Publications

February 2016 (Revised May 2016)
Case

Blue Origin, NASA, and New Space (A)

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Angela Acocella

Jeff Bezos, six years after starting a revolution in retailing with Amazon.com, turned his life-long passion for space into a start-up, Blue Origin. Blue (as it was called) was a part of the New Space industry, a collection of startup aerospace engineering companies... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Partners and Partnerships; Transportation; Business Startups; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations; Aerospace Industry

Web

Human Behavior & Decision-Making - Faculty & Research

their origins about three decades ago, the Behavioral Science areas of economics, ethics and managerial psychology have been rapidly evolving. In the 1980's and 1990's, early work by Max Bazerman in judgment and negotiation , View Details

Jun 18 2018
Testimonial

Leaving Your Comfort Zone

October 2011 (Revised October 2011)
Supplement

Barack Obama and the Bush Tax Cuts (B)

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Jacob Kuipers

President Obama signs a major fiscal stimulus package and then must debate whether to extend the Bush tax cuts.
Instructors may also obtain a Teaching Note, written by this case supplement's author, that provides suggestions for using this case supplement... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Government and Politics; United States

July 2005 (Revised September 2020)
Case

The U.S. Current Account Deficit

By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael Di Tella, Ingrid Vogel, Renee Kim, Sarah Jeong, Matthew Johnson and Jonathan Schlefer

Investors and policymakers throughout the world were confronted with the risk of painful economic consequences arising from the large U.S. current account deficit. In 2007, the U.S. current account deficit was $731 billion, equivalent to 5.3% of GDP. The implications... View Details

Keywords: World Economy; Macroeconomics; Borrowing and Debt; Currency; Foreign Direct Investment; Business and Government Relations; United States

Web

Bankruptcy | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

Library Search Search Search Lehman Brothers: 1850 - 2008 Exhibition Bankruptcy By 2008, Lehman Brothers was massively invested in mortgage-backed securities. Erin Callan Montella, appointed CFO in late 2007, says she quickly “came to... View Details

March 2011 (Revised June 2016)
Case

Hungary: Economic Crisis and a Shift to the Right

By: Rafael M. Di Tella, Matthew C. Weinzierl and Jacob Kuipers

Instructors may also obtain a Teaching Note, written by this case's author, that provides suggestions for using this case effectively in the classroom. View Details

Keywords: Economics; Financial Crisis; Hungary

Article

Space, the Final Economic Frontier

By: Matthew C. Weinzierl

After decades of centralized control of economic activity in space, NASA and U.S. policymakers have begun to cede the direction of human activities in space to commercial companies. NASA garnered more than 0.7% of GDP in the mid-1960s but is only around 0.1% of GDP... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Economics; Private Sector; Aerospace Industry

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Web

Faculty & Researchers - Managing the Future of Work

School, 2019. With Manjari Raman. Dismissed by Degrees , Report, Harvard Business School, 2017. Room to Grow: Identifying New Frontiers for Apprenticeships , Report, Harvard Business School, 2017. With View Details

March 2020
Article

Governance Through Shame and Aspiration: Index Creation and Corporate Behavior

By: Akash Chattopadhyay, Matthew D. Shaffer and Charles C.Y. Wang

After decades of deprioritizing shareholders' economic interests and low corporate profitability, Japan introduced the JPX-Nikkei400 in 2014. The index highlighted the country's "best-run" companies by annually selecting the 400 most profitable of its large and liquid... View Details

Keywords: JPX-Nikkei 400 Index; Status Incentives; Return On Equity; Capital Efficiency; Social Norms; Index Inclusion; Reputation Incentives; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Behavior; Investment Return; Status and Position; Japan

2025
Book

Space to Grow: Unlocking the Final Economic Frontier

By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau

Your guide--using the compelling stories of changemakers and the tools of economics--to the transformation and future possibilities of the business and economics of space.

Space is a place of unparalleled possibility for humanity, and it's undergoing a... View Details

December 2013 (Revised December 2014)
Case

Reform in the Chicago Public Schools

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Katrina Flanagan

In 2012, the Chicago Teachers' Union went on strike over proposed reforms by the city's mayor, Rahm Emanuel. At the heart of the reforms, and the strike, was frustration over many decades of underperformance in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and a surge of... View Details

Keywords: Public Education; Public Goods; Samuelson Rule; Externalities And Pigouvian Corrections; Tiebout Sorting And Efficiency; Education; Labor Unions; Public Administration Industry; Education Industry; Chicago

October 2014 (Revised September 2017)
Case

The National Football League and Brain Injuries

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Matthew G. Preble

The National Football League (NFL) was both the most popular spectator sport in the U.S. and a major economic entity, taking in roughly $10 billion a year in revenue. However through the early twenty-first century, an increased understanding of the long-term effects of... View Details

Keywords: Employee Safety; Safety; Employees; Sports; Health; Ethics; Sports Industry; United States

23 May 2024
News

HBS After October 7

questions to the panel based on the themes expressed in the more than 300 questions participants had submitted in advance. The conversation featured updates and insights from Jana Pompadur Kierstead, Executive Director, MBA and Doctoral Programs and External Relations;... View Details

01 Mar 2024
News

On the Radar

Illustration by Brian Stauffer Illustration by Brian Stauffer Our planet is teeming with trillions of viruses and bacteria, most of which are innocuous or even helpful, but some pose a significant risk to public health, animals, and crops. In recent decades,... View Details

Keywords: Janine White; Justice, Public Order, and Safety Activities; Government

20 Feb 2017
News

MBAs in space: rocket science absorbs business school thinking

19 May 2015
First Look

First Look: May 19

the conventional financial system and the real economy. Publisher's link: http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.29.2.213 May 2015 Journal of Public Economics De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in Preferences and Optimal Redistribution By: Lockwood,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice

By: N. Gregory Mankiw, Matthew C. Weinzierl and Danny Yagan

We highlight and explain eight lessons from optimal tax theory and compare them to the last few decades of OECD tax policy. As recommended by theory, top marginal income tax rates have declined, marginal income tax schedules have flattened, redistribution has risen... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Theory; Practice; Policy

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February 2015 (Revised August 2019)
Case

Equality of Opportunity and Outcome in the U.S.

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Alastair Su

Equality of opportunity is endorsed universally even though, or more likely because, it can mean such different things to different people. What definition of equality of opportunity ought to figure into policy decisions? How close, or far, is the United States from... View Details

Keywords: Equality Of Opportunity; Justice; Opportunities; Equality and Inequality; Policy; United States