Publications

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21 Aug 2017
News

The Principles That Divide Us Might Be Greater Than Those That Bind Us Together

“It seems to me that we are now economically and socially divided and burdened in ways that are broadly analogous to 1937. During such times, conflicts (both internal and external) increase, populism emerges, democracies are threatened and wars can occur. I can't say... View Details

Keywords: Executive, Legislative, and Other General Government Support; Government

October 2019
Teaching Note

Granite Equity Partners

By: Victoria Ivashina and Terrence Shu

This teaching note accompanies HBS case 219-040, “Granite Equity Partners,” which follows the private equity firm as it evaluates the potential acquisition of Tyrell Corp., a Minnesota-based quality control biomaterials company. Granite Equity’s fund was different from... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity Exit; Investing; Fund Exit; Fund Management; Wealth Management; Liquidity; Buyout; Exit Strategy; Preferred Shares; Convertible Notes; Finance; Private Equity; Investment; Asset Management; Wealth; Management; Financial Liquidity; Minnesota; United States

2010
Chapter

Crime Distribution and Victim Behavior during a Crime Wave

By: Rafael Di Tella, Sebastian Galiani and Ernesto Schargrodsky

The study of how crime affects different income groups faces the difficulty that crime-avoiding activities vary across these groups. Thus, a lower victimization rate in one group may not reflect a lower burden of crime, but rather a higher investment in crime... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Wealth and Poverty; Selection and Staffing; Crime and Corruption; Income; Leading Change; Information Management; Argentina

Find at Harvard

2008
Working Paper

Cost of External Finance and Selection into Entrepreneurship

By: Ramana Nanda

This paper examines the extent to which the positive relationship between personal wealth and entry into entrepreneurship is due to financing constraints. I exploit a tax reform and use unique micro-data from Denmark to study how exogenous changes in the cost of... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Cost; Financing and Loans; Personal Finance; Human Capital; Wealth; Denmark

Forthcoming
Article

Social Security and Trends in Wealth Inequality

By: Sylvain Catherine, Max Miller and Natasha Sarin

Recent influential work finds large increases in inequality in the U.S. based on measures of wealth concentration that notably exclude the value of social insurance programs. This paper shows that top wealth shares have not changed much over the last three decades when... View Details

Keywords: Wealth; Equality and Inequality; Taxation; Insurance; Welfare

2022
Working Paper

On the Origins of Our Discontent

By: Rawi Abdelal and Thomas J. DeLong

Signs of discontent with global capitalism and national capitalisms abound. Unless we find ways to create better jobs and then improve those jobs further with empathic management and thoughtful mentoring, then we will be unable to create a more stable, purposeful... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Human Needs; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Wealth and Poverty; Globalization; Government and Politics

01 Dec 2018
News

Raising the Barrio

Buenos Aires’s Villa 31 is within sight of Retiro, one of the wealthiest enclaves in Argentina’s capital. But the villa miseria—the Argentinian term for an unplanned shantytown—is a world away. The neighborhood is sandwiched between the largest railway station in... View Details

Keywords: April White

28 Jul 2015
Blog Post

Nairobi Love: Heading Home

In my early 20’s, I was really struggling to reconcile my public sector heart and private sector mind: how do ~40% of Kenyans live in poverty despite some of the highest literacy rates on the continent, an increasing cadre of highly... View Details

October 2010 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Bessemer Trust: Guardians of Capital

By: Tom Nicholas and David Chen

Henry Phipps, Jr. made his fortune in the steel industry alongside one of America's most celebrated entrepreneurs—Andrew Carnegie. His wealth was administered in the form of trusts, which he hoped would provide a stream of income for his family and their descendants... View Details

Keywords: Wealth; Asset Management; Family Business; Business History; Income; Entrepreneurship; Capital; United States

Educators

01 Dec 2018
News

Hard Choices

Dear alumni and friends, We celebrated the opening of Klarman Hall on October 1 and used the occasion to spark discussion and spur thinking on important issues of the day. Beth and Seth (MBA 1982) Klarman, in providing the gift for this remarkable new building, had... View Details

Keywords: Seth Klarman (MBA 1982)

Profile

Gerald Chertavian

student at HBS, Chertavian continued to pursue his interest in closing what he calls “the opportunity divide.” “I was fanatical,” he recalls. “All I thought about was enabling young people to go from poverty to a professional career in... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit / Government; Entrepreneurship; Services

Fast Answer

Social Entrepreneurship & Systems Change

sectors Profiles of social enterprises and biographical information on social entrepreneurs Acumen - a non-profit investment fun that focuses on poverty eradication and providing solutions to the problems of access... View Details

25 Aug 2015
News

Sunset in the East?

infrastructure (health care, education, pensions)—especially for rural people for whom none of this has ever been free or even widely available at a decent standard. To be clear, roads, railways, and the like have helped people physically move out of View Details

Keywords: Administration of Economic Programs; Government; Real Estate; Health, Social Assistance

September 2010
Teaching Note

Acumen Fund: Measurement in Impact Investing (TN) (A) and (B)

By: Alnoor Ebrahim

Teaching Note for 310011 and 310017. View Details

Keywords: Projects; For-Profit Firms; Networks; Health Care and Treatment; Performance Evaluation; Investment Portfolio; Asset Pricing; Competition; Multinational Firms and Management; Venture Capital; Investment Return; Poverty; Financial Services Industry; Kenya