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- Faculty Publications (82)
- March 2018
- Teaching Note
Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity (A) and (B)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu
Through the challenges facing Target, the case examines the ways in which corporations can become involved in political and legislative debates and processes, ranging from campaign contributions to lobbying. In 2016, Target CEO Brian Cornell must determine how to... View Details
Keywords: Public Opinion; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Problems and Challenges; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Media; Political Elections; Taxation; Corporate Accountability; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Diversity; Customers; Communication; Business and Government Relations; Retail Industry; United States
- July 2017 (Revised November 2017)
- Case
'Clarín Lies!': Bias, Post-Truth, and Populism in Argentina's Media War
By: Rafael Di Tella, Jose Liberti and Sarah McAra
In 2012, Argentine media conglomerate Grupo Clarín and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner were embroiled in what some called “the mother of all battles.” Grupo Clarín was one of the preeminent media companies in Argentina, with leading newspapers, cable... View Details
- April 2017 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu
Through the challenges facing Target, the case examines ways in which corporations can become involved in political and legislative debates and processes, ranging from campaign contributions to lobbying to political activism. In 2016, Target CEO Brian Cornell must... View Details
Keywords: Boycott; Corporate Political Activity; Lobbying; LGBTQ; Campaign Contributions; Campaign Finance; Retail; Shareholder Activism; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Problems and Challenges; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Media; Political Elections; Taxation; Corporate Accountability; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Diversity; Customers; Communication; Business and Government Relations; Retail Industry; United States
- December 2016
- Article
The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales, Revisited
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf
Even as we approach the twentieth anniversary of widespread file sharing, its impact on the sale of copyrighted material remains in dispute. We contributed to this debate with an early study, “The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis,” that was... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised March 2018)
- Case
Qalaa Holdings and the Egyptian Refining Company
By: Victoria Ivashina and Marc Homsy
This case follows Qalaa Holdings, a successful Egypt-based private equity firm, and gives insight into the types of investments it pursued, its growth over time, and the limited partner base it had at hand. It also allows students to consider and debate whether the... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Fiscal Rules and Sovereign Default
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
Recurrent concerns over debt sustainability in emerging and developed nations have prompted renewed debate on the role of fiscal rules. Their optimality, however, remains unclear. We provide a quantitative analysis of fiscal rules in a standard model of sovereign debt... View Details
- 2016
- Book
Antonio Serra and the Economics of Good Government
By: Rosario Patalano and Sophus A. Reinert
Little is known of Antonio Serra except that he wrote his extraordinary 1613 Short Treatise on the Causes That Make Kingdoms Abound in Gold and Silver even in the Absence of Mines in a Neapolitan jail and that he died there soon afterwards. However, the... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised April 2017)
- Case
James Madison, the 'Federal Negative,' and the Making of the U.S. Constitution
By: David Moss and Marc Campasano
On June 8th, 1787, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, delegates from across the United States began discussing a curious proposal to expand federal power over the states. James Madison of Virginia had suggested that the new constitution include a... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised July 2017)
- Case
Race, Justice, and the Jury System in Postbellum Virginia
By: David Moss and Dean Grodzins
In December 1877, an all-white grand jury in Patrick County, Virginia, indicted two black teenagers, Lee and Burwell Reynolds, for killing a white man. After a series of trials, an all-white trial jury convicted Lee of second-degree murder and sentenced him to prison.... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised March 2017)
- Case
Regulating Radio in the Age of Broadcasting
By: David Moss, Marc Campasano and Colin Donovan
When the Titanic tragically sank on April 15, 1912, potentially life-saving help was delayed as a result of failures in radio communication. In part as a result, Congress moved swiftly to regulate radio, passing the Radio Act of 1912 four months later. Although at... View Details
- June 2014 (Revised April 2015)
- Background Note
Affordable Housing and Low-Income Housing Tax Credits in the United States
By: Arthur I Segel and Nicolas P. Retsinas
This background note explores the basic themes surrounding the government's approach to providing housing: namely its shift from a supplier and builder of affordable housing to an approach that focuses on demand-side solutions and indirect subsidies to private... View Details
- February 2014 (Revised August 2015)
- Case
The Estate Tax Debate
By: Matthew Weinzierl, Katrina Flanagan and Valerie Galinskaya
Per dollar of revenue, no tax policy generates more sound and fury than the taxation of estates. To supporters, the tax is a break on the concentration of wealth and power and an easy way to fund redistribution. To opponents, the tax is an unjust punishment of the... View Details
- January 2014 (Revised February 2016)
- Case
U.S. Government Debt and the Debate over a Balanced Budget Amendment
By: Matthew Weinzierl, Katrina Flanagan and Alastair Su
In the first decade of the 21st century, national debt as a share of GDP rose dramatically in the United States and across the developed world. This case consists of excerpts from leading commentators explaining and commenting on this trend and the economic and moral... View Details
- January 2014
- Article
China's 'New Regionalism': Subnational Analysis in Chinese Political Economy
By: Meg Rithmire
The study of Chinese political economy has undergone a sea change since the late 1990s; instead of debating the origins and direction of national reform, scholars have turned to examining the origins of local economic variation. This essay reviews recent work in... View Details
- Summer 2013
- Other Article
The Roots of Our Tax Debates
Our fiscal debates are endlessly frustrating. The outlines of a compromise seem clear, yet both sides remain incapable of agreement. But is the proper balance between spending less and taxing more really so obvious? A look at what underlies the political wars over... View Details
- June 2013 (Revised November 2016)
- Case
Goldfinger: Charles W. Engelhard Jr. and Apartheid-era South Africa
By: Geoffrey Jones and Elliot R. Benton
This case considers the strategies of Charles W. Engelhard, an American mining magnate who made large investments in apartheid-era South Africa. Engelhard was widely believed to have been the model for the James Bond villan Auric Goldfinger. During the 1950s and 1960s... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
Entrepreneurs, Firms and Global Wealth since 1850
By: G. Jones
This working paper integrates the role of entrepreneurship and firms into debates on why Asia, Latin America and Africa were slow to catch up with the West following the Industrial Revolution and the advent of modern economic growth. It argues that the currently... View Details
Keywords: Institutional Change; Political Economy; Emerging Economies; Developing Countries; Industrial Development; Culture; Human Capital; Economic History; History; Wealth and Poverty; Business History; Emerging Markets; Globalization; Developing Countries and Economies; Manufacturing Industry; Mining Industry; Service Industry; Latin America; Asia; North and Central America; Africa; South America; Europe
- Article
The Future of Economic, Business, and Social History
By: G. Jones, Marco H.D. van Leeuwen and Stephen Broadberry
Three leading scholars in the fields of business, economic, and social history review the current state of these disciplines and reflect on their future trajectory. Geoffrey Jones reviews the development of business history since its birth at the Harvard Business... View Details
Keywords: Economic History; Business History; History; Asia; Africa; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America
- September 2012 (Revised September 2015)
- Case
Doing Business in Turkey
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Robin J. Ely, Daniela Beyersdorfer, Emilie Billaud and Cigdem Çelik
In a rather flat international business environment characterized by shrinking markets and economic turmoil, Turkey promoted itself as one of the safe havens for investments. Led by the strong domestic demand of a young population, the country had tripled its GDP... View Details
- February 2012 (Revised June 2012)
- Case
Rospil.info
By: Paul Healy, Karthik Ramanna and Matthew Shaffer
What should business leaders do about corruption? In December 2011, four HBS alumni met to debate how to engage the unprecedented protests against Vladimir Putin's corrupt government, which had erupted in Russia in response to alleged fraud in the recent parliamentary... View Details