In The Voltage Effect, behavioral economist and University of Chicago Professor John List, answers one of today’s trickiest questions: Why do some great ideas make it big while others fail to take off? What is it about some ideas that allow them to catch on and energize large groups of people, while others are doomed to flounder before ever getting off the ground? Even the most inspired initiative for change has no guarantee of success. It all comes down to a simple yet vitally important variable: whether the idea has the potential to scale. Based on List's decades of boots-on-the-ground research, The Voltage Effect reveals why every idea’s greatest opportunity — and challenge — lies in its potential to go from small to big.