Publications

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02 Nov 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Making the Numbers? ‘Short Termism’ & the Puzzle of Only Occasional Disaster

Keywords: by Nelson P. Repenning & Rebecca M. Henderson

Article

Economic Principles for Medicare Reform

By: Amitabh Chandra and Craig Garthwaite

In this article, we develop an economic framework for Medicare reform that highlights trade-offs that reform proposals should grapple with but often ignore. Central to our argument is a tension in administratively set prices, which may improve short-term efficiency but... View Details

Keywords: Medicare; Value-based Care; Health Care Reform; Markets In Health Care; Health Care and Treatment; Value; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

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December 2022 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Daniel Defense: Responding to the Shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

At 11:33am on May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old man from Uvalde, Texas walked into the Robb Elementary School carrying a semi-automatic "AR-15-style” rifle manufactured by Daniel Defense and killed 19 children and two adults. Three days later, Representative Carolyn Maloney... View Details

Keywords: Gun Violence; Gun Policy; Second Amendment; Legal Liability; Government Legislation; Marketing Strategy; Business or Company Management; Product Marketing; Ethics; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Moral Sensibility; Crime and Corruption; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Manufacturing Industry; Advertising Industry; United States

April 2006 (Revised December 2006)
Case

The Barber of Buenos Aires: Argentina's Debt Renegotiation

By: Noel Maurer and Aldo Musacchio

Tells the story of Argentina's aggressive strategy for renegotiating its sovereign debt from 2003 to 2005. Most creditors accepted the offer to swap their debt for new securities worth 35 cents on the dollar, with no recognition of all past-due interest. Many holdouts,... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Borrowing and Debt; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; International Finance; Foreign Direct Investment; Sovereign Finance; Government and Politics; Negotiation Tactics; Outcome or Result; Situation or Environment; Argentina

2008
Working Paper

Collaborative Architectures for Innovation

By: Gary P. Pisano and Roberto Verganti

Collaborative innovation has become a hot topic in innovation today. Scholars, consultants, and the business press all urge companies seeking to boost innovative performance to become more "collaborative." Too often, however, companies fail to distinguish among the... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Governance Controls; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Social and Collaborative Networks

April 1988 (Revised May 1992)
Case

Gaz de France

By: W. Carl Kester

The treasurer of Gaz de France is an aggressive, proactive manager of his company's liability structure, running one of the largest swap books of any non-financial corporation in the world. Currency futures, interbank forwards, and currency options are also frequently... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Borrowing and Debt; Currency Exchange Rate; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Policy; Management; Organizational Structure; Energy Industry; Europe

2011
Working Paper

Divide and Rule or the Rule of the Divided? Evidence from Africa

By: Stelios Michalopoulos and Elias Papaioannou

We investigate jointly the importance of contemporary country-level institutional structures and local ethnic-specific pre-colonial institutions in shaping comparative regional development in Africa. We utilize information on the spatial distribution of African... View Details

Keywords: Ethnicity; Development Economics; Geography; Government and Politics; Africa

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October 2010 (Revised October 2011)
Case

Ken Langone: Member, GE Compensation Committee

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Lizzie Gomez

On September 2003, Richard Grasso stepped down as chairman and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, following weeks of intense public criticism over the size of his $190 million compensation package. As chairman of the committee that oversaw Grasso's payout, Ken Langone... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Executive Compensation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Labor and Management Relations; Wages; Change Management; Energy Industry; New York (city, NY)

01 Jun 2023
News

Curb Appeal

work ethic—“they didn’t care what we did, but everyone had to work hard,” she says—and her mother offered a model of public service, serving as chancellor of the Board of Regents, New York State’s governing body for education. But when... View Details

Keywords: Alexander Gelfand; photography by Vance Jacobs; Government; Government

June 2009 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Microfin

By: Michael Chu and Enrique Kramer

The case presents the management dilemmas of a new institution in an undeveloped microfinance market in Latin America. Supported by a globally recognized industry player, it is the result of the efforts of two fledgling local entrepreneurs with a business model they... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Developing Countries and Economies; Social Entrepreneurship; Microfinance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Industry Structures; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Latin America

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Sawyer’s research focuses on U.S. political economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, concentrating on the development of competition policy and the administrative state. While the conventional history of U.S. competition policy portrays the... View Details

2009
Working Paper

Watch What I Do, Not What I Say: The Unintended Consequences of the Homeland Investment Act

By: Dhammika Dharmapala, C. Fritz Foley and Kristin J. Forbes

This paper analyzes the impact on firm behavior of the Homeland Investment Act of 2004, which provided a one-time tax holiday for the repatriation of foreign earnings by U.S. multinationals. The analysis controls for endogeneity and omitted variable bias by using... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Multinational Firms and Management; Government Legislation; Taxation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Behavior; United States

26 Mar 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, March 26, 2019

Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55886 Can Biometric Tracking Improve Healthcare Provision and Data Quality? Experimental Evidence from Tuberculosis Control in India By: Bossuroy, Thomas, Clara... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

February 2009 (Revised March 2013)
Supplement

Messer Griesheim (B)

By: Josh Lerner, Ann-Kristin Achleitner, Eva Lutz and Kerry Herman

In 2001, Allianz Capital Partners and Godlman Sachs acquired a majority stake in Messer Greisheim, a European industrial gas concern held by Hoeschst. The dealmakers faced several challenges, including delicate corporate governance issues due to partial family... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Private Equity; Stock Options; Stock Shares; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Family Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Energy Industry; Europe

December 2019 (Revised September 2020)
Case

Facebook Faces the Regulators

By: Debora L. Spar

In the fall of 2019, Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg are facing increased scrutiny on multiple fronts. Regulators from around the globe are threatening the company with punitive measures. Users are organizing against it. But there is little consensus around what,... View Details

Keywords: Facebook; Regulation; Media; Internet and the Web; Governance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Government Relations; Social Media; Europe

July 2015
Article

Executives' 'Off-the-Job' Behaviors and Financial Reporting Risk

By: Robert Davidson, Aiyesha Dey and Abbie Smith

We examine how executives' behavior outside the workplace, as measured by their ownership of luxury goods (low “frugality”) and prior legal infractions, is related to financial reporting risk. We predict and find that chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief financial... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Behavior; Personal Characteristics; Crime and Corruption; Governance Compliance; Financial Reporting; Organizational Culture

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10 Dec 2021
Research & Ideas

Truth Be Told: Unpacking the Risks of Whistleblowing

which rewards whistleblowers who report fraud against the federal government with a percentage of the money recovered. “We need to understand the costs,” explains Heese, “and how to empower the people who have important information to... View Details

Keywords: by April White

January 2016
Case

COFCO

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

In 2015, COFCO, China's state-owned agribusiness giant, was working to protect China's food security (a key national security priority) by extending its control of the global food system through overseas acquisitions. At the same time, COFCO sought to grow its market... View Details