Publications

April 2011 (Revised December 2017)
Case

Latvia: Navigating the Strait of Messina

By: Rafael Di Tella, Rawi Abdelal and Natalie Kindred

This case describes Latvia's transition from a Soviet republic into an EU member, its economic boom and subsequent bust in 2008, and its policy response. After implementing significant economic and political reforms in order to qualify for EU membership in 2004, Latvia... View Details

Keywords: Currency Exchange Rate; Competitive Strategy; Economic Growth; Policy; Financial Crisis; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Latvia

2020
Chapter

Health Care Markets a Decade After the ACA: Bigger, but Probably Not Better

By: Leemore S. Dafny

Love it or hate it, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) embraced and extended the role of private markets in financing and delivering health care in the United States. Ten years after the ACA’s passage, it is unclear whether health care markets are better (along a range of... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Markets; Laws and Statutes; Outcome or Result; Health Industry; United States

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December 2014 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Bhutan: Governing for Happiness

By: Sophus A. Reinert, Thomas Humphrey and Benjamin Safran

Unique among the world’s countries, the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan had abandoned the traditional policy goal of increasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in favor of pursuing Gross National Happiness (GNH). Famously, Bhutan ranked highly on lists of the happiest... View Details

Keywords: Happiness; Economic Growth; Governance; Cost vs Benefits; Bhutan

17 Jun 2014
First Look

First Look: June 17

dominate GICS6 industry peers in explaining cross-sectional variations in base firms' out-of-sample (a) stock returns, (b) valuation multiples, (c) growth rates, (d) R&D expenditures, (e) leverage, and (f) profitability ratios. We... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 1993 (Revised April 1995)
Case

Singapore

By: Forest L. Reinhardt and Edward Prewitt

Since winning independence in 1965, Singapore achieved some of the world's highest rates of economic growth. A large part of GDP and employment came from direct investment by multinational companies in low-cost assembly work, but in the 1990s Singapore's rising wage... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Decision Choices and Conditions; Development Economics; Economic Growth; Foreign Direct Investment; Multinational Firms and Management; Employment; Wages; Singapore

January 2014 (Revised February 2014)
Case

Japan: Betting on Inflation?

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

The case focuses on the challenges still confronting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the end of 2013, a year after he has been in office. It also gives an overview of Japan's earlier economic performance, focusing primarily on the period after it suffered a stock market... View Details

Keywords: Quantitative Easing; Debt Sustainability; International Relations; Borrowing and Debt

12 Jul 2016
First Look

July 12, 2016

Schreger Abstract—Government forecasts of GDP growth and budget balances are generally more over optimistic than private sector forecasts. When official forecasts are especially optimistic relative to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2012 (Revised November 2017)
Case

Turkey—A Work in Progress?

By: Richard H.K. Vietor

For the past 10 years, Turkey has grown its real GDP at about 6% annually. This came after a huge debt crisis in 2001-02, wherein Turkey had to borrow $16 billion more from the IMF and comport with its difficult conditionality. Today, Turkey is a middle-income country,... View Details

Keywords: Turkey; Economy; Macroeconomics; International Relations; Growth and Development Strategy; Turkey

2015
Report

Clusters and Regional Economies: Implications for the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence Region

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

The Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Region, covering eight U.S. states and two Canadian provinces located around the lakes and waterways that have given this region its name, is what economic developers call a 'macro region'. It is an area of intensive economic interaction... View Details

Keywords: Clusters; Regional Policy; Great Lakes; Economic Development; Industry Clusters; Economy; Canada; United States

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January 2017 (Revised April 2019)
Case

The Olmos Project: Value Creation and Value Capture

By: John Macomber, Fernanda Miguel, Laura Urdapilleta and Valeria Moy

Private investment in public infrastructure can be encouraged when there are multiple avenues to capture and to share the value created by such a project. Gains in the market value of land adjacent to projects are not customarily channeled back into defraying the... View Details

Keywords: Value Capture; Infrastructure; Decision Making; Agribusiness; Value Creation; South America; Peru

29 May 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 29, 2018

(BRFSS) data on 2.3 million U.S. respondents, and Eurobarometer data that cover multiple business cycles over four decades. This research provides a new perspective on the welfare cost of business cycles, with implications for growth... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

2019
Chapter

The Great Divergence and the Great Convergence

By: Geoffrey Jones

This chapter provides a new lens to the extensive debate among economists and economic historians concerning why the West grew rich and the rest of the world lagged behind as modern industrialization took hold in the 19th century. The literature has focused heavily on... View Details

Keywords: Globalization; Growth and Development; History; Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America; Middle East; North and Central America; Oceania

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2008
Report

Nordic Globalization Barometer 2008

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

The countries in the Nordic region—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—have been among the economies that have done best in an increasingly global economy. All Nordic countries have higher levels of prosperity than the average OECD country. Only the United... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Globalized Economies and Regions; Competitive Strategy; Scandinavia

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03 Mar 2008
First Look

First Look: March 4, 2008

life insurance practices led to an investigation in New York State that threatened to curtail growth in the industry. Charles Evans Hughes guided the four-month-long Armstrong Investigation, which made startling revelations and offered a... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

11 Jun 2013
First Look

First Look: June 11

Publisher's link: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/13-068_42cdee88-4440-43f0-a719-c00ef875c7fe.pdf 2006 Journal of Economic Perspectives The Growth of Finance By: Greenwood, Robin, and David S. Scharfstein Abstract—The U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

December 2001 (Revised February 2003)
Case

Netherlands:The, A "Third Way?"

By: Bruce R. Scott and Jamie Matthews

The economic success of The Netherlands in the 1960s can be attributed to Dutch wages that were kept substantially below those in neighboring countries. But increased pressures in the 1970s led to a wage explosion, which in turn pushed unemployment and disguised... View Details

Keywords: Wages; History; Policy; Problems and Challenges; Macroeconomics; Economic Systems; Employment; Performance Productivity; Jobs and Positions; Economic Growth; Netherlands