Publications

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Research Summary

Buyers, Sellers, Manufacturers in China’s Emerging Market around 1900

Ever since the economic reforms in the post-Mao period China’s economy as an emerging market has attracted much interest. However, we tend to forget that China was already an emerging market at the turn of the 19^th century, if not earlier. This... View Details

March 1996 (Revised August 1997)
Case

Recycling Problem: International Bank Lending in the 1970s

By: Huw Pill

Provides a brief overview of international bank lending to developing countries in the 1970s and its culmination in the Third-World debt crisis after 1982. View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Financing and Loans; Borrowing and Debt; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Crisis; Banking Industry

June 2005
Article

Inflation, Openness, and Exchange Rate Regimes: The Quest for Short-Term Commitment

By: Laura Alfaro

This paper further tests Romer's (1993) extension of Kydland and Prescott's (1977) predictions for dynamic-inconsistency problems in open economies. In a panel data set of developed and developing countries from 1973 to 1998, I find that openness does not play a role... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Economy; Currency Exchange Rate; Developing Countries and Economies; Inflation and Deflation

January 2008
Article

Entrepreneurship and Urban Success: Toward a Policy Consensus

By: Zoltan J. Acs, Edward L. Glaeser, Robert E. Litan, Lee Fleming, Stephan J. Goetz, William R. Kerr, Steven Klepper, Stuart S. Rosenthal, Olav Sorenson and William C. Strange

Like all politics, all entrepreneurship is local. Individuals launch firms and, if successful, expand their enterprises to other locations. But new firms must start somewhere, even if their businesses are conducted largely or exclusively on the Internet. Likewise,... View Details

Keywords: Business Headquarters; Business Startups; Development Economics; Economy; Entrepreneurship; Policy; Taxation; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Business Processes; Expansion; Internet

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17 Apr 2020
News

Q&A with former SBA Administrator Karen Mills

February 2023
Case

Roblox: Virtual Commerce in the Metaverse

By: Ayelet Israeli and Nicole Tempest Keller

In 2022, Roblox had 58.8 million daily active users, including over half of all children and teens under the age of 16 in the United States. Roblox, a free-to-use “co-experience platform”, allowed users to come together in immersive 3D experiences to socialize, work,... View Details

June 2023
Case

Block: Creating an Ecosystem of Ecosystems

By: Lauren Cohen, Richard Ryffel, Grace Headinger and Ruoshi Qi

At Investor Day 2022, Block announced a new vision for its businesses: creating an ecosystem of ecosystems. Outside the norm for many public growth companies, Block had recently acquired a variety of new business streams in the creator economy and Bitcoin despite a... View Details

October 2001
Case

TIGR and ILRI: Solving Problems with Genomics

By: Ray A. Goldberg and James M Beagle

Discusses nonprofit institutional leadership applying advances in genetic science to solve health and animal problems in industrial countries and the developing world. View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Health; Technological Innovation; Leading Change; Emerging Markets; Genetics; Non-Governmental Organizations; Technology Adoption; Biotechnology Industry

In this book we study the evolution of corporate governance arrangements that governments have adopted for their state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the last 20 years. We show that the process of privatization and liberalization of the 1990s and early 2000s created... View Details

July–August 2012
Article

The Growth Opportunity That Lies Next Door

By: G. Jones

This article uses the case of Natura, the largest Brazilian beauty company and one of the world's top twenty beauty companies, to explore how the logic of globalization is changing for corporations from emerging countries as growth opportunities in those countries... View Details

Keywords: Brazil; Marketing; Green Marketing; Environment; Globalization; Developing Countries and Economies; Geographic Location; Growth and Development Strategy; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Latin America; Europe

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Laura Alfaro is the Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration. At Harvard since 1999, she served as Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy in Costa Rica from 2010-2012, taking a leave from HBS. She is Co-Editor of the Journal of International... View Details

February 2017
Case

BlaBlaCar: The Road Ahead...

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Arun Sundararajan, Emilie Billaud and Caroline Caltagirone

In 2017, the co-founders of BlaBlaCar—the world’s largest long-distance carpooling company—reflected on the evolution of their venture and the way forward. BlaBlaCar had reached critical mass and size; yet staying still was not going to be enough to be relevant and... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Transformation; Decision Making; Values and Beliefs; Growth and Development Strategy; Digital Platforms; Network Effects; Strategic Planning; Competitive Strategy; Expansion; Internet and the Web; Transportation Networks; Transportation Industry; Web Services Industry; France; Europe

2009
Chapter

Plant-Size Distribution and Cross-Country Income Differences

By: Laura Alfaro, Andrew Charlton and Fabio Kanczuk

We investigate, using plant-level data for 79 developed and developing countries, whether differences in the allocation of resources across heterogeneous plants are a significant determinant of cross-country differences in income per worker. For this purpose, we use a... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Developing Countries and Economies; Wages; Resource Allocation; Mathematical Methods

2008
Working Paper

Firm-Size Distribution and Cross-Country Income Differences

By: Laura Alfaro, Andrew Charlton and Fabio Kanczuk

We investigate, using plant-level data for 79 developed and developing countries, whether differences in the allocation of resources across heterogeneous plants are a significant determinant of cross-country differences in income per worker. For this purpose, we use a... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Developing Countries and Economies; Wages; Resource Allocation; Mathematical Methods

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Research Summary

Overview

By: Ethan C. Rouen

Relying on empirical archival methodologies—as well as techniques in data science—to develop and structure new sources of data by which to approach questions of looming disclosure changes, Professor Rouen has focused on one of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s... View Details

January–February 2018
Article

Inclusive Growth: Profitable Strategies for Tackling Poverty and Inequality

By: Robert S. Kaplan, George Serafeim and Eduardo Tugendhat

More than a billion people in the developing world remain in extreme poverty and outside the formal economy. Traditional CSR programs have done little to alleviate the situation and rarely produce transformative change.
Instead of trying to fix local problems,... View Details

Keywords: Inclusive Growth; Sustainability; Social Impact; Business Strategy; Shared Value; Impact Investing; Inequality; Corporate Governance; Balanced Scorecard; Strategy Execution; Economic Growth; Developing Countries and Economies; Poverty; Equality and Inequality; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Strategy; Investment