Publications

July 2019
Article

'Forward Flow': A New Measure to Quantify Free Thought and Predict Creativity

By: Kurt Gray, Stephen Anderson, Eric Evan Chen, John Michael Kelly, Michael S. Christian, John Patrick, Laura Huang, Yoed N. Kenett and Kevin Lewis

When the human mind is free to roam, its subjective experience is characterized by a continuously evolving stream of thought. Although there is a technique that captures people’s streams of free thought—free association—its utility for scientific research is undermined... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Creativity; Forecasting and Prediction

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April 2019
Case

Boxed

By: Laura Huang, Andy Wu and Jiayi Bao

Boxed.com (“Boxed”) is an ambitious e-commerce retailer start-up, founded by visionary CEO Chieh Huang in 2013. From starting in Huang’s garage in 2013, to winning Emerging E-Retailer of the Year in 2016, to having 4 operational distribution centers in 2018, Boxed used... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Business Startups; Leadership; Strategy; Success; E-commerce; Retail Industry

03 Aug 2010
First Look

First Look: August 3

Bhaskar Chakravorti and Laura WinigHarvard Business School Case 810-079 When Jonathan Bush and his partner, Todd Park, realized that their revolutionary approach to delivering clinical care was being stymied View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2005
Article

Sovereign Debt As a Contingent Claim: A Quantitative Approach

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

We construct a dynamic equilibrium model with contingent service and adverse selection to quantitatively study sovereign debt. In the model, benefits of defaulting are tempered by higher future interest rates. For a wide set of parameters, the only equilibrium is one... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Interest Rates; Balance and Stability; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Mathematical Methods; Management Style; Segmentation; Debt Securities; Banking Industry

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March 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Case

China: To Float or Not To Float? (D)- Bank of America's Strategic Investment in China Construction Bank

By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel

With its $3 billion investment in Chinese state bank China Construction Bank, Bank of America--the second U.S. bank behind Citigroup in terms of assets and market capitalization--was one of several foreign banks directly participating in China's banking sector reform.... View Details

Keywords: Currency Exchange Rate; Banks and Banking; Foreign Direct Investment; International Relations; Banking Industry; China; United States

Research Summary

Intra-Industry Foreign Direct Investment (joint with Andrew Charlton)

We identify a new type of vertical foreign direct investment (FDI) made up of multinational subsidiaries producing intermediate inputs, which are of similar skill intensity to the final goods produced by their parents, and which are overwhelmingly located in high skill... View Details

07 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: Dec. 7

Simons. By posing these provocative questions, you identify critical gaps in your strategy execution processes, focus on the most important choices you must make, and understand what's at stake in each one. In this concise guide, Simons... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2025
Working Paper

Trade and Industrial Policy in Supply Chains: Directed Technological Change in Rare Earths

By: Laura Alfaro, Harald Fadinger, Jay Schymik and Gede Virananda

Trade and industrial policies, while primarily intended to support domestic industries, may unintentionally stimulate technological progress abroad. We document this mechanism in the case of rare earth elements (REEs)—critical inputs for manufacturing at the knowledge... View Details

Keywords: Industrial Policy; Global Value Chains; Directed Technological Change; Input-output Linkages; Innovation; Trade; Metals and Minerals; Technological Innovation; Supply Chain; Technology Industry

March 2006 (Revised April 2015)
Case

China: To Float or Not To Float? (B)- Timeline of Changes Relevant to the Chinese Renminbi

By: Laura Alfaro and Rafael M. Di Tella

On July 21, 2005 China revalued its decade-long quasi-fixed exchange rate of approximately 8.28 yuan per U.S. dollar by 2.1% to 8.11% and, at the same time, introduced a more market-based exchange rate system. Many analysts and economists were disappointed with what... View Details

Keywords: Currency; Exchange Rate; China; Macroeconomics; Trade; Currency Exchange Rate; Governance Controls; Policy; China; United States

19 May 2023
Blog Post

Choosing To Be Optimistic about Climate Change

events at Klarman, the first organized by Harvard’s Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, and the second by HBS’s Business and Environment Initiative. The urgency and magnitude of the topic made... View Details

September 2019
Teaching Note

Boxed

By: Laura Huang and Andy Wu

Boxed.com (“Boxed”) is an ambitious e-commerce retailer start-up, founded by visionary CEO Chieh Huang in 2013. From starting in Huang’s garage in 2013, to winning Emerging E-Retailer of the Year in 2016, to having 4 operational distribution centers in 2018, Boxed used... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Business Startups; Leadership; Strategy; Success; E-commerce; Retail Industry

September 28, 2023
Article

A Perspective on the Great Reallocation of Global Supply Chains

By: Laura Alfaro and Davin Chor

Previous optimism that cross-border supply chains would improve efficiency for firms and open up growth opportunities for countries has been tempered by concerns that global value chains now expose firms and countries to the risk of disruptions. This column analyses... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain; Policy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; United States

2020
Working Paper

Currency Hedging in Emerging Markets: Managing Cash Flow Exposure

By: Laura Alfaro, Mauricio Calani and Liliana Varela

Foreign currency derivative markets are among the largest in the world, yet their role in emerging markets in particular, is relatively understudied. We study firms' currency risk exposure and their hedging choices by employing a unique dataset covering the universe of... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Currency Hedging; FX Derivatives; Foreign Currency Debt; Currency Mismatch; Trade Credit; Currency; Cash Flow; Emerging Markets

Research Summary

Debt Maturity: Is Long-Term Debt Optimal? (with Fabio Kanczuk)

We model and calibrate the arguments in favor and against short-term and long-term debt. These arguments broadly include: maturity-term premium, tax smoothing, rolling over risk and the cost from defaulting. We use a dynamic equilibrium model with tax distortion,... View Details

March 1998 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Lehigh Steel

By: V.G. Narayanan and Laura Donohue

Lehigh Steel is a specialty steel manufacturer that plummeted from record profits to record losses in less than three years, driven by an inability to distinguish between profitable and unprofitable business. The scale and growth of service activities and overhead... View Details

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Product; Cost; Activity Based Costing and Management; Profit; Accounting; Corporate Finance; Steel Industry

2010
Casebook

Global Capital and National Institutions: Crisis and Choice in the International Financial Architecture

All managers face a business environment in which international and macroeconomic phenomena matter. International capital flows can significantly affect countries' development efforts and provide clear investment opportunities for businesses. During the 1990s and early... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Capital; International Finance; Globalized Economies and Regions; Policy; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations

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13 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 13

W. Dunn, Dana R. Carney, and Dan Ariely Publication:Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (forthcoming) Abstract We predicted that able-bodied individuals and white Americans would have a difficult time saying no to persuasive appeals offered View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Nominal versus Indexed Debt: A Quantitative Horse Race (joint with Fabio Kanczuk)

There are different arguments in favor and against nominal and indexed debt which broadly include the incentive to default through inflation versus hedging against unforeseen shocks. We model these arguments and calibrate the model to assess the quantitative importance... View Details

2009
Other Paper

Trade Policy and Firm Boundaries

By: Laura Alfaro, Paola Conconi, Andrew F. Newman and Harald Fadinger

We examine how trade policy affects firms' organizational choices. We embed a model of firms' vertical integration decisions into a standard perfectly-competitive international trade framework. In the model, integration decisions are driven by a trade-off... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Policy; Ownership; Business and Government Relations; Vertical Integration; Boundaries