Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(304)
- Faculty Publications (72)
- Article
Debt Maturity: Is Long-Term Debt Optimal?
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
We model and calibrate the arguments in favor and against short-term and long-term debt. These arguments broadly include: maturity premium, sustainability, and service smoothing. We use a dynamic equilibrium model with tax distortions and government... View Details
- November 2008 (Revised January 2017)
- Case
Maggie Lena Walker and the Independent Order of St. Luke
By: Anthony Mayo and Shandi Onise Smith
As America struggled to regain its balance in the aftermath of the American Civil War, Maggie Lena Walker did her best to actively effect change by finding solutions to the social and economic problems facing blacks and especially black women. Taking charge of the... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised January 2011)
- Case
Lawrence Trinh: Venturing to Vietnam
By: Joshua D. Margolis and Rachel Gordon
Should Lawrence Trinh pursue his aspiration of working in Vietnam—and if so, what set of principles and practices should he adopt if he encounters corruption? These are questions that reverberate for many students who wish to work in emerging markets and other contexts... View Details
- April 2008 (Revised May 2008)
- Case
Commonwealth Care Alliance: Elderly and Disabled Care
By: Michael E. Porter and Jennifer F Baron
Individuals enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid, known as dual eligibles, are among the highest-cost beneficiaries in the US. Commonwealth Care Alliance, a small nonprofit insurer and care delivery system in Massachusetts, operated under a public demonstration... View Details
- February 2008
- Case
Entrepreneurial Leadership in Forming High Tech Enclaves: Lessons from the Government of Andhra Pradesh
By: F. Warren McFarlan, Ramiro Montealegre and Espen Andersen
This case provides an overview of the entrepreneurial leadership taken by the government of India's Andhra Pradesh state in promoting the IT sector and using it to improve the status of the state's economic position in the early years of the third millennium. View Details
- 2008
- Book
Greater Good: How Good Marketing Makes for Better Democracy
By: John A. Quelch and Katherine E. Jocz
Marketing has a greater purpose, and marketers, a higher calling, than simply selling more widgets, according to John Quelch and Katherine Jocz. In "Greater Good", the authors contend that marketing performs an essential societal function—and does so democratically.... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Choice, Rationality and Welfare Measurement
By: Jerry R. Green and Daniel A. Hojman
We present a method for evaluating the welfare of a decision maker, based on observed choice data. Unlike the standard economic theory of revealed preference, our method can be used whether or not the observed choices are rational. Paralleling the standard theory we... View Details
- October 2007 (Revised May 2008)
- Case
World Economic Forum (A)
Covers strategy and leadership. World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab has created the world's most famous-and exclusive-global business conference, held annually in Davos, Switzerland, and backed by a formidable membership organization that includes many of the... View Details
Keywords: Conferences; Economics; Globalization; Leadership; Social Enterprise; Welfare; Strategy; Davos
- April 2007 (Revised June 2007)
- Case
Aid, Debt Relief, and Trade: An Agenda for Fighting World Poverty (A)
By: Laura Alfaro, Eric D. Werker and Renee Kim
At the 2005 Group of Eight summit, world leaders agreed to relieve the world's poorest countries' debt burdens and double aid to Africa by 2010. The announcement raised questions whether debt relief would really help the poor. By examining past aid trends and policies... View Details
- March 2007 (Revised October 2007)
- Case
Alleviating Poverty and Malnutrition
By: Ray A. Goldberg and Kerry Herman
Deals with approaches to alleviating poverty and how firms, governments, and NGOs are able to work together to accomplish these goals. View Details
- November 2006 (Revised August 2009)
- Case
Malaysia: Halfway to 2020
This country case on Malaysia extends forward by seven years the case “Malaysia: Capital and Control” (702-040). It is based on Malaysia's ninth plan, which took effect in 2006. The ninth plan proposed five thrusts—moving the economy to higher value-added goods and... View Details
- 2006
- Chapter
The Microeconomic Foundations of Prosperity: Findings from the Business Competitiveness Index
By: Michael E. Porter, Christian H.M. Ketels and Mercedes Delgado-Garcia
- July 2005 (Revised December 2006)
- Case
Japan: Deficits, Demography, and Deflation
By 2005, Japan's debt had risen to 163% of GDP. For more than a decade, the government had run huge deficits, trying unsuccessfully to stimulate economic growth. Interest rates, meanwhile, had been zero for years. But with slow growth and banks in crisis, nothing had... View Details
- November 2004
- Article
Unemployment Benefits As a Substitute for a Conservative Central Banker
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
In the many years since their introduction, positive theories of inflation have rarely been tested. This paper documents a negative relationship between inflation and the welfare state (proxied by the parameters of the unemployment benefit program) that is to be... View Details
- December 2003
- Case
Antitrust Regulations in a Global Setting: The EU Investigation of the GE/Honeywell Merger
By: Mihir A. Desai, Belen Villalonga and Mark Veblen
Helps students understand the principles underlying competition and antitrust policy in the context of the proposed GE-Honeywell merger. The U.S. Department of Justice has already approved the transaction and it is being considered by the European Commission. The... View Details
- November 2003
- Article
The Macroeconomics of Happiness
By: Rafael Di Tella, Robert MacCulloch and Andrew J. Oswald
We show that macroeconomic movements have strong effects on the happiness of nations. First, we find that there are clear microeconomic patterns in the psychological well-being levels of a quarter of a million randomly sampled Europeans and Americans from the 1970s to... View Details
- September 2003
- Case
Nelson Mandela, Turnaround Leader
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Euvin Naidoo
Nelson Mandela was the first democratically elected president of South Africa. He had to shift the culture of a country after the end of the apartheid regime, which enforced separation of the races and stifled freedom of the press. He established more open dialogue,... View Details
- 2001
- Article
The Economic Contribution of Information Technology: Towards Comparative and User Studies
By: Timothy F. Bresnahan and Shane Greenstein
By what process does technical change in information technology (IT) increase economic welfare? How does this process result in increases in welfare at different rates in different countries and regions? This paper considers existing literature on measuring the... View Details
- March 2000 (Revised April 2001)
- Case
Menem and the Populist Tradition in Argentina
By: Rafael M. Di Tella and Eliseo Neuman
Argentina has flourished under a fixed exchange rate system, yet there are large income and employment fluctuations. The social cost of unemployment is threatening the viability of the economic model. Building a welfare state is one alternative, but this may be a... View Details
- September 1999
- Case
New Zealand: The Wonder Down Under
By: Willis M. Emmons III and Kevin W. W. Glasgow
Long regarded as the most extensive welfare state among the world's industrialized nations, New Zealand embarked on a strategy of radical economic reform/liberalization following a severe foreign exchange crisis in 1984. This case examines the initial reform strategy... View Details