Publications

March 2021 (Revised January 2023)
Case

The Trouble with TCE

By: Vincent Pons, Rafael Di Tella and Galit Goldstein

Trichloroethylene, or TCE, was a chemical used by tens of thousands of businesses in the United States. It was an affordable tool for many. Yet, TCE had been associated with important health risks, including cancer and autoimmune disease. TCE potentially posed other... View Details

Keywords: Trichloroethylene; Toxicity; Lobbying; Chemicals; Health Disorders; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Ethics; Business and Government Relations; Chemical Industry; United States

February 2021
Case

China Rapid Finance: The Collapse of China’s P2P Lending Industry

By: William C. Kirby, Bonnie Yining Cao and John P. McHugh

China’s peer-to-peer (P2P) lending industry had over 3,000 platforms at its height in 2015. China Risk Finance (CRF) was one of the country’s P2P success stories. With over 1 million borrowers using CRF’s platform, it raised $60 million in its 2016 IPO on the New York... View Details

Keywords: Financial Services; P2P Lending; Government And Business; Regulation; Finance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; China

January 2021 (Revised August 2021)
Case

ByteDance: TikTok and the Trials of Going Viral

By: William C. Kirby and John P. McHugh

In 2020, TikTok became the most valuable start-up ever. The short-form, video-sharing social media platform emerged as the crown jewel of the Chinese technology firm ByteDance, realizing 850 million monthly users and an estimated worth of $180 billion. However, a... View Details

July 2020
Article

Recovering the Logic of Double Effect for Business: Intentions, Proportionality, and Impermissible Harms

By: Rosemarie Monge and Nien-hê Hsieh

Business actors often act in ways that may harm other parties. While the law aims to restrict harmful behavior and to provide remedies, legal systems do not anticipate all contingencies and legal regulations are not always well enforced. This article argues that the... View Details

Keywords: Double Effect; Intention; Exploitation; Risk; Practical Ethics; Competition; Risk and Uncertainty; Ethics

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June 2020
Article

How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections

By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel

Accuracy and consistency are critical for inspections to be an effective, fair, and useful tool for assessing risks, quality, and suppliers—and for making decisions based on those assessments. We examine how inspector schedules could introduce bias that erodes... View Details

Keywords: Assessment; Bias; Inspection; Scheduling; Econometric Analysis; Empirical Research; Regulation; Health; Food; Safety; Quality; Performance Consistency; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

2020
Working Paper

How Should U.S. Bank Regulators Respond to the COVID-19 Crisis?

By: Michael Blank, Samuel G. Hanson, Jeremy C. Stein and Adi Sunderam

Drawing on lessons from the 2007–2009 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and a simple conceptual framework, we examine the response of U.S. bank regulators to the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the current regulatory strategy of “watchful waiting”—the same strategy that... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Bank Regulation; Recapitalization; Health Pandemics; Banks and Banking; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Strategy; Risk Management; United States

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2021
Working Paper

Elusive Safety: The New Geography of Capital Flows and Risk

By: Laura Alfaro, Ester Faia, Ruth Judson and Tim Schmidt-Eisenlohr

A confidential dataset with industry-level disaggregation of U.S. cross-border claims and liabilities, shows U.S. securities to be increasingly intermediated by tax-haven-financial-centers (THFC) and less regulated funds. These securities are risky, in... View Details

Keywords: Tax Havens; Financial Centers; Geography Of Flows; Profit Shifting; Tax Avoidance; Risk; Safe Assets; Hetergeneous Firms; Endogenous Entry; Endogenous Monitoring; Regulatory Arbitrage; Assets; Safety; Risk and Uncertainty; Capital; Global Range

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2020
Working Paper

Capital Regulation and Product Market Outcomes

By: Ishita Sen and David Humphry

We present evidence of product market adjustments and asset reorganizations from the largest ever shift in risk regulation in a developed insurance market. Using proprietary data on insurance risk exposures from the Bank of England, we develop a measure of regulatory... View Details

Keywords: Non-traditional-non-insurance; Risk Regulation; Product Market Concentration; Small Vs. Large Insurers; Insurance Risk Exposure; Insurance; Risk and Uncertainty; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

SSRN

Article

Business, Governments and Political Risk in South Asia and Latin America since 1970

By: G. Jones and Rachael Comunale

This article contributes to the literature on political risk in business and economic history by examining both new perspectives (risk encountered by companies domestically, rather than risk for foreign investors) and new settings (emerging markets economies in Latin... View Details

Keywords: Political Risk; Emerging Market; Bribery; Business ＆ Government Relations; Turbulence; Violence; Risk and Uncertainty; Emerging Markets; Crime and Corruption; Business and Government Relations; Business History; India; Latin America

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October 2018
Case

African Bank Investments Limited (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

Less than a year after joining the board of African Bank Investments Limited (ABIL), the newest director finds himself in difficult discussions with other directors about removing the struggling company’s CEO. The case is set in South Africa in mid-2014 as shares in... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Personal Finance; Corporate Accountability; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Insurance; Leadership; Management; Risk Management; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Insurance Industry; Africa; South Africa

October 2018
Supplement

African Bank Investments Limited (B)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

October 2018 (Revised August 2019)
Case

Everybody Knows: Russia and the Election

By: Rawi Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella and Galit Goldstein

Following a contentious presidential race, Donald Trump’s 2016 election destabilized America’s status quo. Academics, journalists, politicians and the public at large examined why Trump had won. Many Americans, inside and outside the government, asserted that a... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Industry; Strategic Alliances (Business); Business And Government; Business And Public Policy; Business And Society; Media Businesses; Media Content; Media Slant; Media Regulation; Internet Of Everything; Government Policy; Politics; Political Campaigns; Political Strategy; Political Turmoil; Government; Government Regulation; Security; International Business; International Relations; National Security; Political Elections; News; Media; Internet and the Web; Rights; Problems and Challenges; Globalization; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Government Legislation; Risk and Uncertainty; Cognition and Thinking; Conflict and Resolution; Identity; Civil Society or Community; Culture; Public Opinion; Social Issues; War; Social Media; Public Administration Industry; United States; Russia