Can human capital drive portfolio returns? Listen to Jason Mitchell discuss with Professor Dan Ariely, Duke University, about what a human capital factor looks like; how incentives and the basic idea of “feeling valued “are fundamental drivers behind employee motivation; and why human capital can represent an overlooked source of alpha.

Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of psychology and behavioural economics at Duke University. He is a serial entrepreneur, co-founding several companies implementing insights from behavioural science including BEwork, Genie, Irrational Labs, Timeful, and Irrational Capital. Dan has written many books, including three New York Times best-selling books: Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The Honest Truth about Dishonesty. His most recent book is Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things. Irrational Capital applies workplace behavioural science, financial acumen, and deep data science to capture the powerful connection between human capital and stock performance. It is the first firm to quantitatively capture the lift that strong corporate culture has on a company’s stock price in an investable way.