Publications

March 2022
Article

Targeting High Ability Entrepreneurs Using Community Information: Mechanism Design in the Field

By: Reshmaan Hussam, Natalia Rigol and Benjamin N. Roth

Identifying high-growth microentrepreneurs in low-income countries remains a challenge due to a scarcity of verifiable information. With a cash grant experiment in India we demonstrate that community knowledge can help target high-growth microentrepreneurs; while the... View Details

Keywords: Microentrepreneurs; Community Information; Field Experiment; Loans; Entrepreneurship; Developing Countries and Economies; Financing and Loans; Information; Mathematical Methods; India

2008
Working Paper

Do Legal Origins Have Persistent Effects Over Time? A Look at Law and Finance around the World c. 1900

By: Aldo Musacchio

How persistent are the effects of legal institutions adopted or inherited in the distant past? A substantial literature argues that legal origins have persistent effects that explain clear differences in investor protections and financial development around the world... View Details

Keywords: History; Law; Development Economics; Investment; Corporate Governance; Finance; Business and Government Relations

2007
Working Paper

New Framework for Measuring and Managing Macrofinancial Risk and Financial Stability

By: Dale F. Gray, Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie

This paper proposes a new approach to improve the way central banks can analyze and manage the financial risks of a national economy. It is based on the modern theory and practice of contingent claims analysis (CCA), which is successfully used today at the level of... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Macroeconomics; Central Banking; Risk Management

March 2000 (Revised May 2002)
Case

Korea: On the Back of a Tiger

Describes the development strategy followed by Korea under the leadership of Park Chung Hee as well as the reform efforts embarked on by his successors. View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Developing Countries and Economies; Government and Politics; Growth and Development Strategy; Public Administration Industry; South Korea

March 2016
Teaching Note

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Inge Skjelfjord and the Cacao Supply Chain

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Inge Skjelfjord, with a long career in international finance focused on agribusiness projects, had a vision to build a cacao research center that would help smallholder cacao farmers, who benefited the least from the chocolate value chain. He aimed to support the... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness Industry; Farming; Farm; Policy; Change Management; Innovation; Agribusiness; Education; Economic Growth; Research; Supply Chain; Supply Chain Management; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Ecuador

Web

Creating Value in Business and Government (HKS-HBS Joint Degree Seminar) - Course Catalog

environment, or national defense) methods (for example, decision making under uncertainty, project evaluation, performance measurement, or negotiation) or other topics (for example, international trade, technological innovation, economic... View Details

17 Oct 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Self-Employment Dynamics and the Returns to Entrepreneurship

Keywords: by Eleanor W. Dillon and Christopher T. Stanton

1988
Chapter

Explaining the Demand for Dollars: International Rates of Return, and the Expectations of Chartists and Fundamentalists

By: Jeffrey A. Frankel and Kenneth A. Froot

Keywords: Currencies; Exchange Rates; International Macroeconomics; Monetary Policy; Currency Controls; Fixed Exchange Rates; Floating Exchange Rates; Currency Bands; Currency Zones; Currency Areas; Rational Expectations; Currency Exchange Rate; Asset Pricing; Macroeconomics

September 2025
Article

Sticky Capital Controls

By: Miguel Acosta-Henao, Laura Alfaro and Andrés Fernández

There is much ongoing debate on the merits of capital controls as effective policy instruments. The differing perspectives are due in part to a lack of empirical studies that look at the intensive margin of controls, which in turn has prevented a quantitative... View Details

Keywords: Capital Controls; Macroprudential Policies; Stickiness; Intensive; (S, S) Costs; Capital; Management; Macroeconomics; Governance Controls; Mathematical Methods

2025
Working Paper

Markups and Cost Pass-through Along the Supply Chain

By: Santiago Alvarez-Blaser, Alberto Cavallo, Alexander MacKay and Paolo Mengano

We study markups and pricing strategies along the supply chain. Our unique dataset combines detailed price and cost information from a large global manufacturer with matched retail prices collected online for the period July 2018 through June 2023. We show that total... View Details

Keywords: Markups; Pricing; Price; Supply Chain; Inflation and Deflation; Cost

SSRN

February 2023
Article

Nonprofits in Good Times and Bad Times

By: Christine L. Exley, Nils H. Lehr and Stephen J. Terry

Need fluctuates over the business cycle. We conduct a survey revealing a desire for nonprofit activities to countercyclically expand during downturns. We then demonstrate, using comprehensive U.S. nonprofit data drawn from millions of tax returns, that the public's... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Business Cycles; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

Article

Making Seconds Count: When Valuing Time Promotes Subjective Well-being

By: Alice Lee-Yoon and A.V. Whillans

Time is a finite and precious resource, and the way that we value our time can critically shape happiness. In this article, we present a conceptual framework to explain when valuing time can enhance vs. undermine well-being. Specifically, we review the emotional... View Details

Keywords: Time; Happiness; Welfare; Money; Value; Well-being

August 8, 2017
Article

Buying Time Promotes Happiness

By: A.V. Whillans, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Paul Smeets, Rene Bekkers and Michael I. Norton

Around the world, increases in wealth have produced an unintended consequence: a rising sense of time scarcity. We provide evidence that using money to buy time can provide a buffer against this time famine, thereby promoting happiness. Using large, diverse samples... View Details

Keywords: Time; Money Funds; Well-being; Money; Happiness; Satisfaction

Article

Time, Money, and Happiness

By: Cassie Mogilner and Michael I. Norton

We highlight recent research examining how people should manage their most precious resources—time and money—to maximize their happiness. Contrary to people’s intuitions, happiness may be less contingent on the sheer amount of each resource available and more on how... View Details

Keywords: Happiness; Behavior; Resource Allocation; Money

July 2012
Article

Discrete Choice Cannot Generate Demand That Is Additively Separable in Own Price

By: Sonia Jaffe and Scott Duke Kominers

We show that in a unit demand discrete choice framework with at least three goods, demand cannot be additively separable in own price. This result sharpens the analogous result of Jaffe and Weyl (2010) in the case of linear demand and has implications for testing of... View Details

Keywords: Discrete Choice; Unit Demand; Separable Demand; Linear Demand; Demand and Consumers; Market Design; Mathematical Methods; Economics

2014
Case

Tommy Koh and the United States–Singapore Free Trade Agreement (B)

By: James K. Sebenius and Laurence A. Green

This case details the efforts of Singapore Ambassador-At-Large Tommy Koh to forge a free trade agreement between Singapore and the United States following both nations' support for the initiation of negotiations on a USSFTA. Examining the various barriers and fronts of... View Details

Keywords: Agreements and Arrangements; International Relations; Trade; United States; Singapore

April 2004 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Telecomunicacoes de Sao Paulo SA (Telesp)

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Elizabeth Collins and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho

Set in Brazil during the period of telecommunication's privatization, CEO Manoel Amorim must define a sustainable strategy and build capabilities in his organization. View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Emerging Markets; Privatization; Financial Crisis; Telecommunications Industry; Brazil

May 1988 (Revised November 1990)
Case

Airbus vs. Boeing (B): The Storm Intensifies

By: Malcolm S. Salter

Discusses the growing competition faced by U.S. producers of civil aircraft due to the success and expanding product line of Airbus Industries. Designed to foster discussion of international trade policy as it affects producers in the industry and to encourage firm... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Policy; Negotiation; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Aerospace Industry; United States