Publications

March 2001 (Revised April 2002)
Case

Ginzel et al v. Kolcraft Enterprises et al (A)

By: Michael A. Wheeler

Examines the wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of an infant who died after a portable crib collapsed. The manufacturer, Kolcraft, licensed the Playskool brand name from the co-defendant, Hasbro Industries. Raises difficult questions about what the two... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Product; Negotiation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Lawsuits and Litigation; Legal Liability; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; United States

May 2009 (Revised August 2013)
Case

The DiagnoFirst Opportunity

By: Robert C. Pozen and Rukmini Balu

John Mason, a principle at Oldwell Partners, was facing a decision of whether or not to invest in DiagnoFirst, a molecular diagnostics firm. DiagnoFirst's key product was a genetic test that identified a subset of prostate cancer patients with a high risk of clinical... View Details

Keywords: Genetic Engineering; Genetically Modified; Genomics; Venture Capital; Patents; Genetics; Decision Choices and Conditions; Laws and Statutes; Investment; Science-Based Business; Biotechnology Industry

03 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Lehman Brothers Plus Five: Have We Learned from Our Mistakes?

weakening the conditions of credit supply (especially in a slowly recovering economy) and improving the soundness of the financial system. The interaction between regulators View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Banking; Financial Services; Construction; Real Estate

01 Apr 2002
News

University Elections

Pilkington & Ward LLP. New York, NY. Frances D. Fergusson, MA ’66, Ph.D. ’73; BA ’65, Wellesley College. President, Vassar College. Poughkeepsie, NY. William F. Lee, AB ’72; JD ’76, Cornell Law School; MBA ’76, Cornell University.... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools

February 1979 (Revised December 1983)
Case

Allied Chemical Corp. (A)

By: George C. Lodge and Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.

Describes Allied, the chemical industry, and the effects of the Kepone problem (a toxic pesticide dumped into the James River) as of 1976. The executive in the case must decide whether the company should support the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act and an... View Details

Keywords: Pollutants; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Decision Making; Laws and Statutes; Welfare; Legal Liability; Business and Government Relations; Chemical Industry

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December 2019 (Revised June 2024)
Case

The Dutch East India Company in 1612 (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci

The Dutch East India Company’s board of directors must decide what to do about an impending legal requirement to liquidate the company’s assets and return to shareholders their capital and any profits earned during a ten-year lock-up period. The charter granted to the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Globalized Firms and Management; Organizational Structure; Laws and Statutes; Financial Markets; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Government Relations; Business History; Shipping Industry; Netherlands

April 2021
Exercise

Valuing Employment Exercise

By: George Serafeim, Ethan Rouen and Katie Panella

The Valuing Employment exercise can be used to show the importance of impact measurement in designing incentives and contracts. The exercise has two phases. In the first phase, participants play the role of managers at the State of Massachusetts Infrastructure... View Details

Keywords: Bid Evaluation; Workforce; Impact Measurement; Bids and Bidding; Contracts; Design; Measurement and Metrics

August 2023
Article

Taking Stock of the Implementation Gap in Climate Policy

By: Taryn Fransen, Jonas Meckling, Anna Stunzi, Tobias Schmidt, Florian Egli, Nicolas Schmid and Christopher Beaton

A gap persists between the emissions reductions pledged by countries under the Paris Agreement and those resulting from their domestic policies. We argue that this gap in fact contains two parts: one in the policies that countries adopt, and the other in the outcomes... View Details

Keywords: Emission Reduction; Outcome or Result; Policy; Environmental Regulation; Equality and Inequality

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February 2003 (Revised April 2012)
Case

Sheila Mason & Craig Shepherd

Describes a marketing executive and an engineer who are starting a company together. Each is still at his/her former employer, and each has signed a different employment agreement that, on paper, may prohibit soliciting customers or employees. Focuses on how... View Details

Keywords: Resignation and Termination; Intellectual Property; Contracts; Legal Liability; Entrepreneurship; Ethics

January 2014
Article

Randomized Tax Enforcement Messages: A Policy Tool for Improving Audit Strategies

By: Dina Pomeranz, Cristobal Marshall and Pamela Castellon

Reducing tax evasion is a key challenge for governments around the world, particularly in developing countries. This paper presents a methodology to generate information to optimize audit strategies. Randomly selected taxpayers receive a deterrence message. Comparing... View Details

Keywords: Lawfulness; Taxation; Chile

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2020
Chapter

Health Care Markets a Decade After the ACA: Bigger, but Probably Not Better

By: Leemore S. Dafny

Love it or hate it, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) embraced and extended the role of private markets in financing and delivering health care in the United States. Ten years after the ACA’s passage, it is unclear whether health care markets are better (along a range of... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Markets; Laws and Statutes; Outcome or Result; Health Industry; United States

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2014
Article

Delaware's Choice

By: Guhan Subramanian

This article first documents the shift to annual elections of all directors at most U.S. corporations and argues that the alternative of "ineffective" staggered boards would have been more desirable, as a policy matter, but is now a missed opportunity. Using this... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Laws and Statutes; Policy; Delaware

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April 2011
Case

Hermitage's Russian Quandary (A)

By: Eric Werker, Ray Fisman and Lauren Weber

In June 2007, the offices of Russian hedge fund Hermitage Capital were raided by Moscow police; in the months that followed, Hermitage founder Bill Browder found himself banned from Russia and fending off efforts to expropriate the fund's Russian assets. This case... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Private Equity; Investment; Law Enforcement; Laws and Statutes; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Business and Government Relations; Financial Services Industry; Moscow

23 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Corporate Sustainability Reporting: It’s Effective

better have transparency around these issues," he says. "If regulators care about these issues, they should ask companies to disclose their performance around them, and if companies want to change the way... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

01 Jun 2010
News

Paulson Advocates Regulatory Reform

lot better than the alternative. We would have had a disaster on the order of the Great Depression.” Paulson proposed two key reforms. The first would be the creation of a systemic risk regulator to monitor markets View Details

Keywords: federal bailouts; Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles; Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles; Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles; Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles

Ronnie Screwvala

Keywords: Media; Entertainment; Diversified

April 2009 (Revised March 2010)
Background Note

Restructuring Distressed Companies -- Cross-National Comparisons

By: William E. Fruhan

This note describes briefly bankruptcy regimes and out of court restructuring in 5 countries, the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France and Japan. View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Laws and Statutes