Publications

Jul 2012
Article

A Better Way to Tax U.S. Businesses

The U.S. corporate tax code is broken. High rates and perverse incentives drive capital away from the corporate sector and toward other uses and countries. This is bad news for U.S. workers, because corporations aren't making investments... View Details

17 Nov 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Sovereign Risk, Currency Risk, and Corporate Balance Sheets

Keywords: by Wenxin Du and Jesse Schreger

December 2013 (Revised April 2014)
Case

Seeding Growth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

By: Ray Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Djordjija Petkoski

By 2013, the agricultural sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had long suffered from war, political instability, and dilapidated infrastructure. A country with 75 million inhabitants and the second lowest GDP per capita in the world in 2011, the DRC's... View Details

Keywords: National Agricultural Investment Plan (PNIA); Developing Agriculture; World Bank; Poverty Reduction; Special Economic Zones (SEZs); Small-scale Farmers; Agricultural Business Parks; Agriculture Reform; Agribusiness; Economic Growth; Infrastructure; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa; Congo, Democratic Republic of the

October 2012 (Revised October 2012)
Case

Malaysia: Standing on a Single Leaf

By: Diego Comin, Maurice Kuykendoll and Monne Williams

The case discusses the development of palm oil in Malaysia. This experience provides important insights about when and how government intervention can be successful in developing new sectors in the economy. View Details

Keywords: Malaysia; Industrial Policy; Agriculture; Palm Oil; Innovation; Plantations; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business and Government Relations; Innovation and Invention; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Malaysia

08 Nov 2018
Blog Post

Career Choices for the Class of 2018

The Class of 2018 has continued the trend of finding opportunities in diverse sectors across the landscape of MBA hiring, including positions in hospitality, real estate and health care delivery in addition to roles in consulting, private... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

10 May 2016
Other Presentation

Shared Value: A New Global Agenda

By: Michael E. Porter

Harvard Business School's Michael Porter introduces and engages World Bank President Jim Yong Kim in conversation on partnering with the private sector for delivering on global development goals. View Details

Keywords: Shared Value; Collective Impact; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Value; Business and Community Relations; Cooperation; Society

Read Now

Emily McComb is a Senior Lecturer in the Finance Unit at HBS, teaching "Finance 2" in the required curriculum of the MBA program, as well as a co-leader of the HBS Impact Investment Fund in the elective curriculum. Prior to joining the HBS faculty in 2017, Emily was... View Details

Keywords: financial services; health care

August 2023
Case

Quotient

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Matt Higgins

The founders of Quotient, a web-based service for onboarding new engineers, face decisions about how to bring their nascent product to market amidst a tech sector contraction. View Details

Keywords: Engineers; Entrepreneurial Management; Growth; Go-to-market; Product Management; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Product Launch; Market Entry and Exit; Strategy; New York (city, NY); San Francisco

October 2022
Article

Sovereign Risk, Currency Risk, and Corporate Balance Sheets

By: Wenxin Du and Jesse Schreger

We provide a comprehensive account of the evolution of the currency composition of sovereign and corporate external borrowing by emerging markets from 2003 to 2017. We show that a higher reliance on foreign currency debt by the corporate sector is associated with... View Details

Keywords: Currency; International Finance

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06 Nov 2012
News

Stop Talking About the Weather and Do Something: Three Ways to Finance Sustainable Cities

April 2017
Case

China Construction Bank's Transformation

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Nancy Hua Dai

On March 29, 2017, Wang Hongzhang, Chairman of China Construction Bank, was considering the next steps in the bank’s transformation. In the challenging backdrop of economic slowdown, deep structure adjustment, interest rate liberalization, entry of financial players... View Details

Keywords: Banking; China; Financial Institutions; Strategy; Transformation; Banks and Banking; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; China

October 2015
Case

The Maine Food Cluster Project

By: Karen Mills and Aldo Sesia

The Libra Foundation is exploring how to grow the food sector in Maine using the strategy of creating a food cluster initiative. Maine is one of the poorest states in the United States and the food sector is one of the largest employers. Multiple efforts in... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Maine; Vermont; Oregon; Denmark

December 2011
Article

Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?

By: Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval and Christopher J. Malloy

This paper employs a new empirical approach for identifying the impact of government spending on the private sector. Our key innovation is to use changes in congressional committee chairmanship as a source of exogenous variation in state-level federal expenditures. In... View Details

Keywords: Spending; Private Sector; Taxation; Innovation and Invention; Interest Rates; Business and Government Relations; Investment; Employment; Power and Influence

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31 May 2022
Cold Call Podcast

Corruption: New Insights for Fighting an Age-Old Business Problem

Keywords: Re: Tarun Khanna & Geoffrey G. Jones

12 Jul 2015
News

Australia's Still Too Expensive for Manufacturing, Even After Currency Drop

06 Nov 2017
News

Who is Responsible for the Future of Cities?

January 2017
Case

Exotic Interest Rate Swaps: Snowballs in Portugal

By: Boris Vallee, Patrick Augustin and Philippe Rich

This case explores a complex swap transaction implemented by Metro do Porto in 2007. It represents an opportunity to study fixed income derivative instruments, such as plain-vanilla swaps and structured swaps, as well as understand the opportunities and challenges of... View Details

Keywords: Swaps; Public Finance; Structured Finance; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Public Sector; Transportation Industry; Rail Industry; Portugal

2023
Working Paper

Crowding in Private Quality: The Equilibrium Effects of Public Spending in Education

By: Tahir Andrabi, Natalie Bau, Jishnu Das, Asim Ijaz Khwaja and Naureen Karachiwalla

We estimate the equilibrium effects of a public-school grant program administered through school councils in Pakistani villages with multiple public and private schools and clearly defined catchment boundaries. The program was randomized at the village-level, allowing... View Details

Keywords: Product Differentiation; Public Sector; Private Sector; Spending; Education; Competition

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November 2007
Background Note

Asset Allocation I

By: Joshua D. Coval, Erik Stafford, Rodrigo Osmo, John Jernigan, Zack Page and Paulo Passoni

The goal of these simulations is to understand the mathematics of mean-variance optimization and the equilibrium pricing of risk if all investors use this rule with common information sets. Simulation A focuses on five to 10 years of monthly sector returns that are... View Details

Keywords: Asset Pricing; Capital; Investment Return; Risk Management; Mathematical Methods