Publications

07 Nov 2022
Blog Post

Creating Emerging Markets Sustainability Series - COP27 and the Climate Crisis

down annually [with] multiplying effects. Over the last few years, we've had multiple floods every year. So can you imagine the link with poverty [and] migration?” Learn more by downloading this video clip detailing the impact of climate... View Details

01 Jun 2025
News

Sound Bites: Joy to the World

Justin Pasquariello (MBA 2010) CEO, East Boston Social Centers Illustration: John S. Dykes For people like youth in foster care, people experiencing poverty, people facing a variety of other hardships—what do they ultimately want for themselves? I think the answer is... View Details

November 2018 (Revised June 2019)
Case

The Rise of Populism and Italy's Electoral 'Tsunami'

By: Rawi Abdelal, Dante Roscini and Elena Corsi

Italy’s March 2018 elections led to a populist government that included the right-wing League and the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement. To respect their electoral promises, the two parties came up with a budget plan that provided for a public deficit at 2.4%, a... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Economies; Unemployment; Extremism; Political Elections; Immigration; Poverty; Social Issues; Government and Politics; Financial Condition; Financial Markets; Italy

21 Jul 2023
Blog Post

Malcolm McClain (MBA/MPP 2023) Named First RISE Career Fellow

utilizes their MBA skills to bring significant value and capacity to both the business and its community. Leading into his first year at HBS, McClain was a Summer Fellow with the Harlem Children’s Zone, an education non-profit that aims to end intergenerational View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit / Government

Web

Community | HBS Online

HIV/AIDS and poverty Oxfam's Global Innovation Lab for Equality (aGILE) to develop solutions to systemic inequality and global poverty. Are you interested in making a real difference? Join the Community today. Join the Community View Details

24 Oct 2012
Research & Ideas

Want People to Save More? Send a Text

that if she lost her job, she couldn't pay her children's school fees or pay for a doctor," says Pomeranz, an assistant professor in entrepreneurial management at Harvard Business School. “How can we understand what projects work to alleviate View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

February 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Case

Merck: Global Health and Access to Medicines

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Katharine Lee

The case describes the effort of Merck, a global leader in pharmaceuticals, in making available its medicines to the poor. The challenge for the company (or for that matter, any pharmaceutical company) is how to integrate its business strategy with its corporate social... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Emerging Markets; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Poverty; Business Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry

Research Summary

Overview

My research is at the intersection of organizational strategy, global sustainability governance, and social change. It explores the diffusion of sustainability standards to non-traditional sectors (e.g. jewelry, cannabis, plastics, pets) and the relationship between... View Details

2010
Chapter

Happiness Adaptation to Income beyond 'Basic Needs'

By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch

We test for whether, once "basic needs" are satisfied, there is happiness adaptation to further gains in income using three data sets. Individual German Panel Data from 1985 to 2000, and data on the well-being of over 600,000 people in a panel of European countries... View Details

Keywords: Wealth and Poverty; Happiness; Human Needs; Income; Adaptation; Economic Growth

Comment

Comment to Martin Weitzman's 'Stochastic Income and Wealth'

By: Diego Comin

Keywords: Wealth; Compensation and Benefits

01 Jan 2008
News

James D. Wolfensohn, MBA 1959

decisions managers must make.” ADVICE TO STUDENTS “Spend at least as much time focusing on people as you do on numbers.” ON LEADERSHIP “Too many of our leaders fail to translate macroeconomic trends into human experience. Increasing worldwide View Details

Article

Wealth-Making in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Britain: Industry v. Commerce and Finance

By: Tom Nicholas

This paper refutes the hypothesis put forward by W.D. Rubinstein that a disproportionately large share of Britain's wealth makers were active in commercial and financial trades in London. We use a data set of businessmen active in nineteenth- and early... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Finance; Commercialization; Mathematical Methods; Wealth and Poverty; Great Britain; London

Read Now

01 Dec 2022
News

The Potential of Business to Improve Lives

When Robin Ely, the Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration and the faculty chair of HBS’s Race, Gender, and Equity Initiative, was studying questions of gender and race in organizations in the 1980s, research into building an inclusive economy was “a... View Details

Keywords: April White

Article

Power to the People

By: Eric D. Werker

Every nongovernmental organization has a mission statement. For example, CARE, one of the world's largest and best-funded NGOs, explains its mission as serving "individuals and families in the poorest communities in the world. Drawing strength from our global... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Food; Service Operations; Inflation and Deflation; Experience and Expertise; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Knowledge; Poverty; Agribusiness; Diversity; Non-Governmental Organizations; Innovation and Invention; India

January 2007 (Revised February 2018)
Case

Brazil Under Lula: Off the Yellow BRIC Road

By: Aldo Musacchio

Covers President Lula's challenges to reduce "Brazil cost" and grow like other BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Experts agreed that for Brazil to grow like other BRIC countries, the Brazilian government would have to reduce the cost of doing business... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Cost; Growth and Development Strategy; Business and Government Relations; Poverty; Equality and Inequality; China; India; Russia; Brazil

Web

Blog | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

intergenerational poverty i... Ten years on, HBS students revive the push for an MBA Oath Evan Kornbluh 04 May 2018 This year’s graduating MBA class will re-enter the work force ten years after the onset of the gr... Funding exceptional... View Details

December 2004
Supplement

Basic Statistics from the World Bank's World Development Indicators, 2004

By: David A. Moss, Sarah A. Brennan and Peter Epstein

Provides basic economic and social indicators for 145 countries, drawn from the World Bank's World Development Indicators (2004). The data include: population, land area, GNP per capita, real GDP growth, life expectancy, adult illiteracy, fertility rate, access to... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Wealth and Poverty; Standards; Economics; Society

March 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Reclaiming the Land of Purple: Purpl’s Mission to Unlock Finance in Lebanon

By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger

Karl Naim, Co-Founder and CEO of Purpl, embarked on a venture to lower remittance costs for his native Lebanon. Since October 2019, the Lebanese economy had entered a free fall as its banking sector collapsed and large swathes of its population were plunged into... View Details

Keywords: Business Startup; Fintech; Inflation; Deflation; Cross-border Frictions; Remittances; Business Startups; Diasporas; Financial Crisis; Money; Entrepreneurship; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Poverty; Financial Institutions; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Lebanon

2009
Working Paper

The Bloody Millennium: Internal Conflict in South Asia

By: Lakshmi Iyer

This paper documents the short-term and long-term trends in internal conflict in South Asian countries, using multiple data sources. I find that incidents of terrorism have been rising across South Asia over the past decade, and this increase has been concentrated in... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; International Relations; National Security; Conflict Management; Poverty; South Asia