Publications

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2024
Chapter

The U.S. Secession Crisis as a Breakdown of Democracy

By: Dean Grodzins and David Moss

This chapter examines the U.S. secession crisis of 1860–1861 as a case of democratic breakdown. From December 1860 to early June 1861, eleven of the fifteen slaveholding states in the U.S. South declared secession from the Union. The trigger for the crisis was Abraham... View Details

Keywords: War; History; Political Elections; United States

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February 2020 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Getting Brexit Done

By: Alberto Cavallo

In the early hours of Friday, December 13, 2019, a triumphant Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, stood in front of his supporters and declared, “We did it – we pulled it off, didn’t we? We broke the deadlock, [. . .] we smashed the roadblock. [. . .] This election... View Details

Keywords: Economic Integration; Brexit; Economics; Trade; Political Elections; Government Administration; Policy; Negotiation; Globalized Economies and Regions; Problems and Challenges; European Union; Europe

Amitabh Chandra is the Henry and Allison McCance Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School where he is the Faculty Chair of the joint View Details

03 Sep 2024
Research & Ideas

Is It Even Possible to Dam the Flow of Misleading Content Online?

As a polarizing US presidential election nears, moderating controversial content on social media poses a pressing problem for tech giants. But no matter how many employees they hire, lines of code they write, or new content policies they... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Information Technology; Technology

19 Jan 2010
News

Dizzying fall from grace

February 2022
Supplement

Agora (B)

By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Tom Quinn

This is the conclusion to Agora (A), where founder Elsa Sze decides if she wants to continue investing energy in her civic technology startup.
Agora was a civic technology (civic tech) startup founded by Elsa Sze, who wanted to enhance the connection between... View Details

Keywords: Civic Technology; Government Administration; Conferences; Business Startups; Business Strategy

2012
Article

Do Voters Demand Responsive Governments? Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief

By: Shawn Cole, Andrew Healy and Eric Werker

Using rainfall, public relief, and election data from India, we examine how governments respond to adverse shocks and how voters react to these responses. The data show that voters punish the incumbent party for weather events beyond its control. However, fewer voters... View Details

Keywords: Political Elections; System Shocks; Natural Disasters; Policy; Motivation and Incentives; Public Opinion; India

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2024
Working Paper

Voting Rules, Turnout, and Economic Policies

By: Enrico Cantoni, Vincent Pons and Jérôme Schäfer

In recent years, voter ID laws and convenience voting have generated heated partisan debates. To shed light on these policy issues, we survey the recent evidence on the institutional determinants and effects of voter turnout and broaden the perspective beyond the most... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Political Elections; Policy

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August 2018 (Revised April 2023)
Case

Facebook—Can Ethics Scale in the Digital Age?

By: George A. Riedel and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Since its founding in 2004, Facebook has built a phenomenally successful business at global scale to become the fifth most valuable public company in the world. The revelation of Cambridge Analytica events in March 2018, where 78 million users' information was leaked... View Details

Keywords: Facebook; Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Trust; Business Model; Corporate Accountability; Social Media

November 2001 (Revised February 2002)
Background Note

Note on Tax and Accounting Treatment of Restricted Stock Awards, Nonqualified Stock Options, and Incentive Stock Options and the Securities Law Applicable Thereto

Outlines the tax and accounting treatment of restricted stock awards, nonqualified stock options, and incentive stock options, including the effect of making a Section 83(b) election for unvested stock. View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Taxation; Accounting

February 2019 (Revised March 2021)
Case

India: State Capacity and Unity in Diversity

By: Alberto Cavallo, Matthew Weinzierl and Robert Scherf

As 2018 drew to a close, India prepared to once again carry out the largest democratic exercise in human history, as in less than six months more than 850 million eligible voters would have the chance to choose their representatives to the Lok Sabha—the country’s lower... View Details

Keywords: Political Elections; Government and Politics; Leadership; Public Opinion; India

14 Jun 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Expressive Voting and Its Cost: Evidence from Runoffs with Two or Three Candidates

Keywords: by Vincent Pons and Clémence Tricaud

04 Sep 2019
Research & Ideas

'I Know Why You Voted for Trump' and Other Motivation Misperceptions

political spectrum assumed, according to a July article in Cognition, “I Know Why You Voted for Trump: (Over)inferring Motives Based on Choice.” In the survey of about 300 voters, Trump voters were asked how important certain View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

October 2020
Article

Patronage and Selection in Public Sector Organizations

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Mounu Prem and Edoardo Teso

In all modern bureaucracies, politicians retain some discretion in public employment decisions, which may lead to frictions in the selection process if political connections substitute for individual competence. Relying on detailed matched employer-employee data on the... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Selection and Staffing; Political Elections; Public Sector; Brazil

29 Jan 2015
Op-Ed

The Fall of Greece

Professor of Business Administration and a native of Greece, offers his insights into what the election means for the country. Many people ask me what the recent elections in Greece mean for the Greek... View Details

Keywords: by George Serafeim

March 2006 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Rwanda: National Economic Transformation

By: Michael E. Porter, Kaia Miller, Michael McCreless, Kjell Carlsson, Jem Hudson and Haviland Sheldahl-Thomason

Set in the year 2004, when Rwanda commemorated the 10th anniversary of a genocide that had claimed the lives of over 10% of its population. Focuses on the formulation of an economic strategy to rebuild the economy and its institutions after the devastation. Rwanda, one... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Developing Countries and Economies; Policy; Government Administration; Crisis Management; Strategy; Rwanda