Publications

January 2008 (Revised September 2009)
Case

Financing American Housing Construction in the Aftermath of War

By: David Moss and Cole Bolton

At the start of WWI, the United States faced a significant housing shortage. Public officials feared the spread of disease—and even communism—in the nation's cramped urban centers where vacancy rates held near zero and families often "doubled up" in single-housing... View Details

Keywords: Central Banking; Bonds; Mortgages; Government Legislation; Business History; Housing; Banking Industry; United States

02 Dec 2009
What Do You Think?

Should Immigration Policies Be More Welcoming to Low-Skilled Workers?

of cost shifting." J. Boxer points out that "there's a high cost to cheap labor, and that cost (free education, free health care, etc.) is passed on to the state and the taxpayer, generally." Eloton Fowler said, "Our View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

31 Jul 2007
First Look

First Look: July 31, 2007

microfinance banks join forces to face the new challenges of globalization, competition, and politics while common shareholder ACCÍON investments considers its options. From an initial project to share costs in the revamping of their IT... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2009
Working Paper

Endowments, Fiscal Federalism, and the Cost of Capital for States: Evidence from Brazil, 1891-1930

By: Andre C. Martinez Fritscher and Aldo Musacchio

There is a large amount of literature that aims to explain what determines country risk (defined as the difference between the yield of a sovereign's bonds and the risk free rate). In this paper, we contribute to the discussion by arguing that an important explanatory... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Cost of Capital; Revenue; Sovereign Finance; Goods and Commodities; Taxation; Business History; Risk and Uncertainty; Brazil

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17 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Harvard Business School Faculty Comment on Crisis in Japan

capabilities set a favorable foundation for the economic growth miracle the country experienced after World War II. If history is any guide, Japan should make a full recovery from the devastating effects of the recent earthquake and... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty

13 Feb 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, February 13, 2018

Jealousy of Trade and the History of Political Thought By: Kapossy, Béla, Isaac Nakhimovsky, Sophus A. Reinert, and Richard Whatmore, eds. Abstract—When Istvan Hont died in 2013, the world lost a giant of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 Jun 2016
Op-Ed

Brexit: Should Britain Stay or Go?

Harvard Business School faculty offer their views: Isidor Straus Professor of Business History Geoff Jones, who researches the evolution, impact, and responsibility of global business and has authored numerous books on these topics,... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey G. Jones & Dante Roscini

Web

Harvard Business School

Crisis . New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968. Gillespie, Jennifer, ed., "We Were Just Doing What Needed to Be Done," Harvard Business School Bulletin , March 2018. Harris, Abram L. The Negro as Capitalist: A Study of Banking and Business Among American Negroes. Philadelphia:... View Details

January 2010
Article

Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation

By: William R. Kerr

We investigate the speed at which clusters of invention for a technology migrate spatially following breakthrough inventions. We identify breakthrough inventions as the top one percent of U.S. inventions for a technology during 1975-1984 in terms of subsequent... View Details

Keywords: History; Technological Innovation; Patents; Labor; Immigration; United States

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14 Jan 2002
Research & Ideas

Countries on the Cusp: The Power of Nationalism

What does nationalism mean for the world economy? And what does it have to say in a world of ever-increasing globalization? We recently put those questions to political scientist and HBS professor Rawi Abdelal. His new book, National... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

19 Jun 2013
Research & Ideas

Analyzing Institutions to Solve Big Problems

worthwhile medication. "Ignorance requires our attention," said Renee Rottner, an assistant professor at the NYU Stern School of Business, who coauthored the paper. "We need to be rigorous about looking at history where... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel & Anna Secino

13 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

3 Ways Firms Can Profit From Environmental Investments

history is chockablock with companies whose potentially risky bets paid off in the long term. "Take DuPont's investment in nylon," she says. "They spent many years stabilizing the process and learning to scale it up. And of course once... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Energy; Utilities

08 Jul 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Inventing the Endless Frontier: The Effects of the World War II Research Effort on Post-War Innovation

Keywords: by Daniel P. Gross and Bhaven N. Sampat

2020
Working Paper

Inventing the Endless Frontier: The Effects of the World War II Research Effort on Post-War Innovation

By: Daniel P. Gross and Bhaven N. Sampat

During World War II, the U.S. government launched an unprecedented effort to mobilize science for war: a newly-established Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) entered thousands of R&D contracts with industrial and academic contractors, spending one to... View Details

Keywords: World War II; Vannevar Bush; OSRD; Mission-oriented R＆D; Direction Of Innovation; Geography Of Innovation; Technology Clusters; U.S. Innovation System; Innovation and Invention; Research and Development; Problems and Challenges; War; History; Government Administration; United States

SSRN

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December 2007
Case

Envisioning "Free Banking" in Antebellum New York (A)

By: David A. Moss and Cole Bolton

Banks throughout New York State suspended specie payments (i.e., payments in gold and silver) in May 1837 following the collapse of several state banks and the onset of a nationwide financial panic. Amid the chaos, the upstart Whigs were able to depose the longstanding... View Details

Keywords: History; Government Legislation; Capital; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; New York (state, US)

September 2008
Article

What T. R. Took: The Economic Impact of the Panama Canal, 1903-1937

By: Noel Maurer and Carlos Yu

The Panama Canal was one of the largest public investments of its time. In the first decade of its operation, the canal produced significant social returns for the United States. Most of these returns were due to the transportation of petroleum from California to the... View Details

Keywords: History; Development Economics; International Relations; Investment Return; Negotiation Deal; Panama; United States

Find at Harvard

16 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 16, 2019

history of creativity studies. Indeed, an examination of these seminal papers helps the new generation of creativity and innovation researchers to be mindful of the past and unafraid to explore it. Publisher's link:... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

November 2003 (Revised November 2015)
Case

Brazil at the Wheel

By: Geoffrey Jones

Taught in the second-year MBA elective on the Evolution of Global Business. Examines the costs and benefits of the Brazilian government's policies to encourage foreign multinationals to develop an automobile industry during the 1950s. A combination of incentives and... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Multinational Firms and Management; Policy; Government and Politics; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Auto Industry; Brazil