Publications

January–February 2021
Article

Compensation Packages That Actually Drive Performance

By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah Abbott, Michael R. Marino and Metin Aksoy

By aligning executives’ financial incentives with company strategy, a firm can inspire its management to deliver superior results. But it can be hard to get pay packages right. In this article four experts break down the key elements of compensation and explain how to... View Details

Keywords: Executive Compensation; Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Strategy; Performance

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2024
Working Paper

You've Got Mail! The Late 19th-Century U.S. Postal Service Expansion, Firm Creation, and Firm Performance

By: Astrid Marinoni and Maria P. Roche

This paper examines the impact of the expansion of the US Postal Service in the late 19th century on firm creation and performance. Utilizing newly digitized archival data on historic business establishments, post office locations, and road networks in California,... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Innovation; Knowledge Exchange; US Postal Service; Firm Performance; Infrastructure; Expansion; Government Administration; Communication; Business History; Entrepreneurship; Public Administration Industry; California

2020
Book

Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity

By: Joseph Allen and John D. Macomber

By the time you reach 80, you will have spent 72 years of your life indoors. Like it or not, humans have become an indoor species. This means that the people who design, build, and maintain our buildings can have a major impact on our health.
Ever feel tired... View Details

Keywords: Architecture; Real Estate Development; Air Pollution; Air Quality; Public Health; Productivity Gains; Buildings and Facilities; Health; Pollutants; Performance Productivity; Construction Industry

November 1992 (Revised October 1994)
Case

U.S. Economic Performance--1960-93

By: Nancy F. Koehn

Keywords: Performance; Economy; United States

09 Apr 2009
Working Paper Summaries

The Economics of Structured Finance

Keywords: by Joshua D. Coval, Jakub Jurek & Erik Stafford

April 1979 (Revised April 1986)
Case

Mexico: Development Strategies and Performance

By: James E. Austin

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Growth and Development Strategy; Mexico

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

Survivorship and the Economic Grim Reaper

Robert E. Kennedy and George P. Baker III are studying the long-term equity market performance of firms that are no longer public entities. Firms are delisted for a variety of reasons, including liquidation, merger, and leveraged buyout. Although the short-term... View Details

26 Sep 2013
Research & Ideas

Behind India’s Economic and Political Woes

portfolio—like in nature and somewhat footloose and fancy-free. Q: What are some of the causes of the decline that are specific to India? A: Due to large-scale economic liberalization since 1991, India has had a nice long run of reforms... View Details

Keywords: by Zeenat Potia

2017
Working Paper

Economic Uncertainty and Earnings Management

By: Luke C.D. Stein and Charles C.Y. Wang

In the presence of managerial short-termism and asymmetric information about skill and effort provision, firms may opportunistically shift earnings from uncertain to more certain times. We document empirically that when financial markets are less certain about a firm's... View Details

Keywords: Discretionary Accruals; Uncertainty; Implied Volatility; Earnings Response Coefficient; Risk and Uncertainty; Earnings Management; Financial Markets

SSRN

July 2007
Teaching Note

Rwanda: National Economic Transformation (TN)

By: Michael E. Porter and Michael Patrick McCreless

Teaching Note to 706491. View Details

Keywords: Economy; Problems and Challenges; Development Economics; Policy; Poverty; Transformation; Performance Evaluation; Political Elections; Rwanda

17 Mar 2010
Other Presentation

Massachusetts Competitiveness: State and Cluster Performance

By: Michael E. Porter

Keywords: Economics; Growth and Development

August 2012
Article

Surviving the Global Financial Crisis: Foreign Ownership and Establishment Performance

By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Chen

We examine the differential response of establishments to the recent global financial crisis with particular emphasis on the role of foreign ownership. Using a worldwide establishment panel dataset, we investigate how multinational subsidiaries around the world... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Financial Crisis; Multinational Firms and Management; Analytics and Data Science; Business Subsidiaries; Production; Finance; Performance; Ownership

December 1998
Article

Entrepreneurs and Business Performance in Nineteenth Century France

By: Tom Nicholas, Elisa Boccaletti and James Foreman-Peck

A popular explanation for the supposed "delayed industrialisation" of the nineteenth century French economy has been the inappropriate attitudes and actions of the managerial classes and family firms. To address these claims we model the supply and demand for... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Performance; Economy; Management; Success; Opportunities; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Saving; Higher Education; Training; Demand and Consumers; France

08 Jul 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Surviving the Global Financial Crisis: Foreign Direct Investment and Establishment Performance

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro & Maggie Chen

25 Sep 2019
Research & Ideas

The Economic Cost of Physician Burnout

In part, that’s due to the difficulty of calculating the economic cost of all of the factors involved. For instance, some studies have associated burnout with an increase in medical errors, but calculating those costs are nearly... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health

09 Jul 2001
Research & Ideas

Does Misery Love Companies? How Social Performance Pays Off

history of empirical work on the search for a relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP). Second, we critically appraise the quality of this work. And... View Details

Keywords: by Joshua D. Margolis & James P. Walsh

Article

You Can't Always Get What You Want: The Real Exchange Rate and Manufacturing Performance in a World of Global Value Chains

By: Laura Alfaro, Alejandro Cuñat, Harald Fadinger and Yanping Liu

Real exchange rate devaluations are typically seen as a viable development strategy, but the effectiveness of the approach may vary over time and across countries. This column explores this issue by focusing on the microeconomics of firm-level responses to exchange... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing Performance; Real Exchange Rate; Global Value Chains; Economics; Production; Performance