Publications

01 Dec 2010
News

Faculty Books

Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Being Shot Down by John P. Kotter and Lorne A. Whitehead (Harvard Business Review Press) Professor Emeritus Kotter and his coauthor reveal how to win the support ideas need to deliver results. The key is to understand the generic... View Details

Keywords: business proposals; financial regulation

06 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 6

requirements, reorienting the discussion around housing finance reform from keeping mortgage credit cheap to ensuring financial stability, and instituting measures that compel asset managers to compete on the true value of the services... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2021
Article

Strict ID Laws Don't Stop Voters: Evidence from a U.S. Nationwide Panel, 2008–2018

By: Enrico Cantoni and Vincent Pons

U.S. states increasingly require identification to vote—an ostensive attempt to deter fraud that prompts complaints of selective disenfranchisement. Using a difference-in-differences design on a 1.6-billion-observations panel dataset, 2008–2018, we find that the laws... View Details

Keywords: Voter ID Laws; Voter Turnout; Voting; Political Elections; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States

Find at Harvard

September 2019
Article

Bankruptcy Spillovers

By: Shai Bernstein, Emanuele Colonnelli, Xavier Giroud and Benjamin Iverson

How do different bankruptcy approaches affect the local economy? Using U.S. Census microdata, we explore the spillover effects of reorganization and liquidation on geographically proximate firms. We exploit the random assignment of bankruptcy judges as a source of... View Details

Keywords: Agglomeration; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Economy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

Find at Harvard

Jul 2005 - 2005
Conference Presentation

Implementing Public Sector Reforms: The Role of Institutional Entrepreneurs

By: Julie Battilana

Keywords: Public Sector; Social Entrepreneurship; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

August 2011 (Revised December 2013)
Case

Albert 'Jack' Stanley in Nigeria (A)

By: Lena G. Goldberg and Chad M. Carr

The international joint venture that successfully bid for $6 billion in contracts to build LNG trains on Nigeria's Bonny Island became entangled in a widening bribery and corruption probe triggered by an unrelated accusation against an employee of one of the JV... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Globalization; Governance Compliance; Energy Industry; Nigeria; Europe; United States

01 Dec 2008
News

Students Win Energy Competition

In October, a team of five HBS students won the National Energy Finance Challenge at the University of Texas’s McCombs School of Business, the Harbus reported. Marwan Chaar, Puja Jain, Anh Pham-Vu, Ravi Sarin, and Christine Telyan (all HBS ’09) bested teams from... View Details

Keywords: contests; Oil and Gas Extraction; Mining

07 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Banning Big-box Stores Can Hurt Local Retailers

regulatory reforms accounted for between 4% and 22% of the employment growth experienced by small formats, and 6% and 26% of the employment decline experienced by independent retailers over the time period [between] 1998 and 2004."... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

06 Mar 2006
What Do You Think?

The China Dilemma for U.S. Firms: Comply, Resist, or Leave?

David McKnight's comments reflected a similar need to take into account Chinese officials' views: "A far smarter approach is to evaluate the ethical impacts of Chinese law on a company's business model, and determine how to meet both ends. . . . They (the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Technology

July 2019
Case

Autonomous Vehicles: Smooth or Bumpy Ride Ahead?

By: Elie Ofek and Akhil Waghmare

In early 2019, transportation was set to undergo a major transformation with the advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs), also referred to as driverless cars, which were nearing completion from an R&D and testing phase. Yet many questions remained open regarding exactly... View Details

Keywords: Transportation; Technological Innovation; Disruptive Innovation; Transformation; Technology Adoption; Business Model; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Transportation Industry; Auto Industry

December 2018 (Revised May 2021)
Background Note

Making UK Energy Smarter

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

This case describes the history of the United Kingdom's domestic energy industry and the country's efforts to create a more competitive, greener, and distributed power sector. On July 24, 2017, the United Kingdom government and the industry regulator, the Office of Gas... View Details

2013
Working Paper

Testing Coleman's Social-Norm Enforcement Mechanism: Evidence from Wikipedia

By: Mikolaj J. Piskorski and Andreea Gorbatai

Since Durkheim, sociologists have believed that dense network structures lead to fewer norm violations. Coleman (1990) proposed one mechanism generating this relationship and argued that dense networks provide an opportunity structure to reward those who punish norm... View Details

Keywords: Governance Compliance; Governance Controls; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Information Publishing; Social and Collaborative Networks; Social Issues; Societal Protocols

SSRN

July 2000 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Agricultural Biotechnology and its Regulation

By: Forest L. Reinhardt

In the United States, genetically modified corn and soybeans are now widely grown and consumed. In Europe, however, they have been dubbed "Frankenstein foods," shunned by packaged food manufacturers, and subjected to a host of governmental restrictions. This case... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Genetics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Corporate Strategy; Trade; Law; Goods and Commodities; Safety; Environmental Sustainability; Government and Politics; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Biotechnology Industry; Europe; United States

19 Sep 2017
Working Paper Summaries

An Invitation to Market Design

.ExternalClass535E8B0AB65740BCB51D3AB82FC0F8CE p.MsoNormal, .ExternalClass535E8B0AB65740BCB51D3AB82FC0F8CE li.MsoNormal, .ExternalClass535E8B0AB65740BCB51D3AB82FC0F8CE div.MsoNormal... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Duke Kominers, Alexander Teytelboym, and Vincent P. Crawford

March 2023
Article

Not from Concentrate: Collusion in Collaborative Industries

By: Jordan M. Barry, John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery

The chief principle of antitrust law and theory is that reducing market concentration—having more, smaller firms instead of fewer, bigger ones—reduces anticompetitive behavior. We demonstrate that this principle is fundamentally incomplete.

In many... View Details

SSRN

2009
Working Paper

An Ounce of Prevention: The Power of Public Risk Management in Stabilizing the Financial System

By: David A. Moss

The magnitude of the current financial crisis reflects the failure of an economic and regulatory philosophy that had proved increasingly influential in policy circles over the past three decades.

This paper suggests (1) that contrary to the prevailing wisdom,... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Financial Institutions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Risk Management; Business and Government Relations; Balance and Stability

June 2004 (Revised November 2004)
Case

Restoring Trust at WorldCom

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Ashley Robertson

Examines the changes in corporate governance at WorldCom/MCI as proposed by the company's court-appointed corporate monitor, Richard Breeden. Following the largest bankruptcy ever and the downfall of the company, Breeden wrote "Restoring Trust," a report comprised of... View Details

Keywords: Change; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Corporate Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Government Relations; Trust

December 1992
Exercise

Negotiation Exercise on Tradeable Pollution Allowances: Group B, Utility #1

By: Willis M. Emmons III

Describes the position of Utility #1 in negotiating Group B with respect to 1) its SO emissions reduction requirements; 2) the costs of its alternative compliance strategies; and 3) the nature of its state regulatory environment. View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Governance Compliance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government Legislation; Negotiation; Pollutants; Strategy; Utilities Industry