Publications

March 2004 (Revised June 2004)
Case

Blackout: August 14, 2003

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Ryland Matthew Willis

On August 14, 2003, an electricity blackout cascaded throughout the northeastern United States and Canada. Describes the structure, technology, and economics of the electric utility industry and how gradual deregulation beginning in the 1970s placed unprecedented, and... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Performance Improvement; Infrastructure; Energy Sources; Business and Government Relations; Networks; Emerging Markets; Failure; Economics; Utilities Industry; Canada; Northeastern United States

December 2003 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Dragon's Teeth Vineyards

By: Alan D. MacCormack, Marius Leibold, Sven Voelpel and Kerry Herman

Dragon's Teeth Vineyards (DTV) is a South African wine producer that is considering whether to use genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in its wine-making process. GMOs promise to lower the costs of wine production significantly through increased yields and reduced... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Genetics; Transition; Brands and Branding; Product Development; Product Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Technology Adoption; Food and Beverage Industry; Biotechnology Industry; South Africa

April 1999 (Revised March 2002)
Background Note

Aluminum Industry in 1994, The

After reaching all-time highs in excess of $2,500 per ton in 1988 and 1989, aluminum prices fall dramatically in the early 1990s as the former Soviet Union begins exporting far larger quantities of metal. By the beginning of 1994, the price has hit all-time lows (in... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Price; Supply and Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Soviet Union

January 1990 (Revised September 1994)
Case

Cray Research, Inc.: Preparing for the 1990s

By: Francis Aguilar

Describes the major changes Cray Research faced from 1985 (the time of the original case) to 1990. The dramatic decision to divide the company into two separate firms sets the stage for an analysis of the major strategic and organizational challenges facing senior... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Management Systems; Change Management; Technology Adoption; Business Units; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Management Teams; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology

23 Sep 2014
HBS Seminar

Mariano Tappata, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia

V.G. Narayanan

Professor Narayanan is the Thomas D. Casserly, Jr. Professor of Business Administration, and Senior Associate Dean of Executive Education and HBS Online. His research focuses on management accounting with an interest in performance evaluation and incentives... View Details

Keywords: accounting industry; banking; service industry; telecommunications; health care

11 Apr 2023
Op-Ed

The First 90 Hours: What New CEOs Should—and Shouldn't—Do to Set the Right Tone

gesture won‘t have inconvenienced or offended anyone. Alternatively, identify an investment that costs little but impacts everyone positively. For example, you could replace the worn out, old-fashioned carpeting in all the public spaces... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

10 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior

Keywords: by Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Michael I. Norton & Elizabeth W. Dunn

November 1996 (Revised February 1997)
Case

Historical Society of Pennsylvania, The

By: Stephen A. Greyser and Stephanie L. Woerner

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) runs one of the nation's most important research libraries and a museum focusing on colonial history. Financial analysis shows that the society has absorbed increased costs of operation over the past decade through slow but... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Cost; Human Resources; Leadership Style; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Managerial Roles; Mission and Purpose; Corporate Strategy; Pennsylvania

Winter 2019
Article

Value-based Health Care: Lessons for the Anesthesiologist

By: J.A. Martin, B.L. Potter, T.F. Flanagan and T.W. Feeley

At one point or another in our life, we all become consumers of the health care industry. Indeed, health care affects everyone and encompasses a diverse set of services from childbirth, to illness prevention, to the management of chronic disease and end-of-life care.... View Details

Keywords: Value-based Health Care; Anesthesiologists; Health Care and Treatment; Value; Cost Management; Problems and Challenges; Health Industry; United States

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22 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Forgiving Student Loan Debt Leads to Better Jobs, Stronger Consumers

income, and Sen. Bernie Sanders has pushed for eliminating undergraduate tuition and fees at public colleges and universities. Di Maggio is careful to note that his team did not study the costs of any debt-relief proposal. But it’s clear... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Research Summary

The Real Effects of Capital Controls: Financial Constraints, Exporters, and Firm Investment

By: Laura Alfaro

In aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, emerging-market governments have increasingly restricted foreign capital inflows. The data show a statistically significant drop in cumulative abnormal returns for Brazilian firms following capital control... View Details

January 2024
Article

Fencing Off Silicon Valley: Cross-Border Venture Capital and Technology Spillovers

By: Ufuk Akcigit, Sina T. Ates, Josh Lerner, Richard Townsend and Yulia Zhestkova

The treatment of foreign investors is a contentious topic in U.S. entrepreneurship policy. We model a setting where foreign corporate investments in Silicon Valley may allow U.S. entrepreneurs to pursue technologies that they could not otherwise, but may also lead to... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Corporate Venture Capital; Knowledge Spillovers; Foreign Direct Investment; Innovation and Invention; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Policy

SSRN

2023
Working Paper

The Economic and Environmental Effects of Making Electricity Infrastructure Excludable

By: Husnain Fateh Ahmad, Ayesha Ali, Robyn C. Meeks, Zhenxuan Wang and Javed Younas

Electricity theft occurs when individuals cannot be excluded from accessing services. We study the impacts of an infrastructure upgrade in Karachi, Pakistan -- converting bare distribution wires to aerial bundled cables (ABCs) -- that was intended to prevent illegal... View Details

Keywords: Infrastructure; Energy; Environmental Sustainability; Utilities Industry; Pakistan

SSRN

July 2024
Article

JUE Insight: Infrastructure and Finance: Evidence from India's GQ Highway Network

By: Abhiman Das, Ejaz Ghani, Arti Grover, William Kerr and Ramana Nanda

We use data from Reserve Bank of India to study the impact of India's Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) highway project on finance-dependent activity. Loan volumes increase by 20-30% in districts along GQ and are stronger in industries more dependent upon external finance.... View Details

Keywords: Highways; Finance; Development; Infrastructure; Banks and Banking; Transportation Networks; Financing and Loans; Growth and Development; India

May 2023
Article

Gentrification and Retail Churn: Theory and Evidence

By: Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca and Erica Moszkowski

How does gentrification transform neighborhood retail amenities? This paper presents a model in which gentrification harms incumbent residents by increasing rental costs and by eliminating distinctive local stores. While rising rents can be offset with targeted... View Details

Keywords: Gentrification; Neighborhoods; Impact; Local Range; Transition; Civil Society or Community; Welfare; Economic Growth

Article

When Hiring CEOs, Focus on Character

By: Aiyesha Dey

The author, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, has studied the ways in which the lifestyle behaviors of CEOs—in particular, materialism and a propensity for rule breaking—may spell trouble for a company. Her research, which includes looking at... View Details

Keywords: CEOs; Lifestyle; Risk Management; Recruitment; Ethics

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Article

The Value of Intermediation in the Stock Market

By: Marco Di Maggio, Mark Egan and Francesco Franzoni

We estimate a structural model of broker choice to quantitatively decompose the value that institutional investors attach to broker services. Studying over 300 million institutional equity trades, we find that investors are sensitive to both explicit and implicit... View Details

Keywords: Financial Intermediation; Institutional Investors; Research Analysts; Broker Networks; Equity Trading; Institutional Investing

2021
Working Paper

Who Closed the Schools?

By: Joshua D. Coval

This paper examines the differences in characteristics between U.S. public schools that opted for virtual instruction because of COVID-19, and schools that did not. Much of the variation can be explained by measures of the degree to which districts favored teachers... View Details

Keywords: Public Education; COVID-19; Virtual Learning; Education; Health Pandemics; Teaching; Internet and the Web; Policy; Outcome or Result; United States