Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(66)
- Faculty Publications (42)
- March 2008 (Revised April 2009)
- Case
Eliot Spitzer: Pushing Wall Street to Reform
By: Rawi Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer
New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer faced a decision about how to stop wrongdoing committed by major Wall Street firms during the Internet boom. The equities analysts of Merrill Lynch and other Wall Street firms were charged with objectively advising retail... View Details
- Article
Gross National Happiness As an Answer to the Easterlin Paradox?
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
The Easterlin Paradox refers to the fact that happiness data are typically stationary in spite of considerable increases in income. This amounts to a rejection of the hypothesis that current income is the only argument in the utility function. We find that the... View Details
- Article
Reputation When Threats and Transfers Are Available
By: Ernesto Dal Bo, Pedro Dal Bo and Rafael Di Tella
We present a model where a long-run player is allowed to use both money transfers and threats to influence the decisions of a sequence of short-run players. We show that threats might be used credibly (even in arbitrarily short repeated games) by a long-lived player... View Details
- November 2006 (Revised July 2007)
- Case
CNN and the Cable News Wars
Set in 1996, when ABC, NBC and Microsoft, and Fox all announced that they will challenge Cable News Network's near monopoly position in the 24-hour cable news channel market. The focus is on the interaction of the strategies likely to be adopted by each player given... View Details
Keywords: Leadership; Resource Allocation; Monopoly; Rank and Position; Reputation; Adoption; Competition
- March 2006 (Revised November 2006)
- Case
China: To Float or Not To Float? (C)- Esquel Group and the Chinese Renminbi
By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel
In July 2005, China revalued its currency by 2.1% and adjusted its exchange rate regime toward a more market-based system. Esquel Group, a family-run, privately held textiles firm specializing in high-quality cotton shirts with its most significant manufacturing base... View Details
- 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
- March 2006 (Revised November 2006)
- Case
China: To Float or Not To Float? (E)- ABB Investment in China
By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel
In July 2005, China revalued its currency by 2.1% and adjusted its exchange rate regime toward a more market-based system. ABB, a global power and automation technologies company based out of Switzerland with operations in China, was among those companies confronted... View Details
- 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
- March 2006 (Revised April 2010)
- Case
China: To Float or Not To Float? (A)
By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel
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
- April 2005
- Article
Partisan Social Happiness
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
We use a new approach to study questions in political economy that relies on data on the subjective well-being of a large sample of people living in the OECD over the period 1975-1992. Controlling for the personal characteristics of the respondents, year and country... View Details
- March 2005 (Revised July 2007)
- Case
Capital Controls in Chile in the 1990s (A)
By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel
In 1991, Chile adopted a framework of capital controls focused on reducing the massive flows of foreign investment coming into the country as international interest rates remained low. Capital inflows threatened the Central Bank's ability to manage the exchange rate... View Details
- November 2004
- Article
Unemployment Benefits As a Substitute for a Conservative Central Banker
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
In the many years since their introduction, positive theories of inflation have rarely been tested. This paper documents a negative relationship between inflation and the welfare state (proxied by the parameters of the unemployment benefit program) that is to be... View Details
- March 2004
- Article
Inflation, Inflation Variability, and Corruption
By: Miguel Braun and Rafael Di Tella
We present a model where agents can inflate the cost of goods needed to start an investment project and inflation variability increases monitoring costs. We show that inflation variability can lead to higher corruption and lower investment. We document a positive... View Details
- February 2004 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
Brazil 2003: Inflation Targeting and Debt Dynamics
By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel
In October 2002, Brazilians elected a left-wing president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, for the first time in that country's history. As markets faltered in response, Lula sought to reaffirm his commitment to fiscal discipline, a floating exchange rate, and inflation... View Details
Keywords: Economy; Inflation and Deflation; Money; Borrowing and Debt; Policy; Emerging Markets; Brazil
- October 2003 (Revised January 2004)
- Case
The 2001 Crisis in Argentina: An IMF-Sponsored Default? (A)
By: Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel
At the end of 2001, Argentina's economy and society both appeared on the verge of collapse. Furious about controls imposed on the convertibility of their bank deposits into cash (the "corralito") and huge proposed government spending cuts amidst high unemployment and... View Details
- October 2003
- Article
Capture by Threat
By: Ernesto Dal Bo and Rafael Di Tella
We analyze a simple stochastic environment in which policy makers can be threatened by “nasty” interest groups. In the absence of these groups, the policy maker’s desire for reelection guarantees that good policies are implemented for every realization of the shock.... View Details
- April 2003
- Article
The Role of Wages and Auditing during a Crackdown on Corruption in the City of Buenos Aires
By: Rafael Di Tella and Ernesto Schargrodsky
We study the prices paid for basic inputs during a crackdown on corruption in the public hospitals of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, during 1996 97. We find a well-defined, negative effect on the measures used to capture corruption. Prices paid by hospitals for... View Details
- April 2001
- Case
Corruption in International Business (B)
By: Robert E. Kennedy and Rafael M. Di Tella
Focuses on efforts to combat corruption. Approaches include international laws, international agreements, efforts by international development organizations, and private efforts by firms and nongovernmental organizations. View Details
- 1998
- Working Paper
Some Evidence on the Optimal Welfare State Based on Subjective Data
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
It is often difficult to evaluate all the costs and benefits of the welfare state. This paper suggests an alternative approach based on surveys of citizen satisfaction with welfare programs. In the first part of the paper we estimate the level of unemployment benefits... View Details