Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,863)
- Faculty Publications (554)
- August 2009
- Case
The TSMC Way: Meeting Customer Needs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
By: Willy C. Shih, Chen-Fu Chien, Chintay Shih and Jack Chang
When L.C. Tu receives an emergency order, he is confronted with a range of production scheduling choices, each of which has unique costs and trade-offs. The case was designed to help students understand job-shop style production and the impact of disruptions and... View Details
- July 2009 (Revised June 2011)
- Case
Dharavi: Developing Asia's Largest Slum (A)
By: Lakshmi Iyer, John D. Macomber and Namrata Arora
Maharashtra state is accepting bids to redevelop Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia. A real estate developer assesses the risks and tenders a bid. The bid conditions include providing new free housing to tens of thousands of slum dwellers, which is anticipated to be... View Details
- 2009
- Chapter
Do Private Equity-owned Firms Have Better Management Practices?
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from over 4,000 medium sized manufacturing firms across Asia, Europe and the US. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with firm-level performance (e.g. productivity,... View Details
- June 2009
- Journal Article
Taxes, Institutions and Foreign Diversification Opportunities
By: Mihir Desai and Dhammika Dharmapala
Investors can access foreign diversification opportunities through either foreign portfolio investment (FPI) or foreign direct investment (FDI). The worldwide tax regime employed by the U.S. potentially distorts this choice by penalizing FDI, relative to FPI, in... View Details
- 2009
- Chapter
Plant-Size Distribution and Cross-Country Income Differences
By: Laura Alfaro, Andrew Charlton and Fabio Kanczuk
We investigate, using plant-level data for 79 developed and developing countries, whether differences in the allocation of resources across heterogeneous plants are a significant determinant of cross-country differences in income per worker. For this purpose, we use a... View Details
- March 2009
- Case
Barbara Norris: Leading Change in the General Surgery Unit
By: Boris Groysberg, Nitin Nohria and Deborah Bell
Barbara Norris struggles to address the many problems facing her as a recently promoted nurse manager in the General Surgery Unit (GSU) at Eastern Massachusetts University Hospital (EMU). She has inherited a unit with the lowest employee satisfaction scores and highest... View Details
- 2009
- Other Unpublished Work
Steering Monetary Policy Through Unprecedented Crises
By: David Moss and Cole Bolton
In early April 2008, economic conditions in Europe appeared to be deteriorating on almost all fronts: sales figures were falling, business and consumer confidence were slumping, forecasts for European growth were being revised downward, and inflation was rising. In... View Details
- February 2009
- Journal Article
Domestic Effects of the Foreign Activities of U.S. Multinationals
By: Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James R. Hines Jr.
Do firms investing abroad simultaneously reduce their domestic activity? This paper analyzes the relationship between the domestic and foreign operations of American manufacturing firms between 1982 and 2004 by instrumenting for changes in foreign operations with GDP... View Details
- February 2009
- Article
Optimal Reserve Management and Sovereign Debt
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
Most models currently used to determine optimal foreign reserve holdings take the level of international debt as given. However, given the sovereign's willingness-to-pay incentive problems, reserve accumulation may reduce sustainable debt levels. In addition, assuming... View Details
- January 2009 (Revised October 2011)
- Case
Barack Obama and the Bush Tax Cuts (A)
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Eric D. Werker
As his inauguration approached, President-elect Obama faced a financial sector meltdown, a costly bailout, and massive government deficits. With the economy in recession, interest rates near zero, and joblessness on the rise, Obama needed to decide whether, and how... View Details
- January 2009 (Revised May 2011)
- Case
China Mobile's Rural Communications Strategy
By: William C. Kirby, F. Warren McFarlan, G.A. Donovan and Tracy Manty
China Mobile was the world's leading mobile communications service provider with over 400 million customers. In some cities, its penetration rate was over 100%. With such huge successes, Chairman Wang Jianzhou was exploring ways to expand its customer base. Nearly... View Details
- January 2009 (Revised July 2009)
- Case
Alibaba's Taobao (A)
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Julie M. Wulf
This case examines the decision of Alibaba Group to diversify from an international business-to-business (B2B) exchange (Alibaba.com) into a B2C and C2C exchange (Taobao.com) for Chinese retailers and consumers. In China, Taobao had managed to displace the once... View Details
- 2009
- Article
India Transformed: Insights from the Firm Level 1988–2007
By: Laura Alfaro and Anusha Chari
Using firm-level data, this paper analyzes the transformation of India's economic structure following the implementation of economic reforms. The focus of the study is on publicly listed and unlisted firms from across a wide spectrum of manufacturing and services... View Details
- 2008
- Other Unpublished Work
Are Private Equity Firms Better Managed?
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from over 4,000 medium sized manufacturing firms across Asia, Europe and the US. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with firm-level performance (e.g. productivity,... View Details
- November 2008 (Revised April 2010)
- Case
Youth Villages
By: Allen S. Grossman, Cathy Ross and William Foster
Tennessee-based nonprofit Youth Villages had an impressive record of serving emotionally and behaviorally troubled youth and their families, with higher success rates and lower costs than most child services providers. Yet expanding to offer its services on a broader... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised June 2011)
- Case
JetBlue Airways: Managing Growth
By: Robert S. Huckman and Gary P. Pisano
Considers the situation facing David Barger, President and CEO of JetBlue Airways, in May 2007 as he addresses the airline's need to slow its growth rate in the response to increasing fuel costs and the effects of major operational crisis for the airline in February... View Details
- September 2008 (Revised August 2009)
- Case
Columbus Tubing: Steel is Real
By: Daniel C. Snow, Gary P. Pisano, Elena Corsi and Gudrun Urfalino Kristinsdottir
Columbus Tubing must choose to improve an old technology (steel) or to develop a new material (carbon fiber). The decision must take into account a complicated context: increased demand for the "old" steel products made in Italy, increasing power of carbon fiber... View Details
- fall 2008
- Article
The Intermediation of Financial Risks: Evolution in the Catastrophe Reinsurance Market
By: Kenneth A. Froot
In this paper, I provide evidence concerning the imperfections in the reinsurance market. I try to get at some of the root causes of these imperfections, e.g., the behavior of ratings firms and the agency problems associated with the corporate form of ownership. I also... View Details
- August 2008 (Revised August 2009)
- Case
Lan Airlines in 2008: Connecting the World to Latin America
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Jorge Tarzijan and Mitchel Jordan
Lan Airlines operates three distinct models: low-cost for domestic short-haul flights, full-service for international routes; and an international cargo business, the latter of which makes up 33% of Lan's overall revenues (markedly different from many U.S. legacy... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Firm-Size Distribution and Cross-Country Income Differences
By: Laura Alfaro, Andrew Charlton and Fabio Kanczuk
We investigate, using plant-level data for 79 developed and developing countries, whether differences in the allocation of resources across heterogeneous plants are a significant determinant of cross-country differences in income per worker. For this purpose, we use a... View Details