Publications

SSRN

February 2019 (Revised January 2020)
Teaching Note

Renegotiating NAFTA

By: Laura Alfaro and Sarah Jeong

On January 16, 2020, the Senate passed a landmark trade deal that would replace the 26-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Until the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) was signed, considerable debate had surrounded it. The new agreement... View Details

Keywords: NAFTA; Trade; Agreements and Arrangements; Policy; Cost vs Benefits; North America

October 1996 (Revised May 1998)
Case

Regarding NAFTA

By: Debora L. Spar

In the aftermath of World War II, the countries of the industrialized world engaged in an unprecedented round of institution-building, through which historical barriers to international trade, especially tariffs, came tumbling down. The GATT has reshaped the... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Trade; North America

Educators

03 Mar 2008
First Look

First Look: March 4, 2008

the model, we find that (i) the supply of long- relative to short-term bonds is positively related to the term spread, (ii) supply predicts positively long-term bonds' excess returns even after controlling for the term spread and the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2020
Working Paper

Sticky Capital Controls

By: Miguel Acosta-Henao, Laura Alfaro and Andres Fernandez

There is much ongoing debate on the merits of capital controls as effective policy instruments. The differing perspectives are due in part to a lack of empirical studies that look at the intensive margin of controls, which in turn has prevented a quantitative... View Details

Keywords: Capital Controls; Macroprudential Policies; Stickiness; Intensive; (S, S) Costs; Capital; Management; Macroeconomics

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2017
Chapter

Multinational Activity in Emerging Markets: How and When Does Foreign Direct Investment Promote Growth?

By: Laura Alfaro

Among the prominent economic trends in recent decades is the exponential increase in flows of goods and capital driven by technological progress and a falling number of restrictions. A key driver of this phenomenon has been the cross-border production, foreign... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Activity; Growth; Spillovers; Complementarities; Foreign Direct Investment; Emerging Markets; Growth and Development; Multinational Firms and Management

01 Sep 2015
First Look

First Look -- September 1, 2015

currency), the asset valuation effects occasioned by currency depreciation (or appreciation) act to absorb global shocks and render consumption smoother. In this setting, countries do not accumulate high... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

29 Sep 2008
Research & Ideas

Financial Crisis Caution Urged by Faculty Panel

historical background, Retsinas said that prior to the Depression, people who wanted to buy a home were typically required to make a 50 percent down payment. They were issued a 5-year interest-only note, and effectively crossed their... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services

05 Mar 2019
HBS Seminar

Nailya Ordabayeva, Boston College

19 Jul 2006
Research & Ideas

Political Turmoil and Mexico’s Economy

businesses. They also distributed shares of the bank to the state governor or made a loan to the local state government—with the understanding that it most likely would not be repaid. A number of View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

26 Jan 2024
Blog Post

HBS Alumna Fighting Cancer with a Novel Cell Therapy

those are important. We need those treatments." This student profile was originally published on the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) website. View Details

September 2012
Article

Learning Agility: Many Questions, a Few Answers, and a Path Forward

By: D. Scott DeRue, Susan J. Ashford and Christopher G. Myers

This article responds to and extends the commentaries offered in response to our focal article on learning agility. After summarizing the basic themes in the commentaries, we use this response to clarify points that were unclear in our original article and push back on... View Details

Keywords: Learning And Development; Learning

July 2014
Article

Diasporas and Outsourcing: Evidence from oDesk and India

By: Ejaz Ghani, William R. Kerr and Christopher Stanton

This study examines the role of the Indian diaspora in the outsourcing of work to India. Our data are taken from oDesk, the world's largest online platform for outsourced contracts, where India is the largest country in terms of contract volume. We use an ethnic name... View Details

Keywords: Diaspora; Outsourcing; oDesk; Networks; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Diasporas; Internet and the Web; Ethnicity; Service Industry; South Asia; India

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Research Summary

Industry Dynamics Following Competitive Shocks

Robert E. Kennedy and Pankaj Ghemawat are using industrial organization theory to study industrial development in countries that have undergone major competitive shocks. Their goal is to develop a set of hypotheses regarding how industry factors effect change in entry... View Details

Fall 2014
Article

How to Win in an Omnichannel World

By: David R. Bell, Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno

The omnichannel environment presents new challenges and opportunities for both information and product fulfillment. While all retailers need to effectively and efficiently manage fulfillment and information provision, there are important nuances to how this happens,... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Customer Relationship Management; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; United States

Research Summary

Comparative Financial Systems and Corporate Governance

One implication of the inherent logic of a financial system lies in the effects on corporate governance. Differences in financial systems across countries -- for instance, in terms of the role of banks, equity markets, and shareholder voting systems -- result in... View Details

06 May 2025
Blog Post

The Incredible Land of Ice and Fire: Exploring Iceland's Renewable Energy Model for a Changing Planet

but it’s Iceland. This past February, 50 HBS Energy & Environment students traveled to Iceland to witness firsthand how the country is harnessing the power of nature to deliver clean energy, hot water,... View Details

May 2019
Article

Corporate Debt, Firm Size and Financial Fragility in Emerging Markets

By: Laura Alfaro, Gonzalo Asis, Anusha Chari and Ugo Panizza

The post-Global Financial Crisis period shows a surge in corporate leverage in emerging markets and a number of countries with deteriorated corporate financial fragility indicators (Altman’s Z-score). Firm size plays a critical role in the relationship between... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Debt; Firm Size; Financial Fragility; Emerging Market; Organizations; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Condition; Emerging Markets; System Shocks