumption of Small Business Owners in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic
By: Olivia S. Kim, Jonathan A. Parker and Antoinette Schoar
Using detailed transaction-level data from financial accounts, this paper shows that the revenues of small businesses and the consumption spending of their owners both decline by roughly 40% following the declaration of the national emergency in March 2020. However,...
View Details
Kim, Olivia S., Jonathan A. Parker, and Antoinette Schoar. "Revenue Collapses and the Consumption of Small Business Owners in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 28151, November 2022.
- July 28, 2020
- Article
Economic Vulnerability of Households with Essential Workers
By: Grace McCormack, Christopher Avery, Ariella Kahn-Lang Spitzer and Amitabh Chandra
The label of “essential worker” reflects society’s needs but does not mean that society has compensated those workers for additional risks incurred on the job during the current pandemic. When an essential worker contracts severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus...
View Details
McCormack, Grace, Christopher Avery, Ariella Kahn-Lang Spitzer, and Amitabh Chandra. "Economic Vulnerability of Households with Essential Workers." JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association 324, no. 4 (July 28, 2020): 388–390.
- 2022
- 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 naive present bias. The government chooses mandatory contributions to accounts, each witha different pre-retirement withdrawal penalty. Collected...
View Details
Keywords:
Illiquidity;
Commitment;
Flexibility;
Savings;
Social Security;
Retirement;
Government Legislation;
Taxation;
Saving
Beshears, John, James J. Choi, Christopher Clayton, Christopher Harris, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. "Optimal Illiquidity." Working Paper, July 2022.
- 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
Beshears, John, James J. Choi, J. Mark Iwry, David C. John, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. "Building Emergency Savings Through Employer-Sponsored Rainy-Day Savings Accounts." In Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 34, edited by Robert A. Moffitt, 43–90. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020.
- February 2020
- Case
Rotoplas: Bringing More and Better Water
By: John D. Macomber and Carla Larangeira
Private companies were being turned to for potable water in the world’s megacities due to impacts of climate change including droughts and flooding. Mexico City had endured several water-related crises, with its population suffering from floods, droughts, water...
View Details
Keywords:
Water Supply;
Water Management;
Finance;
Infrastructure;
Urban Development;
Business and Government Relations;
Latin America;
Mexico
Macomber, John D., and Carla Larangeira. "Rotoplas: Bringing More and Better Water." Harvard Business School Case 220-064, February 2020.
- 2020
- Working Paper
Capital Regulation and Product Market Outcomes
By: Ishita Sen and David Humphry
We present evidence of product market adjustments and asset reorganizations from the largest ever shift in risk regulation in a developed insurance market. Using proprietary data on insurance risk exposures from the Bank of England, we develop a measure of regulatory...
View Details
Keywords:
Non-traditional-non-insurance;
Risk Regulation;
Product Market Concentration;
Small Vs. Large Insurers;
Insurance Risk Exposure;
Insurance;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms
Sen, Ishita, and David Humphry. "Capital Regulation and Product Market Outcomes." Working Paper, January 2020.
- 2020
- Working Paper
Cutting the Gordian Knot of Employee Health Care Benefits and Costs: A Corporate Model Built on Employee Choice
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Barak D. Richman
The U.S. employer-based health insurance tax exclusion created a system of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) with limited insurance choices and transparency that may lock employed households into health plans that are costlier or different from those they prefer to...
View Details
Keywords:
After-tax Income;
Consumer-driven Health Care;
Health Care Costs;
Health Insurance;
Income Inequality;
Tax Policy;
Health Care and Treatment;
Cost;
Insurance;
Employees;
Income;
Taxation;
Policy;
United States
Herzlinger, Regina E., and Barak D. Richman. "Cutting the Gordian Knot of Employee Health Care Benefits and Costs: A Corporate Model Built on Employee Choice." Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series, No. 2020-4, December 2019. (Revised January 2021.)
- 2019
- Working Paper
Thinking Outside the Box (12): The Benefits of Increased Transparency in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance for the 180 Million Insured
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Barak D. Richman
Economists have long noted that the tax exclusion of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) caused workers to purchase health plans that differ in price and other characteristics from those they would otherwise choose for themselves. We explore the short-term and long-term...
View Details
Keywords:
After-tax Income;
Consumer-driven Health Care;
Health Care Costs;
Health Insurance;
Income Inequality;
Tax Policy;
Health Care and Treatment;
Cost;
Insurance;
Income;
Equality and Inequality;
Taxation;
Policy;
United States
Herzlinger, Regina E., and Barak D. Richman. "Thinking Outside the Box (12): The Benefits of Increased Transparency in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance for the 180 Million Insured." Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series, No. 2020-4, December 2019.
- June 2019
- Article
Brokers vs. Retail Investors: Conflicting Interests and Dominated Products
By: Mark Egan
I study how brokers distort household investment decisions. Using a novel convertible bond dataset, I find that consumers often purchase dominated bonds—cheap and expensive versions of otherwise identical bonds coexist in the market. The empirical evidence suggests...
View Details
Keywords:
Brokers;
Fiduciary Standard;
Consumer Finance;
Structured Products;
Household;
Investment;
Decisions;
Motivation and Incentives;
Conflict of Interests
Egan, Mark. "Brokers vs. Retail Investors: Conflicting Interests and Dominated Products." Journal of Finance 74, no. 3 (June 2019): 1217–1260.
- June 2019
- Article
Debt Traps? Market Vendors and Moneylender Debt in India and the Philippines
By: Dean Karlan, Sendhil Mullainathan and Benjamin Roth
A debt trap occurs when someone takes on a high-interest rate loan and is barely able to pay back the interest, and thus perpetually finds themselves in debt (often by refinancing). Studying such practices is important for understanding financial decision-making of...
View Details
Keywords:
Borrowing and Debt;
Household;
Personal Finance;
Decision Making;
Behavior;
India;
Philippines
Karlan, Dean, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Benjamin Roth. "Debt Traps? Market Vendors and Moneylender Debt in India and the Philippines." American Economic Review: Insights 1, no. 1 (June 2019): 27–42.
- September 2019
- Article
Household Matters: Revisiting the Returns to Capital Among Female Microentrepreneurs
By: Arielle Bernhardt, Erica Field, Rohini Pande and Natalia Rigol
Multiple field experiments report positive financial returns to capital shocks for male and not female microentrepreneurs. But these analyses overlook the fact that female entrepreneurs often reside with male entrepreneurs. Using data from experiments in India, Sri...
View Details
Bernhardt, Arielle, Erica Field, Rohini Pande, and Natalia Rigol. "Household Matters: Revisiting the Returns to Capital Among Female Microentrepreneurs." American Economic Review: Insights 1, no. 2 (September 2019): 141–160.
- 2018
- Chapter
Behavioral Household Finance
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
This chapter provides an overview of household finance. The first part summarizes key facts regarding household financial behavior, emphasizing empirical regularities that are inconsistent with the standard classical economic model and discussing extensions of the...
View Details
Keywords:
Personal Finance;
Global Range;
Household;
Behavior;
Strategy;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Product Design;
Welfare
Beshears, John, James J. Choi, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. "Behavioral Household Finance." In Handbook of Behavioral Economics: Foundations and Applications 1, edited by B. Douglas Bernheim, Stefano DellaVigna, and David Laibson, 177–276. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2018.
- August 2017
- Article
Catering to Investors Through Security Design: Headline Rate and Complexity
By: Claire Célérier and Boris Vallée
This paper investigates the rationale for issuing complex securities to retail investors. We focus on a large market of investment products targeted exclusively at households: retail-structured products in Europe. We hypothesize that banks strategically use product...
View Details
Célérier, Claire, and Boris Vallée. "Catering to Investors Through Security Design: Headline Rate and Complexity." Quarterly Journal of Economics 132, no. 3 (August 2017): 1469–1508.
- 2019
- Working Paper
Fiscal Rules and Sovereign Default
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
Recurrent concerns over debt sustainability in emerging and developed nations have prompted renewed debate on the role of fiscal rules. Their optimality, however, remains unclear. We provide a quantitative analysis of fiscal rules in a standard model of sovereign debt...
View Details
Alfaro, Laura, and Fabio Kanczuk. "Fiscal Rules and Sovereign Default." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-134, June 2016. (Also NBER Working Paper w23370. Revised January 2019.)
- Article
Liquidity in Retirement Savings Systems: An International Comparison
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, Joshua Hurwitz, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
We compare the liquidity that six developed countries have built into their employer-based defined contribution (DC) retirement schemes. In Germany, Singapore, and the UK, withdrawals are essentially banned no matter what kind of transitory income shock the household...
View Details
Keywords:
Saving;
Financial Liquidity;
Retirement;
Canada;
Germany;
Australia;
United Kingdom;
United States;
Singapore
Beshears, John, James J. Choi, Joshua Hurwitz, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. "Liquidity in Retirement Savings Systems: An International Comparison." American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 105, no. 5 (May 2015): 420–425.
- April 2015
- Article
Money Creation and the Shadow Banking System
By: Adi Sunderam
Many explanations for the rapid growth of the shadow banking system in the mid-2000s focus on money demand. This paper asks whether the short-term liabilities of the shadow banking system behave like money. We first present a simple model where households demand money...
View Details
Sunderam, Adi. "Money Creation and the Shadow Banking System." Review of Financial Studies 28, no. 4 (April 2015): 939–977.
- July 2014
- Article
Smart Money? The Effect of Education on Financial Outcomes
By: Shawn A. Cole, Anna Paulson and Gauri Kartini Shastry
Household financial decisions are important for household welfare, economic growth and financial stability. Yet, our understanding of the determinants of financial decision-making is limited. Exploiting exogenous variation in state compulsory schooling laws in both...
View Details
Cole, Shawn A., Anna Paulson, and Gauri Kartini Shastry. "Smart Money? The Effect of Education on Financial Outcomes." Review of Financial Studies 27, no. 7 (July 2014): 2022–2051.
- Spring 2013
- Article
The Growth of Finance
By: Robin Greenwood and David S. Scharfstein
The U.S. financial services industry grew from 4.9% of GDP in 1980 to 7.9% of GDP in 2007. A sizeable portion of the growth can be explained by rising asset management fees, which in turn were driven by increases in the valuation of tradable assets, particularly...
View Details
Greenwood, Robin, and David S. Scharfstein. "The Growth of Finance." Journal of Economic Perspectives 27, no. 2 (Spring 2013): 3–28.
- Article
Happiness on Tap: Piped Water Adoption in Urban Morocco
By: Florencia Devoto, Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, William Pariente and Vincent Pons
Connecting private dwellings to the water main is expensive and typically cannot be publicly financed. We show that households' willingness to pay for a private connection is high when it can be purchased on credit, not because a connection improves health but because...
View Details
Devoto, Florencia, Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, William Pariente, and Vincent Pons. "Happiness on Tap: Piped Water Adoption in Urban Morocco." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 4, no. 4 (November 2012): 68–99.
- September 2012
- Case
BASIX (Abridged)
By: Shawn Cole and Peter Tufano
BASIX, an Indian microfinance corporation, must decide whether to continue to sell weather insurance to its clients. A brand-new financial product, weather insurance pays if measured rainfall during the growing season falls below a pre-specified limit. Mr. Sattaiah,...
View Details
Keywords:
Cost vs Benefits;
Microfinance;
Household;
Risk Management;
Insurance;
Banking Industry;
India
Cole, Shawn, and Peter Tufano. "BASIX (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 213-035, September 2012.