Publications

July 2002 (Revised December 2002)
Case

Phase Two: The Pharmaceutical Industry Responds to AIDS

By: Debora L. Spar

Describes how major pharmaceutical firms changed their strategy and pricing policies in the years 2000 to 2002 to respond to the growing AIDS epidemic in Africa. View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Health Pandemics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Pharmaceutical Industry; Africa

22 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

When Will the Hot Housing Market Finally Start to Cool?

Crisis. What we have are unprecedented low interest rates that people are scrambling to lock in before rates rise—because everybody knows that rates are going to go up. Has the Fed’s policy contributed to the rise in residential assets... View Details

Keywords: by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette

August 2008
Article

From Clusters to Cluster-Based Economic Development

By: Christian H.M. Ketels and Olga Memedovic

Over the last decades, changes in the global economy and the emergence of Global Value Chains (GVCs) have raised the interest in understanding the specific conditions and cross-company interactions within and across locations. For companies, the need to choose the... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Economy; Value; Business Strategy; Competition; Performance Productivity; Cost; Natural Environment; Policy; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Framework; Industry Clusters

Research Summary

Corporate Governance and International Competitiveness

By: W. Carl Kester

W. Carl Kester's research involves comparisons of national or broad regional systems of corporate governance (e.g., German, Japanese, Anglo-American), and the influence these systems exert on corporate investment and international competitiveness. Kester has found... View Details

Article

Motivated Inferences of Price and Quality in Healthcare Decisions

By: Emily Prinsloo, Kate Barasz and Peter A. Ubel

Policy makers have increasingly advocated for healthcare price transparency, whereby prices are made salient before services are rendered. While such policies may empower consumers, they also bring price to the forefront of healthcare choices as never before, with yet... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Price Transparency; Health Care and Treatment; Price; Quality; Perception; Consumer Behavior; Decisions; Insurance

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15 May 2020
News

Innovation Can’t Be Forced, but It Can Be Quashed

Article

Do Strong Fences Make Strong Neighbors?

By: Mihir Desai and Dhammika Dharmapala

Many features of U.S. tax policy towards multinational firms-including the governing principle of capital export neutrality, the byzantine system of expense allocation, and anti-inversion legislation-reflect the intuition that building "strong fences" around the United... View Details

Keywords: International Taxation; Initial Public Offerings; Foreign Portfolio Investment; Policy; Taxation; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Initial Public Offering; Mergers and Acquisitions; Foreign Direct Investment; United States

SSRN

Joseph Fuller is a Professor of Management Practice in General Management and Entrepreneurship. He founded and co-leads the school’s project, Managing the Future of Work, as well as the Harvard Project on the Workforce. He currently leads the FIELD Global Capstone... View Details

08 Oct 2014
Working Paper Summaries

The Federal Reserve’s Abandonment of Its 1923 Principles

Keywords: by Julio J. Rotemberg; Banking; Legal Services

2011
Book

Accelerating Energy Innovation: Insights from Multiple Sectors

By: Rebecca Henderson and Richard G. Newell

Accelerating energy innovation could be an important part of an effective response to the threat of climate change. Written by a stellar group of experts in the field, this book complements existing research on the subject with an exploration of the role that public... View Details

Keywords: Energy Sources; Innovation and Invention; Climate Change; Policy; Competition; Demand and Consumers; Finance; Energy Industry

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March 2005 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Foreign Exchange Hedging Strategies at General Motors: Competitive Exposures

By: Mihir A. Desai and Mark Veblen

How can a multinational firm analyze and manage currency risks that arise from competitive exposures? General Motors has a substantial competitive exposure to the Japanese yen. Although the risks GM faces from the depreciating yen are widely acknowledged, the company's... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Currency Exchange Rate; Competition; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; International Finance; Financial Management; Investment Funds; Risk and Uncertainty; Auto Industry

January 2008
Article

The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy

By: Michael E. Porter

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. In 1979, a young associate professor at Harvard Business School published his first... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Five Forces Framework; Industry Growth; Industry Structures; Business and Government Relations; Competitive Strategy

08 Sep 2009
Research & Ideas

The Height Tax, and Other New Ways to Think about Taxation

Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, Weinzierl coauthored the HBS working paper "The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution" [PDF]. The main framework economists use to think through tax View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

March 2005 (Revised January 2006)
Case

Foreign Exchange Hedging Strategies at General Motors: Transactional and Translational Exposures

By: Mihir A. Desai and Mark Veblen

How should a multinational firm manage foreign exchange exposures? Examines transactional and translational exposures and alternative responses to these exposures by analyzing two specific hedging decisions by General Motors. Describes General Motors' corporate hedging... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Currency Exchange Rate; Expansion; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Financial Management; Investment Funds; Risk and Uncertainty; International Finance; Auto Industry

March 1996 (Revised February 2002)
Case

Portfolio Capital Flows to Emerging Markets

By: Huw Pill

Presents some data showing the magnitude, direction, and composition of capital flows to less developed countries (the so-called emerging markets) in the period 1990-1995. Some potential explanations for these flows are discussed. A number of policy responses to the... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Emerging Markets; Policy; Capital; Developing Countries and Economies

Winter 2021
Article

Making Economics More Useful: How Technological Eclecticism Could Help

By: Amar Bhidé

Keynes thought it would be ‘splendid’ if economists became more like dentists. Disciplinary economics has instead become more like physics in focusing on concise, universal propositions verified through decisive tests. This focus, I argue, limits the practical... View Details

Keywords: Economic Methodology; Simulations; Banking; Regulation; Judgment; Economics; Banks and Banking