Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,073)
- Faculty Publications (511)
- February 2016
- Case
BancoSol and Microfinance in Bolivia
By: Rajiv Lal and Annelena Lobb
BancoSol, a microfinance bank headquartered in La Paz, Bolivia, was forced to adjust its lending strategy and business model because of a regulatory change—60% of the bank's lending portfolio would have to move to the productive sector of the Bolivian economy by 2018,... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
The Integrity of Private Third-party Compliance Monitoring
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Government agencies are increasingly turning to private, third-party monitors to inspect and assess regulated entities’ compliance with law. The integrity of these regulatory regimes rests on the validity of the information third-party monitors provide to regulators.... View Details
Keywords: Regulation; Compliance; Compliance Policies; Conflict Of Interest; Independent Third Party; Inspection; Audit Quality; Auditor; Audit; Environment; Production; Supply Chain; Quality; Government Administration; Working Conditions; Safety; Labor; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Governance Compliance; Manufacturing Industry; Public Administration Industry; Accounting Industry; Service Industry; United States
- October 2015
- Case
Clearwater Seafoods
Clearwater sought to market value-added shellfish products in a traditionally commodities based industry, while facing supply uncertainties and regulatory, environmental, and foreign exchange challenges. Clearwater harvested lobsters, clams, scallops, shrimp, and other... View Details
- June 2015 (Revised November 2016)
- Case
HealthCare.gov: The Crash and the Fix (A)
By: Leonard A. Schlesinger and Paras D. Bhayani
A review of the process utilized by the Obama administration to create the Health Care.gov exchange and the problems that resulted from the implementation effort. There is a B case that provides the follow on strategy and processes utilized to get the site up and... View Details
Keywords: Organizational Change; Implementing Strategy; Implementation; Government Innovation; Health Care Industry; Health Care Reform; Health Care and Treatment; Government Administration; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Health Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States
- April 2015 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
Japan's Missing Arrow?
By: Laura Alfaro and Hilary White
In late December 2014, Shinzo Abe was elected to another term as the prime minister of Japan. His re-election was largely interpreted as a vote of confidence for his economics policies, collectively referred to as "Abenomics." Comprised of three "arrows," including... View Details
Keywords: Currency; Bonds; Government Bonds; Government Debt; Public Finance; Quantitative Easing; Stimulus; Fiscal Policy; Fiscal Deficits; Debt Management; Debt Reduction; Abenomics; Exchange Rate; Exports; Reform; Economics; Macroeconomics; Policy; Government Legislation; Government and Politics; Asia; Japan
- March 2014 (Revised June 2015)
- Case
Can Mexico Make Democracy Work?
By: Gunnar Trumbull and Jonathan Schlefer
Enrique Peña Nieto, the presidential candidate of the old Mexican ruling party elected in 2012, passed the most fundamental reforms in at least two decades. They included allowing private competition in the energy sector, including with the state-owned oil company,... View Details
Keywords: Democratization; Economic Development; Competition Policy; Exchange Rates; Comparative Advantage; Growth and Development; Government Legislation; Political Elections; Economic Growth; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Energy Industry; Communications Industry; Banking Industry; Latin America; Mexico
- Article
Anger and Regulation
By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra
We study a model in which agents experience anger when they see a firm that has displayed insufficient concern for the welfare of its clients (i.e., altruism) making high profits. Regulation can increase welfare, for example, through fines (even with no changes in... View Details
- October 2013
- Article
How Firms Respond to Mandatory Information Disclosure
By: Anil R. Doshi, Glen W.S. Dowell and Michael W. Toffel
Mandatory information disclosure regulations seek to create institutional pressure to spur performance improvement. By examining how organizational characteristics moderate establishments' responses to a prominent environmental information disclosure program, we... View Details
- May–June 2013
- Article
Can Global Brands Create Just Supply Chains? Response: Promoting Political Mobilization
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Codes of conduct indicate that working conditions are improving overall at the factories being monitored by multinational corporations, and that these codes of conduct also create possibilities for political mobilization that can improve labor conditions more broadly. View Details
Keywords: Regulation; Auditing; Labor Relations; Occupational Safety; Environmental Operations; Environmental Regulation; Employees; Labor; Labor and Management Relations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Manufacturing Industry; China; Bangladesh; India; Honduras; Nicaragua; Pakistan; Guatemala; Malaysia; Viet Nam
- February 2013
- Article
An Activity-Generating Theory of Regulation
By: Joshua Schwartzstein and Andrei Shleifer
We propose an activity-generating theory of regulation. When courts make errors, tort litigation becomes unpredictable and as such imposes risk on firms, thereby discouraging entry, innovation, and other socially desirable activity. When social returns to activity are... View Details
- September 2012 (Revised September 2015)
- Case
Doing Business in India
By: Andy Zelleke, Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Saloni Chaturvedi
The case is set in August 2012—a time when India was undergoing policy stasis as several key reforms were stalled and the government faced allegations of misallocation of coal production licenses. The first part of the case provides a brief background on India's... View Details
- August 2012 (Revised September 2013)
- Case
EnerNOC: DemandSMART
By: Michael W. Toffel, Kira Fabrizio and Stephanie van Sice
EnerNOC is an energy company with an innovative business model: it serves as an intermediary between electric utilities and electricity users. It contracts with electricity users willing to reduce demand during periods of peak energy demand, and sells this as excess... View Details
Keywords: Production Planning; Productivity; Environmental Protection; Energy; Environment; Business Government Relations; Laws And Regulation; Business Model; Environmental Sustainability; Innovation and Invention; Opportunities; Risk and Uncertainty; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Supply Chain Management; Production; Energy Conservation; Energy Industry
- Article
Regulation and UK Retailing Productivity: Evidence from Microdata
By: Jonathan Haskel and Raffaella Sadun
We explore the effects of planning regulation on the UK retail sector between 1997 and 2003 using micro-data from the UK census. We document a shift to smaller shops following a 1996 regulatory change that increased the costs of opening large stores. Our analysis... View Details
- June 2012 (Revised August 2012)
- Case
MF Global: Where's the Money?
By: Clayton S. Rose, Pamela Chan and Raghav Chopra
When MF Global failed in October of 2011, it was discovered that $1.6 billion of segregated customer assets was missing. Safeguarding these assets was the firm's responsibility, and in the words of one SEC official, its "sacred obligation." What is known about the... View Details
- 2012
- Article
Hiring Cheerleaders: Board Appointments of 'Independent' Directors
By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher Malloy
We provide evidence that firms appoint independent directors who are overly sympathetic to management, while still technically independent according to regulatory definitions. We explore a subset of independent directors for whom we have detailed, micro-level data on... View Details
- May 18, 2012
- Article
Randomized Government Safety Inspections Reduce Worker Injuries with No Detectable Job Loss
By: David I Levine, Michael W. Toffel and Matthew S. Johnson
Controversy surrounds occupational health and safety regulators, with some observers claiming that workplace regulations damage firms' competitiveness and destroy jobs and others arguing that they make workplaces safer at little cost to employers and employees. We... View Details
- March 2012 (Revised February 2013)
- Background Note
The Hybrid Vehicle Market
By: Michael W. Toffel and Nazli Z. Uludere Aragon
This note describes the hybrid electic vehicle market, the results of different automaker strategies, and the environmental regulatory issues that can promote or inhibit market growth in the United States. Introduces students to the technologies and regulatory aspects... View Details
- February 2012
- Article
Management Practices across Firms and Countries
By: Nicholas Bloom, Christos Genakos, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
For the last decade we have been using double-blind survey techniques and randomized sampling to construct management data on over 10,000 organizations across 20 countries. On average, we find that in manufacturing American, Japanese, and German firms are the best... View Details
Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Competency and Skills; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Organizations; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Sectors; Performance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Private Equity; Multinational Firms and Management; United States; Germany; Japan; China; India