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- 2017
- Report
Room to Grow: Identifying New Frontiers for Apprenticeships
By: Joseph B. Fuller and Matthew Sigelman
In the United States, apprentices are employed in just 27 occupations, mostly in skilled, physical trades. An analysis of job postings data shows that extending apprenticeships to more occupations provides an opportunity to expand employment and close the middle skills... View Details
- September 2017
- Article
The Real Effects of Capital Controls: Firm-Level Evidence from a Policy Experiment
By: Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari and Fabio Kanczuk
Emerging-market governments adopted capital control taxes to manage the massive surge in foreign capital inflows in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Theory suggests that the imposition of capital controls can drive up the cost of capital and curb... View Details
- August 2017
- Article
Should Governments Invest More in Nudging?
By: Shlomo Benartzi, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman, Cass R. Sunstein, Richard H. Thaler, Maya Shankar, Will Tucker-Ray, William J. Congdon and Steven Galing
Governments are increasingly adopting behavioral science techniques for changing individual behavior in pursuit of policy objectives. The types of “nudge” interventions that governments are now adopting alter people’s decisions without coercion or significant changes... View Details
Keywords: Nudge; Nudge Unit; Choice Architecture; Behavioral Science; Behavioral Economics; Savings; Pension Plan; Education; College Enrollment; Energy; Electricity Usage; Preventive Health; Influenza Vaccination; Flu Shot; Open Materials; Behavior; Governance; Economics; Policy; Power and Influence
- July 2017 (Revised November 2017)
- Case
'Clarín Lies!': Bias, Post-Truth, and Populism in Argentina's Media War
By: Rafael Di Tella, Jose Liberti and Sarah McAra
In 2012, Argentine media conglomerate Grupo Clarín and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner were embroiled in what some called “the mother of all battles.” Grupo Clarín was one of the preeminent media companies in Argentina, with leading newspapers, cable... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
The Role of Taxes in the Disconnect Between Corporate Performance and Economic Growth
By: Urooj Khan, Suresh Nallareddy and Ethan Rouen
We investigate the relation between the growth in corporate profits and the overall U.S. economy, focusing on the impact of the U.S. corporate tax regime on this relation. We document that the growth of corporate profits, on average, has outpaced the growth of the... View Details
- Article
Does Front-Loading Taxation Increase Savings?: Evidence from Roth 401(k) Introductions
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
Can governments increase private savings by taxing savings up front instead of in retirement? Roth 401(k) contributions are not tax-deductible in the contribution year, but withdrawals in retirement are untaxed. The more common before-tax 401(k) contribution is... View Details
- 2017
- Chapter
Entrepreneurship, Policy, and the Geography of Wind Energy
By: Geoffrey Jones
This study examines the geography of the global wind energy industry before 2000. Between 1980 and 2000, the global generating capacity of wind power grew from 13 megawatts to 17,400 megawatts, but two-thirds of that capacity was in Denmark, Germany, Spain, and the... View Details
- April 2017 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu
Through the challenges facing Target, the case examines ways in which corporations can become involved in political and legislative debates and processes, ranging from campaign contributions to lobbying to political activism. In 2016, Target CEO Brian Cornell must... View Details
Keywords: Boycott; Corporate Political Activity; Lobbying; LGBTQ; Campaign Contributions; Campaign Finance; Retail; Shareholder Activism; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Problems and Challenges; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Media; Political Elections; Taxation; Corporate Accountability; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Diversity; Customers; Communication; Business and Government Relations; Retail Industry; United States
- March 2017
- Article
Institutional Ownership and Corporate Tax Avoidance: New Evidence
By: Mozaffar N. Khan, Suraj Srinivasan and Liang Tan
We provide new evidence on the agency theory of corporate tax avoidance (Slemrod, 2004; Crocker and Slemrod, 2005; Chen and Chu, 2005) by showing that increases in institutional ownership are associated with increases in tax avoidance. Using the Russell index... View Details
- January 2017
- Case
TalentCorp Malaysia and the Returning Expert Programme
By: William R. Kerr, Danielle Li, Mathis Wagner and Alexis Brownell
TalentCorp Malaysia runs the "Returning Expert Programme" (REP), a government program designed to encourage Malaysian professionals abroad to return home through use of various incentives. The REP is intended to combat the "brain drain," caused by highly educated... View Details
Keywords: Malaysia; Diaspora; Brain Drain; Migration; Diasporas; Government and Politics; Immigration; Human Capital; Programs; Malaysia
- January 2017
- Supplement
Bayer AG: Bidding to Win Merck's OTC Business
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Marc Baaij and Arjen Mulder
- January 2017
- Case
Bayer AG: Bidding to Win Merck's OTC Business
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Marc Baaij and Arjen Mulder
Shortly after submitting their best and final offer to acquire Merck's Consumer Care Division (a collection of "over-the-counter" (OTC) products with sales totaling $2 billion), the Bayer M&A team was given a chance to revise their bid because another potential... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Meet the Oligarchs: Business Legitimacy, State Capacity and Taxation
By: Rafael Di Tella, Juan Dubra and Alejandro Lagomarsino
We analyze the role of people’s beliefs about the rich in the determination of public policy in the context of a randomized online survey experiment. A question we study is the desirability of government-private sector meetings, a variable we argue is connected to... View Details
- October 2016 (Revised October 2020)
- Case
Essent: From a State-Owned Utility to a Commercial Company
By: Ananth Raman and Elena Corsi
Patrick Lammers, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) for the Dutch energy company Essent NV, once a state-owned company, was pleased with the progress Essent’s consumer (“B2C”) business had made: Earnings Before Income Tax (EBIT) for B2C had gone from a loss of €18 million... View Details
- October 2016 (Revised March 2017)
- Case
Airbnb in Amsterdam (A)
By: Mitchell Weiss, Emer Moloney and Vincent Dessain
In February 2014, Amsterdam became the first city to issue new regulations specifically to allow home sharing. Airbnb's Molly Turner, global head of civic partnerships; her colleagues at the San Francisco–based home sharing platform; and her counterparts in Amsterdam's... View Details
Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Sharing Economy; Amsterdam; Airbnb; Molly Turner; Regulation; Homesharing; Tourism; Business And Government; Public-private Partnership; Entrepreneurship; Business and Government Relations; Government Administration; Public Sector; City; Tourism Industry; Public Administration Industry; Travel Industry; Netherlands; Europe
- October 2016
- Supplement
Airbnb in Amsterdam (B)
By: Mitchell Weiss, Emer Moloney and Vincent Dessain
In December 2014, Amsterdam and Airbnb announced an MOU to promote responsible home sharing and to simplify the payment of tourist tax for hosts in the city. It was the most comprehensive agreement that Airbnb had with any city in the world. Its final provision read,... View Details
Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Sharing Economy; Amsterdam; Airbnb; Molly Turner; Regulation; Homesharing; Tourism; Business And Government; Public-private Partnership; Business and Government Relations; Government Administration; Public Sector; City; Urban Development; Tourism Industry; Public Administration Industry; Travel Industry; Netherlands; Europe
- 2016
- Report
Problems Unsolved and a Nation Divided: The State of U.S. Competitiveness 2016
In this report, the authors synthesize their views on U.S. competitiveness and unveil the findings of the 2016 HBS surveys on U.S. competitiveness. Specifically, the report documents the faltering performance of the U.S. economy and the erosion of America’s business... View Details
- July 2016
- Article
Taxation, Corruption, and Growth
By: Philippe Aghion, Ufuk Akcigit, Julia Cagé and William R. Kerr
We build an endogenous growth model to analyze the relationships between taxation, corruption, and economic growth. Entrepreneurs lie at the center of the model and face disincentive effects from taxation but acquire positive benefits from public infrastructure.... View Details
- Article
Tax Aversion in Labor Supply
By: Judd B. Kessler and Michael I. Norton
In a real-effort laboratory experiment, labor supply decreases more with the introduction of a tax than with a financially equivalent drop in wages. This “tax aversion” is large in magnitude: when we decompose the productivity decrease that arises from taxation, we... View Details
Keywords: Taxes; Labor Supply; Productivity; Experiments; Wages; Human Capital; Performance Productivity; Taxation
- 2016
- Working Paper
Popular Acceptance of Inequality Due to Innate Brute Luck and Support for Classical Benefit-Based Taxation
U.S. survey respondents' views on distributive justice are shown to differ in two specific, related ways from what is conventionally assumed in modern optimal tax research. A large share of respondents, and in some cases a large majority, resist the full equalization... View Details