Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,416)
- Faculty Publications (295)
- Article
The Role of Finance and Private Investment in Developing Sustainable Cities
By: John D. Macomber
Three trends will drive urban investment, development, and entrepreneurship in the next two decades. This article provides tools to identify the situations and circumstances that will be most favorable for private sector involvement in consideration of these trends.... View Details
Keywords: Trends; Demographics; Private Sector; Investment; City; Infrastructure; Opportunities; Urban Development
- April 2011 (Revised February 2016)
- Case
Jamaica's Anemic Growth: The IMF, China and the Debt(th) Trap
By: Rafael Di Tella and Natalie Kindred
This case describes the economic development problems faced by the small Caribbean-island country of Jamaica over most of the past half-century. The Jamaican economy showed relatively strong growth in the 1960s but stagnated in the 1970s. By the end of that decade,... View Details
- April 2011
- Article
Behavioral Economics Perspectives on Public Sector Pension Plans
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
We describe the pension plan features of the states and the largest cities and counties in the U.S. Unlike in the private sector, defined benefit (DB) pensions are still the norm in the public sector. However, a few jurisdictions have shifted towards defined... View Details
- April 2011
- Article
The Origins of Japanese Technological Modernization
By: Tom Nicholas
Explanations of Japanese technological modernization from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century have increasingly focused on domestic capabilities as opposed to the traditional emphasis on knowledge transfers from the West. Yet, the literature is mostly... View Details
Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Body of Literature; Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Patents; Measurement and Metrics; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Economic Growth; Developing Countries and Economies; Information Technology; Technology Industry; Japan; Germany; Great Britain; United States
- 2011
- Working Paper
Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?
By: Lauren H. Cohen, Joshua D. Coval and Christopher J. Malloy
This paper employs a new empirical approach for identifying the impact of government spending on the private sector. Our key innovation is to use changes in congressional committee chairmanship as a source of exogenous variation in state-level federal expenditures. In... View Details
- February 2011 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
Sound Group China: Urban Waste Entrepreneurs
By: John D. Macomber, Chad M. Carr and Fan Zhao
Private sector entrepreneur in China with advanced solid waste management capability competes with state owned enterprises and also government policies supporting a rival technology. Wen Yibo has used engineering expertise and political savvy to build a major privately... View Details
- February 2011 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
Sarvajal: Water for All
By: John D. Macomber and Mona Sinha
Entrepreneur wrestles with business model using SMS and RFID technology, franchising, and leasing to rapidly grow off-the-grid water purification business without subsidies. The company seeks to provide potable water services to rural and urban India where the public... View Details
- January 2011
- Case
Masdar and Tianjin: Eco-Cities
By: John D. Macomber
Compares Masdar City and Tianjin Eco-City, two high profile "sustainable cities." Each showcases technological and financial innovation. Is it real? Is it replicable and defensible? The case is intended to introduce main concepts and tradeoffs with respect to rapid... View Details
- December 2010 (Revised April 2013)
- Case
Kepak and the Future of the Irish Beef Industry
By: David E. Bell, Damien P. McLoughlin and Mary Shelman
As Ireland's third largest beef processor, Kepak faces new opportunities as well as significant challenges from the collapse of the "Celtic Tiger." The government has identified food and agriculture as one way the country could significantly grow exports. However, the... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
Lawful but Corrupt: Gaming and the Problem of Institutional Corruption in the Private Sector
This paper describes how the gaming of society's rules by corporations contributes to the problem of institutional corruption in the world of business. "Gaming" in its various forms involves the use of technically legal means to subvert the intent of society's rules in... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
Regulating for Legitimacy: Consumer Credit Access in France and America
Theories of legitimate regulation have emphasized the role of governments either in fixing market failures to promote greater efficiency or in restricting the efficient functioning of markets in order to pursue public welfare goals. In either case, features of markets... View Details
- September 2010
- Article
Do Inventory and Gross Margin Data Improve Sales Forecasts for U.S. Public Retailers?
By: Saravanan Kesavan, Vishal Gaur and Ananth Raman
Firm-level sales forecasts for retailers can be improved if we incorporate cost of goods sold, inventory, and gross margin (defined here as the ratio of sales to cost of goods sold) as three endogenous variables. We construct a simultaneous equations model, estimated... View Details
- 2010
- Comment
'Urgency and Betrayal: Three Attempts to Foster Private Investment in Argentina's Oil Industry,' by Nicolas Gadano
By: Louis T. Wells
- 2010
- Working Paper
Trade Policy and Firm Boundaries
By: Laura Alfaro, Paola Conconi, Harald Fadinger and Andrew F. Newman
We study how trade policy affects firms' ownership structures. We embed an incomplete contracts model of vertical integration choices into a standard perfectly-competitive international trade framework. Integration decisions are driven by a trade-off between the... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
The Limits of Nonprofit Impact: A Contingency Framework for Measuring Social Performance
By: Alnoor Ebrahim and V. Kasturi Rangan
Leaders of organizations in the social sector are under growing pressure to demonstrate their impacts on pressing societal problems such as global poverty. We review the debates around performance and impact, drawing on three literatures: strategic philanthropy,... View Details
- January 2010 (Revised December 2011)
- Case
Jiamei Dental: Private Health Care in China
By: William C. Kirby and G.A. Donovan
With the recent announcement from the Chinese government that the country's healthcare system was going to undergo reform, Jiamei Dental Chairman Liu Jia wondered what that meant for his 15 year-old dental clinic business. Founded in 1993, Jiamei Dental Medical... View Details
- January 2010 (Revised August 2010)
- Background Note
Advanced Leadership Note: An Institutional Perspective and Framework for Managing and Leading
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Rakesh Khurana
Large-scale societal issues increasingly appear on the agenda of business leaders, including poverty, health, education, business-government relations, and the degradation of the environment. These problems are not entirely new, but the forces of globalization and the... View Details
- 2010
- Chapter
Measuring and Managing Macrofinancial Risk and Financial Stability: A New Framework
By: Dale F. Gray, Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie
This paper proposes a new approach to improve the way central banks can analyze and manage the financial risks of a national economy. It is based on the modern theory and practice of contingent claims analysis (CCA), which is successfully used today at the level of... View Details
- 2009
- Other Paper
Trade Policy and Firm Boundaries
By: Laura Alfaro, Paola Conconi, Andrew F. Newman and Harald Fadinger
We examine how trade policy affects firms' organizational choices. We embed a model of firms' vertical integration decisions into a standard perfectly-competitive international trade framework. In the model, integration decisions are driven by a trade-off... View Details
- November 2009 (Revised January 2011)
- Case
International AIDS Vaccine Initiative
By: Allen S. Grossman and Cathy Ross
Dedicated to accelerating the development of a safe, effective, accessible, preventive HIV vaccine, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) pioneered ways of addressing the inadequate incentive structures that prevented progress toward vaccines for AIDS and... View Details