Publications

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June 2002 (Revised June 2014)
Case

The Netherlands: Is the Polder Model Sinking?

By: Huw Pill, Marie-Laure Y Goepfer, Mathijs Robbens and Ingrid Vogel

The Netherlands suffered economic crisis in the late 1970s and early 1980s, despite (or perhaps because of) its access to North Sea gas. In response to mounting inflation and unemployment, a tripartite agreement between employers, unions, and government was reached in... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Labor Unions; Netherlands

06 Jan 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Expensing Options Doesn’t Solve the Problem

at Enron had nothing to do with the failure to expense options. Rather, it related to a failure to disclose something else entirely on both the income statement and the balance sheet. Enron had taken advantage of some very liberal (and View Details

Keywords: by William Sahlman

July 2002 (Revised September 2002)
Case

Competition in Japanese Financial Markets, 2002 (Abridged)

By: Tarun Khanna

In early 2002, Japan, the world's largest economy, had been mired in a decade-long recession. A range of stimulus packages had failed to work their magic. The "Big Bang" financial deregulation reforms announced in 1998 had not quite produced the economic boom that the... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Financial Markets; Global Strategy; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Japan

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21 Sep 2009
Research & Ideas

Excessive Executive Pay: What’s the Solution?

directors accountable to company owners." Major business groups lost no time denouncing the reform measures as vehicles for ceding enormous power to a small number of special-interest investors, namely, unions and public employee... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

May 2023
Case

Uruguay: South America's Singapore?

By: Richard Vietor

Uruguay, the richest country in Latin America and the only one that has not turned to the left, suffers from slow growth, high inflation and a weak education system. President Lacrolle Pou has two more years in office to reform these problems. View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Inflation and Deflation; Government Administration; Latin America; Uruguay

November 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Rebuilding Puerto Rico

By: Laura Alfaro, Laura Phillips Sawyer and Haviland Sheldahl-Thomason

On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria swept over Puerto Rico, devastating the island’s infrastructure and agriculture. The natural disaster was layered atop years of mounting financial distress. Before the hurricane, Puerto Rico had accumulated $74 billion in debt and... View Details

Keywords: Natural Disasters; Financial Crisis; Infrastructure; Borrowing and Debt; Economy; Strategic Planning; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Puerto Rico

April 2017 (Revised February 2020)
Case

Restructuring Ukraine

By: Kristin Mugford, Seema Amble and Tian Feng

In June 2015, Ukraine found itself struggling with a volatile and devalued currency, dramatically diminished foreign reserves, and a projected financing shortfall of $40 billion. Ukraine’s new government sought to return the nation to stability following political... View Details

Keywords: Exchange Rates; Politics; Macroeconomics; Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Restructuring; Economy; Currency Exchange Rate; Banks and Banking; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Bonds; Sovereign Finance; Capital Markets; Credit; Debt Securities; Financial Liquidity; Financial Markets; Government and Politics; Ukraine

February 2002 (Revised September 2002)
Case

Competition in Japanese Financial Markets, 2002

By: Tarun Khanna and Louis P. DiLorenzo, Jr

In early 2002, Japan, the world's largest economy, had been mired in a decade-long recession. A range of stimulus packages had failed to work their magic. The "Big Bang" financial deregulation reforms announced in 1998 had not quite produced the economic boom that the... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Competition; Investment Banking; Financial Markets; Globalization; Financial Crisis; Commercial Banking; Banking Industry; Japan

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Research Summary

Globalization & Corporate Transformation in India

By: Nitin Nohria

Political and economic reforms in India, which started in 1992, have led to a dramatic transformation of Indian companies. The first decade of this transformation focused on improving operational efficiency to rival world class competitors. Having proved to themselves... View Details

May 2005 (Revised October 2022)
Case

The Octopus and the Generals: The United Fruit Company in Guatemala

By: Geoffrey Jones and Marcelo Bucheli

Examines the overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954 in a U.S.-backed coup in support of the United Fruit Co. Over the previous half century, United Fruit had built a large vertically integrated tropical fruit business that owned large banana... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Multinational Firms and Management; Policy; International Relations; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Central America; Guatemala; United States

2021
Article

To Thine Own Self Be True? Incentive Problems in Personalized Law

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

Recent years have seen an explosion of scholarship on “personalized law.” Commentators foresee a world in which regulators armed with big data and machine learning techniques determine the optimal legal rule for every regulated party, then instantaneously disseminate... View Details

Keywords: Personalized Law; Regulation; Regulatory Avoidance; Regulatory Arbitrage; Law And Economics; Law And Technology; Law And Artificial Intelligence; Futurism; Moral Hazard; Elicitation; Signaling; Privacy; Law; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Information Technology; AI and Machine Learning

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January 2014 (Revised February 2014)
Case

Japan: Betting on Inflation?

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

The case focuses on the challenges still confronting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the end of 2013, a year after he has been in office. It also gives an overview of Japan's earlier economic performance, focusing primarily on the period after it suffered a stock market... View Details

Keywords: Quantitative Easing; Debt Sustainability; International Relations; Borrowing and Debt

January 2010 (Revised October 2010)
Case

Colombia: Strong Fundamentals, Global Risk

By: Aldo Musacchio, Richard H. K. Vietor, Jonathan Schlefer and Carolina Camacho

By mid-2009 Colombian President Alvaro Uribe had ended decades of virtual civil war and strengthened the business climate, but he faced tough economic challenges. Though he had instituted prominent market reforms and brought inflation down sharply, Colombia seemed... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Macroeconomics; Trade; Global Strategy; Infrastructure; Business and Government Relations; Colombia

2021
Working Paper

The Origins of CE Marking: Standards, Business, and the European Market in the 1980s–1990s

By: Grace Ballor

Many products—from consumer electronics to machinery to children’s toys—bear the CE Mark, the symbol of conformity to the ‘essential requirements’ of European standards governed by the process of CE Marking. This working paper traces the development of the system of... View Details

Keywords: Business And Government; Market Liberalization; Standards; Markets; Trade; Integration; Business History; Globalization; Business and Government Relations; Europe; European Union

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February 2006 (Revised October 2006)
Case

China: Building "Capitalism with Socialist Characteristics"

By: Debora L. Spar

Describes China's phenomenal development from a poor, communist country to a global powerhouse. Provides background on China's history and culture, details the reforms launched in 1978 by Seng Xiaoping, and describes the situation as of 2006, focusing on the... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Government and Politics; China