Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(807)
- Faculty Publications (170)
- September 2, 2020
- Article
How to Pay for Public Option Without Tax Hike
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Richard Boxer
A bipartisan combination of the two parties’ most popular initiatives can expand health care coverage, significantly reduce costs, and enable freedom of choice, without raising taxes. Along the way, we can revitalize competition between public and private plans. Our... View Details
- September–October 2020
- Article
Managing Churn to Maximize Profits
By: Aurelie Lemmens and Sunil Gupta
Customer defection threatens many industries, prompting companies to deploy targeted, proactive customer retention programs and offers. A conventional approach has been to target customers either based on their predicted churn probability or their responsiveness to a... View Details
- August 2020 (Revised November 2022)
- Case
George Soros: The Stateless Statesman
By: Geoffrey Jones and Wendy Ying
This case traces the business career and philanthropic activities of George Soros. The Hungarian-born Soros made a fortune as a hedge fund investor after establishing Quantum Fund on the tax haven island of Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles in 1973 where he was... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
Optimal Illiquidity
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, Christopher Clayton, Christopher Harris, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
We calculate the socially optimal level of illiquidity in an economy populated by households with taste shocks and naive present bias. The government chooses mandatory contributions to accounts, each witha different pre-retirement withdrawal penalty. Collected... View Details
Keywords: Illiquidity; Commitment; Flexibility; Savings; Social Security; Retirement; Government Legislation; Taxation; Saving
- 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
- February 2020 (Revised August 2021)
- Case
Australia: Commodities, Competitiveness, Climate and China
By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Laura Alfaro
For the past few decades, Australia has dealt with the benefits and costs of repeated mining booms—inflation, a housing bubble, a current account deficit, and growing dependence on China. Between 1996 and 2007, however, Australia had most of these issues under control... View Details
- January 2020 (Revised July 2020)
- Supplement
MoviePass: The 'Get Big Fast' Strategy
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
In August 2017, MoviePass dramatically lowered its subscription price from $50 per month to just $10 for up to one movie per day. The idea was to rapidly scale the business to the point where they could generate incremental revenue streams form related businesses... View Details
Keywords: Market Entry; Growth Strategy; Profit Vs. Growth; Subscription Business; Cash Burn; Data Analytics; Get-big-fast; Buyer Power; Strategy Implementation; Movie Industry; Racing; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Consolidation; Cash Flow; Growth Management; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Mobile Technology; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Advertising Industry; Information Industry; United States
- December 2019
- Case
CME Group in 2019
By: José B. Alvarez, Forest Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred
Chicago-based CME Group is the world’s largest futures and options marketplace, with annual trading volume of over 4.8 billion contracts in 2018. This case is set in late 2019, as heightened perceptions of risk stemming from the U.S.-China trade war are driving record... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Cutting the Gordian Knot of Employee Health Care Benefits and Costs: A Corporate Model Built on Employee Choice
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Barak D. Richman
The U.S. employer-based health insurance tax exclusion created a system of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) with limited insurance choices and transparency that may lock employed households into health plans that are costlier or different from those they prefer to... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Thinking Outside the Box (12): The Benefits of Increased Transparency in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance for the 180 Million Insured
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Barak D. Richman
Economists have long noted that the tax exclusion of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) caused workers to purchase health plans that differ in price and other characteristics from those they would otherwise choose for themselves. We explore the short-term and long-term... View Details
- November 2019
- Supplement
United Technologies Corp.: Are the Parts Worth More Than the Whole?
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
After spending more than 50 years creating a diversified industrial conglomerate that Fortune Magazine described as “arguably the most profitable conglomerate in America” in 2014, UTC’s CEO Greg Hayes was under pressure from activist investors (Dan Loeb and Bill... View Details
Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Business Conglomerates; Financial Management; Corporate Governance; Organizational Structure; Diversification; Valuation; Investment Activism; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Value Creation; Aerospace Industry; Electronics Industry; Industrial Products Industry; United States
- November 2019 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
United Technologies: Are the Parts Worth More Than the Whole?
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
After spending more than 50 years creating a diversified industrial conglomerate that Fortune magazine described as “arguably the most profitable conglomerate in America” in 2014, UTC’s CEO Greg Hayes was under pressure from activist investors (Dan Loeb and Bill... View Details
- October 2019
- Case
Regtech at HSBC
By: Aiyesha Dey, Jonas Heese and James Weber
Mark Cooke, Global Head of Operational Risk, needed to decide between a traditional regulatory control system and a new regtech system to manage non-financial risks.
Non-financial risks failures such as money laundering and tax evasion had cost HSBC billions of... View Details
- December 2018 (Revised October 2020)
- Case
Shiseido: Reinvesting in Brand
By: Jill Avery and Nobuo Sato
Shiseido was in the midst of a six year corporate turnaround, trying to reverse the effects of decades of under-investment in R&D and marketing which had led to a cycle of declining customer support and brand value. Would the CEO’s VISION 2020 plan, centered on four... View Details
Keywords: Brand Management; Brand Value; Turnaround; Brand Portfolio; Brand Communication; Global Brands; Digital Marketing; Return On Investment; Marketing ROI; Internet Marketing; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Value; Growth and Development Strategy; Investment Return; Consumer Behavior; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Japan; Asia
- 2018
- Working Paper
Corporate Refinancing, Covenants, and the Agency Cost of Debt
By: Daniel Green
How valuable are restrictive debt covenants in reducing the agency costs of debt? I exploit the revealed preference decision to refinance fixed-coupon bonds, which weighs observable interest rate savings against the unobservable costs of a change in restrictive... View Details
Keywords: Covenants; Refinancing; Corporate Bonds; Agency Costs; Debt Policy; Borrowing and Debt; Bonds; Interest Rates
- November 2018
- Teaching Note
The Tax Man: Taxes in Private Equity Real Estate
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Sayiddah Fatima McCree
Teaching Note for HBS No. 218-077. This teaching note provides the back up analysis for the various alternatives to be considered in choosing the optimal investment structure for the real estate acquisition. It contrasts the interests of the tax exempt investors... View Details
- 2018
- Book
Varieties of Green Business: Industries, Nations and Time
By: Geoffrey Jones
Published at a time of ever-increasing warnings that the pace of climate change and other environmental changes risk making the Earth unsustainable within our own lifetimes, this book looks at the past of green business to identify lessons for the future. It provides... View Details
Keywords: Green Business; Sustainability; Business History; Eco-tourism; Organic Wine; Organic Food; Waste Management; Sustainable Finance; Ethics; Finance; History; Entrepreneurship; Accommodations Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Banking Industry; Energy Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Green Technology Industry; Tourism Industry; Europe; Asia; Latin America; North and Central America; New Zealand
- 2019
- Working Paper
Racial Heterogeneity and Local Government Finances: Evidence from the Great Migration
By: Marco Tabellini
Between 1915 and 1930, during the First Great Migration, more than 1.5 million African Americans migrated from the South to the North of the United States, altering the racial profile of several northern cities for the first time in American history. I exploit this... View Details
Keywords: Migration; Race; City; Financial Condition; Government and Politics; History; United States
- March 2018
- Teaching Note
Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity (A) and (B)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu
Through the challenges facing Target, the case examines the ways in which corporations can become involved in political and legislative debates and processes, ranging from campaign contributions to lobbying. In 2016, Target CEO Brian Cornell must determine how to... View Details
Keywords: Public Opinion; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Problems and Challenges; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Media; Political Elections; Taxation; Corporate Accountability; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Diversity; Customers; Communication; Business and Government Relations; Retail Industry; United States
- March 2018
- Article
Financing the African Colonial State: The Revenue Imperative and Forced Labor
Although recent studies on African colonial tax systems have deepened our understanding of early fiscal capacity building efforts in the region, they have largely ignored the contributions from a widely used but invisible source of state revenue: that of labor... View Details