Publications

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January 2009 (Revised January 2011)
Background Note

The Great Moderation, Dead or Alive?

By: Diego A. Comin

The Great Moderation is a significant decline in the volatility of fluctuations in most macroeconomic variables that the United States and other developed and developing economies have experienced at least since the mid-1980s. This case describes the basic facts,... View Details

Keywords: Volatility; Business Cycles; Macroeconomics; United States

2016
Working Paper

Wesley Mitchell's Business Cycles after 100 Years

By: Walter A. Friedman

This article looks back at the publication and influence of Wesley Mitchell's Business Cycles, published in 1913. It surveys some of the key ideas in the book and explains the reasons why it resonated with a variety of people, including economists,... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Books

10 Jan 2008
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Operations Management

Sharpening Your Skills dives into the HBS Working Knowledge archives to bring together articles on ways to improve your business skills. Questions to be answered: Can "lean" productions methods improve service industries? How can a company's order management View Details

March 1997 (Revised January 1999)
Case

SureCut Shears, Inc.

By: W. Carl Kester

A bank loan officer must determine whether to waive convenants and extend terms on a line of credit granted to SureCut Shears. At issue is whether the inability of SureCut to pay down its line of credit is due to a temporary cyclical downturn or other long-term... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Finance; Performance; Problems and Challenges

2022
Working Paper

Flight to Safety: How Economic Downturns Affect Talent Flows to Startups

By: Shai Bernstein, Richard Townsend and Ting Xu

Using proprietary data from AngelList Talent, we study how individuals’ job search and application behavior changed during the COVID-19 downturn. We find that job seekers shifted their searches toward more established firms and away from early-stage startups, even... View Details

Keywords: Startup Labor Market; Flight To Safety; COVID-19; Recession; Business Startups; Human Capital; Business Cycles; Health Pandemics

SSRN

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April 1996 (Revised November 1996)
Case

Cleveland Turnaround (A, The: Responding to the Crisis (1978-1988)

By: James E. Austin and Andrea L Strimling

Traces the Cleveland community's efforts to move the city from economic, social, and political crisis in the late 1970s into revitalization and progress in the 1980s and 1990s. Special attention is given to the role of business leaders and the public-private... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Business Cycles; Business and Community Relations; Financial Crisis; Cleveland

2003
Chapter

Short-Term America Revisited? Boom and Bust in the Venture Capital Industry and the Impact on Innovation

By: Josh Lerner and Paul A. Gompers

This chapter seeks to understand the implications of the recent decline in venture activity for innovation. It argues that the situation may not be as grim as it initially appears. While there are many reasons for believing that on average venture capital has a... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Business Cycles; Financial Services Industry; United States

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February 2011
Background Note

GUIDESlines: Benchmark Values for the GUIDES Framework

By: Matthew C. Weinzierl, Jacob Kuipers and Jonathan Schlefer

GUIDESlines provides benchmark values of the key economic indicators identified in the GUIDES framework for both developed countries (the OECD) and fast-growing emerging markets (the BRINCS countries). View Details

Keywords: Economics; Business Cycles; Macroeconomics; Framework; Business and Government Relations

Article

Technology Diffusion and Postwar Growth

By: Diego A. Comin and Bart Hobijn

In the aftermath of World War II, the world's economies exhibited very different rates of economic recovery. We provide evidence that those countries that caught up the most with the U.S. in the postwar period are those that saw an acceleration in the speed of adopting... View Details

Keywords: Hardware; Country; Business Cycles; Globalized Economies and Regions; Economic Growth; Welfare or Wellbeing; War; Technology Industry; United States; Japan; Europe

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April 2015
Tutorial

Introduction to International Macroeconomics

By: Laura Alfaro and Elizabeth A. Meyer

This tutorial is a web-based, interactive program which will provide students with an introduction to the basic principles of macroeconomics and international macroeconomics. View Details

Keywords: International Macroeconomics; International Economy; Current Account; Unemployment; Inflation; Monetary Policy; Fiscal Policy; Gdp; Macroeconomics; Money; Business Cycles; Inflation and Deflation; Trade

19 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

The Landscape of Integrated Reporting: An E-Book

where this trust has been badly damaged. We've reached a place that feels like a vicious cycle, where nothing progressive is going to happen. Somehow, we have to turn this cycle in the other direction, and restore business to a place... View Details

Keywords: by Nitin Nohria; Accounting

11 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

Free Trade Needs Nurturing—and Other Lessons from History

Question: What patterns emerge from history that can help us better understand where we are today? Sophus Reinert: To many people, globalization is teleological, something that necessarily becomes stronger over time and leads to an ever-more economically interconnected... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto; Aerospace; Chemical; Consumer Products; Electronics; Energy; Industrial Products; Manufacturing; Shipping; Transportation

30 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 30, 2008

larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and robbery, as opposed to other kinds of crime like arson, assault, homicide, and rape. Temporal patterns in crime are observed in jurisdictions in which disbursements are focused at the beginning of monthly welfare payment View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

14 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Keeping Credit Flowing to Consumers in Need

credit crunch? Nicolas P. Retsinas: In 2007 the nonprime mortgage market crumbled. Many of these products were predicated on ever-rising home values, which would enable owners to sell, pay off, buy again-a cycle toward ever-bigger,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services; Construction; Real Estate

07 Jun 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Financial Distancing: How Venture Capital Follows the Economy Down and Curtails Innovation

Keywords: by Sabrina T. Howell, Josh Lerner, Ramana Nanda, and Richard Townsend; Financial Services

16 Oct 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 16, 2018

methods, such as multiple-case inductive studies and traditional methods of causal inference. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55043 Quantile Forecasts of Product Life Cycles Using Exponential... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

12 Aug 2014
First Look

First Look: August 12

http://hbr.org/product/building-a-high-performance-culture-at-idfc/an/114077-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 514-076 Cycle for Survival (A) Katie Kotkins, director of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center's (MSKCC) View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 1981 (Revised June 1998)
Case

A Keynesian Cure for the Depression

Keynes, in excerpts from a 1933 pamphlet, outlines his recommendations for recovery from the Depression. He emphasizes the need for public works expenditures financed by government borrowing and discusses the "multiplier" effect of deficit spending on gross national... View Details

Keywords: History; Business Cycles; Theory; Microeconomics; Government Administration