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As practitioners addressing issues related to international development, global poverty, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals move toward using market-based approaches to distribute financing, ... more...

We study the problem faced by a social enterprise that is a distributor of new life-improving technologies in a developing market. This distributor seeks to be profitable while maximizing the adoption of the products it sells and must incentivize a (small) retailer to carry and sell a new product that it wants to distribute. The retailer sells the product to consumers that are heterogeneous, have uncertain valuations, and are risk averse. The distributor considers a mix of two possible strategies: (i) improve the accuracy of the information provided to the consumers through marketing and education, and (ii) invest in a reverse logistics channel that allows for higher refunds for consumers' regret-returns. We propose a model that captures this set-up, incorporating consumer regret-returns, information control, and the present value of growing a base of satisfied customers. We confirm that, in equilibrium, these two strategies are substitutes. We also show that if the distributor highly values customer satisfaction compared to immediate profits, it will likely prefer to invest more in reverse logistics than in information to the consumers. This suggests that reverse logistics are a better strategic option to increase customer satisfaction, for a social enterprise pushing a product with uncertain valuation to risk-averse consumers, through a for-profit distribution channel. We find this insight to be robust to different model specifications, which lead to qualitatively different retailer behavior. more...

Discrimination is a pervasive aspect of modern society and human relations. Building on judgment research, we develop a model that explains the mechanisms driving discrimination and describes situa... more...

The symposium uses a hybrid paper-panel format to sample ""living mechanisms"" operating at the interface between organizations and their natural ecological systems. Eight papers demonstrate a wide... more...

The Tibet-China debate is entrenched in ethnic history, politics, and tension. Regardless of these realities, Tibetans throughout China’s underdeveloped West are among the poorest nationalities in the country. These field notes highlight and evaluate development efforts instated by three types of entities: the state, foreign development organizations, and local Tibetan development organizations. Many people want to help Tibet, but who is the most appropriate and able?, Consilience, No 5 (2011): Issue Five: 2011 more...