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Program Policies - HBS Online

Have questions about our policies on learning requirements, accommodations, changing your program status (selecting a later course, withdrawals, refunds, deferrals), exceptions standards, or discounts? Start here! Learning Requirements... View Details

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Drug & Alcohol Policy | About

Drug & Alcohol Policy Overview of HBS Substance Abuse Policies and Procedures Harvard Business School’s policy on drugs and alcohol—adapted from and in accordance with other... View Details

August 2023
Article

Taking Stock of the Implementation Gap in Climate Policy

By: Taryn Fransen, Jonas Meckling, Anna Stunzi, Tobias Schmidt, Florian Egli, Nicolas Schmid and Christopher Beaton

A gap persists between the emissions reductions pledged by countries under the Paris Agreement and those resulting from their domestic policies. We argue that this gap in fact contains two parts: one in the policies that countries adopt, and the other in the outcomes... View Details

Keywords: Emission Reduction; Outcome or Result; Policy; Environmental Regulation; Equality and Inequality

18 May 2016
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Mass Shootings on Gun Policy

Keywords: by Michael Luca, Deepak Malhotra, and Christopher Poliquin; Entertainment & Recreation

06 May 2020
News

How microeconomics can help devise evidence-based policy responses to COVID-19

December 2020
Article

Sovereign Debt Portfolios, Bond Risks, and the Credibility of Monetary Policy

By: Wenxin Du, Carolin Pflueger and Jesse Schreger

We document that governments whose local currency debt provides them with greater hedging benefits actually borrow more in foreign currency. We introduce two features into a government's debt portfolio choice problem to explain this finding: risk-averse lenders and... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Currency; Policy; Risk and Uncertainty

14 Sep 2017
News

Study: US Government Its Own Worst Enemy

08 Aug 2016
Working Paper Summaries

The Unintended Consequences of the Zero Lower Bound Policy

Keywords: by Marco Di Maggio and Marcin Kacperczyk; Banking

Article

Public Policy Towards Patent Pools

By: Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole

Keywords: Policy; Patents

16 Oct 2014
News

Reducing special-interest influence over government regulation

including, but not limited to, deregulation,” write Moss and his coauthor Daniel Carpenter, the Freed Professor of Government at Harvard University. In fact, the evidence suggests that strong or pervasive types of regulatory capture—the... View Details

1994
Chapter

Competition Policy and Privatization: An Organizational Perspective

By: James Langenfeld and Dennis Yao

Competition (antitrust) policies in Central and Eastern Europe need to address both short-term problems associated with the transition to a market economy as well as the development of institutions suitable for a mature market economy. In this paper we employ an... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Policy; Development Economics; Emerging Markets

2008
Working Paper

Behavioral Aspects of Price Setting, and Their Policy Implications

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper starts by discussing consumers' cognitive and emotional reaction to posted prices. Cognitively, some consumers do not appear to make effective use of price information to maximize their consumption-based utility. Emotionally, prices can induce regret and... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Price; Policy; Laws and Statutes; Consumer Behavior; Emotions

2006
Chapter

My Policies or Yours: Do OECD Agricultural Policies Affect Poverty in Developing Countries?

By: Nava Ashraf, Margaret McMillan and Alix Peterson-Zwane

Keywords: Agribusiness; Policy; Government and Politics; Developing Countries and Economies; Trade; Poverty; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

2019
Working Paper

U.S. Antitrust Law and Policy in Historical Perspective

By: Laura Phillips Sawyer

The key pieces of antitrust legislation in the United States—the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and the Clayton Act of 1914—contain broad language that has afforded the courts wide latitude in interpreting and enforcing the law. This article chronicles the judiciary’s... View Details

Keywords: Antitrust; Trusts; Restraint Of Trade; Merger; Cartel; New Deal; Harvard School; Chicago School Of Law And Economics; Post-Chicago; Law; Competition; Policy; Vertical Integration; Horizontal Integration; Acquisition

2010
Working Paper

Peronist Beliefs and Interventionist Policies

By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra

We study the logic of Peronist interventionist polices and the beliefs that support them. Instead of a comprehensive approach, we focus on three elements. First, we study beliefs and values about the economic system present in Peron's speeches during the period... View Details

Keywords: History; Economic Systems; Values and Beliefs; Policy; Business and Government Relations; Argentina

1992
Chapter

Cheap Talk about Monetary Policy

Keywords: Central Banking; Policy; Money; Banking Industry

Article

Policy Implications of Weak Patent Rights

By: James J. Anton, Hillary Greene and Dennis Yao

Patents vary substantially in the degree of protection provided against unauthorized imitation. In this chapter we explore a range of work addressing the economic and policy implications of "weak" patents—patents that have a significant probability of being overturned... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Motivation and Incentives; Entrepreneurship; Competition; Policy; Innovation and Invention; Rights; Monopoly; Business Startups

March 1995 (Revised December 1995)
Case

Dividend Policy at FPL Group, Inc. (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Craig F Schreiber

A Wall Street analyst has just learned that FPL (the holding company for Florida's largest electric utility) may cut its dividend in several days despite a 47-year streak of consecutive dividend increases. In response to the deregulation of the electric utility... View Details

Keywords: Investment Return; Corporate Strategy; Policy; Competitive Strategy; Financial Strategy; Fluctuation; Energy Sources; Emerging Markets; Utilities Industry; Energy Industry; Florida

Educators

2009
Chapter

Behavioral Aspects of Price Setting, and Their Policy Implications

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper starts by discussing consumers' cognitive and emotional reaction to posted prices. Cognitively, some consumers do not appear to make effective use of price information to maximize their consumption-based utility. Emotionally, prices can induce regret and... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Price; Policy; Laws and Statutes; Demand and Consumers; Business and Government Relations