Beyond good intentions: How a Berkeley Haas institute is driving social impact through rigorous research

For decades, Berkeley Haas Professor Paul Gertler has studied the most effective ways to deliver healthcare, improve financial inclusion, reduce poverty, and boost early childhood development. But serving as chief economist of the Human Development Network at the World Bank from 2004 to 2007 gave him an even clearer sense of the difference he could make as a researcher.

“It created a taste for wanting to have impact on the way we do business in the world and do it in a way that’s better for everyone, not just shareholders,” says Gertler, an internationally recognized expert in evaluating the impact of programs and policy interventions. 

So when Gertler took the reins of the Institute for Business and Social Impact (IBSI) in 2020, he wanted to double down on the research strengths of Berkeley Haas to achieve even greater impact. 

“The major assets of the school are our excellent faculty and students and what they bring to the table,” says Gertler, the Li Ka Shing Professor of Economics. “If IBSI is going to engage in the world, we want it to be around research, new knowledge, and innovation that is relevant to make the world a better place.”

Built into Haas

The term “social impact” is frequently tossed around in the business world, but it has little meaning unless those impacts are measured.  A primary way to measure whether the work of any policy, program, or social entrepreneur is genuinely leading to beneficial outcomes is through careful research.

Efforts to understand business’ impact on—and responsibility to—society have been core to the Haas mission for decades. The first course on corporate social responsibility and business was taught at the school in 1959. Five years later, Earl F. Cheit, as UC Berkeley Executive Vice Chancellor, organized what became known as the Summit in Berkeley, a conference examining the role of business in society. Throughout the school’s history, faculty across Haas and Berkeley have investigated a range of important questions about the social importance of business, both as individual researchers and through the school’s research-focused institutes and centers.

Founded in 2013 through generous gifts from Haas alumni, IBSI was designed to serve as both a centralized hub for the school’s existing social impact programs and a catalyst for expanding them.

Then-Dean Rich Lyons (now UC Berkeley chancellor) asked Professor and Former Haas Dean Laura Tyson to build and lead the new institute. Tyson was guided by the idea that all sectors of society—for-profit businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government—have a role to play in solving society’s biggest problems. Under her leadership, the institute helped solidify the school’s reputation as a leader among top-ranked business schools in areas of corporate social responsibility and sustainability.

IBSI now serves as an umbrella for a range of centers and initiatives, including the Center for Responsible Business (CRB), the Center for Equity, Gender & Leadership (EGAL), and the youth development programs Boost@Berkeley Haas and Berkeley Business Academy for Youth (BBAY). 

Measuring social impact

In 2020, Tyson stepped down as faculty director, passing the baton to Gertler. Over the past five years, Gertler, a Haas faculty member since 1996, has added his own imprint by expanding the institute’s focus on research. 

Gertler’s expertise in impact evaluation—using scientific approaches such as randomized controlled trials to estimate the causal impacts of specific interventions on social and economic outcomes—is critical for the role. It’s not uncommon for a policy or innovation to seem promising in its conception but then fail to deliver the desired outcome, or to provide short-term effects that fade over time, so that what initially appeared impactful and potentially transformative turns out to be neither. High-quality research will tell if the interventions designed to improve people’s lives actually do. 

As the lead author of the related textbook, Impact Evaluation in Practice, Gertler has also spent over a decade training UC Berkeley students on the values and methods that underlie applied impact evaluation. (Below, Gertler kicks off the student presentations in the final session of his spring 2025 applied impact evaluation course.)

When it comes to research, IBSI supports and elevates projects led by faculty affiliates, centers, and initiatives focused on the intersection of business and social impact. For IBSI Research Director Jennifer Sturdy, the question of impact drives the studies IBSI supports. “Our work is focused on whether we see improvements in social and economic outcomes for the populations that are targeted by specific interventions or policies.” 

Sturdy has compiled an initial library of more than 80 research projects from around Haas related to social impact. Over half have received funding through one of the institute’s centers, initiatives, or labs, covering topics such as sustainable business practices; gender pay gaps; diversity policies; the role that business credit cards play for small-medium-enterprises; and others led by a host of UC Berkeley and Haas faculty members, including Gertler.

Spotlight on financial inclusion

In 2020, IBSI—alongside campus partners like the Center for Effective Global Action and the Blum Center for Developing Economies—launched the Lab for Inclusive FinTech (LIFT), a multi-year effort that evolved out of the Berkeley Haas Blockchain Initiative. Since 2021, LIFT has awarded funding for 34 research projects focused on inclusive financial technology. 

Projects supported by LIFT explore such issues as the benefits of lending in middle- and low-income countries secured with digital collateral—such as a home solar system that can be temporarily disabled if the borrower defaults on loan payments. Another project is looking at using AI to boost the capabilities of mom-and-pop store owners who provide basic banking services to underserved communities.

IBSI-related work on financial inclusion also focuses on another area where Haas has expertise: entrepreneurship. In one compelling study, Gertler and former IBSI Research Director Laura Chioda, along with Haas Professor Dana Carney and David Contreras-Loya, PhD 22, examined the impact of an intensive three-week mini-MBA program for 4,400 high school students in Uganda.

The program taught a range of hard and soft entrepreneurial skills and helped students develop business plans. In a follow-up conducted four years after the pilot, the team found sustained impacts: Those who attended the training had substantially higher earnings, most of which were generated through self-employment. They were also more likely to start enterprises and ensure their business’ survival. What’s more, the results seemed to be particularly impactful for women. Gertler and Chioda, in collaboration with a local NGO Educate!, are now preparing to scale up the program to 10,000 Ugandan youth and will assess the added value of teaching digital business skills. 

Supporting California

Another priority for IBSI is enabling researchers to address important topics in California to support state government. 

One example is a recent study led by Haas Professor David Levine on worker-owned businesses—enterprises in which the employees have a stake in profits and decision-making. Levine’s research suggests worker ownership improves job quality, wages and most likely, firm performance. However, there are regulatory challenges and market failures impeding co-ops and other worker-owned firms from scaling up.

The findings were shared with the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development’s Employee Ownership Hub and other state stakeholders working on employee ownership. They also inspired the new Ownership Initiative, a collaborative effort between IBSI, the CRB, and the Center for Social Sector Leadership (CSSL). 

IBSI Executive Director Adam Ross, who joined in 2023, is supporting additional efforts to develop a partnership with state government through the Workplace Mental Health Initiative, and is collaborating on an analysis of the current research landscape with Cristina Banks, executive director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Healthy Workplaces.

Sturdy, a former California Deputy Secretary of Evaluation, also sees opportunities for further alignment between IBSI’s expertise and state priorities, including financial inclusion and a legislative push to make personal finance education a high school graduation requirement. LIFT recently awarded seed funding for research on the effectiveness of personal finance education, a project that involves close collaboration with Haas Professor Terrance Odean based on his personal financial management course.       

Support for new ideas

IBSI’s team is committed to supporting Haas research teams with fundraising and navigating Berkeley’s systems—from research data management to vendor contracting. But IBSI “can’t go into areas where we don’t have funding, so we also try to identify important topics where there are research and evidence gaps and where we have the expertise to fill them,” Sturdy says. “We try to be opportunistic and responsive in our fundraising agenda, while also remaining committed to core pillars of work like sustainability and financial inclusion.” 

The institute’s research efforts are currently funded by a mix of gifts, grants, and contracts. Gertler welcomes engagement with the Haas alumni community to further IBSI’s aims. “We depend on our Haas community to generate ideas for us to look at—ideas on innovations, on research and learning questions, and on funding opportunities,” he says. “This engagement helps us understand how IBSI can support impacts people care about.”

To learn more about IBSI’s work, sign up for the institute’s communications here.