Publications

February 2021
Case

China Rapid Finance: The Collapse of China’s P2P Lending Industry

By: William C. Kirby, Bonnie Yining Cao and John P. McHugh

China’s peer-to-peer (P2P) lending industry had over 3,000 platforms at its height in 2015. China Risk Finance (CRF) was one of the country’s P2P success stories. With over 1 million borrowers using CRF’s platform, it raised $60 million in its 2016 IPO on the New York... View Details

Keywords: Financial Services; P2P Lending; Government And Business; Regulation; Finance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; China

2021
Working Paper

The Origins of CE Marking: Standards, Business, and the European Market in the 1980s–1990s

By: Grace Ballor

Many products—from consumer electronics to machinery to children’s toys—bear the CE Mark, the symbol of conformity to the ‘essential requirements’ of European standards governed by the process of CE Marking. This working paper traces the development of the system of... View Details

Keywords: Business And Government; Market Liberalization; Standards; Markets; Trade; Integration; Business History; Globalization; Business and Government Relations; Europe; European Union

June 2016 (Revised May 2017)
Case

A Note on Activist Investors and the Tech Sector

By: David B. Yoffie and Eric Baldwin

This short note provides background and data on the growing role of corporate activists, especially in high-technology industries. View Details

Keywords: Governance; Activist Investors; Strategy; Investment Activism; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry

04 Aug 2014
News

So You Want to Join a Board

Keywords: boards; corporate governance

Fall 2020
Article

Business Credit Programs in the Pandemic Era

By: Samuel G. Hanson, Jeremy C. Stein, Adi Sunderam and Eric Zwick

We develop a pair of models that speak to the goals and design of the sort of business-lending and corporate-bond purchase programs that have been introduced by governments in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. An overarching theme is that, in contrast to the... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Business Lending; Government Intervention; Econometric Models; Health Pandemics; Credit; Governance; Policy

April 2020 (Revised October 2022)
Case

Medellín Reborn (A)

By: Jorge Tamayo, Ashish Nanda and Margaret Cross

In 2003, mathematics professor Sergio Fajardo was elected mayor of Medellín, Colombia—one of the most violent cities in the world at that time. As mayor, Fajardo faced a host of daunting challenges. Rampant gang violence had raised Medellín’s homicide rate... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Leadership; Peace; Government; Politics; Priorities; Leadership; City; Strategy; Government and Politics; Problems and Challenges; Transformation; Government Administration; Crime and Corruption; Colombia; Medellín

April 2017
Supplement

Q&A with Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Technology & Innovation

By: Linda A. Hill and Allison J. Wigen

In this video supplement to the HBS case study "Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Technology & Innovation," case protagonist Tom Kalil discusses leading a team of policy entrepreneurs at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2008-2016. View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Government; Government Innovation; Leading Teams; Collaboration; Cross-sector Collaboration; Innovation Strategy; Innovation Leadership; Leadership; Leadership Development; Groups and Teams; Policy; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; United States

24 May 2005 - 27 May 2005
Lecture

Why Free Markets Must Be Fair." Keynote speaker. "6th Global Forum on Reinventing Government: Toward Participatory and Transparent Governance

By: Lynn S. Paine

Keywords: Economics; Markets; Fairness

February 2015
Supplement

The Affordable Care Act (H): Implementation Begins

By: Joseph L. Bower and Michael Norris

In the spring of 2010, after the ACA is signed into law, the government begins implementation. View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care Policy; Government And Politics; Health; Policy; Health Industry; United States

March 2017 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Putin and the Russian Oligarchs

By: Geoffrey Jones, Rachael Comunale and Kate Lazaroff-Puck

This case examines the career of the Russian business oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Berezovsky was one of a small group of business tycoons that became fabulously rich after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, as the new Russian government, advised by prominent... View Details

Keywords: Business ＆ Government Relations; Government and Politics; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Privatization; Soviet Union; Russia

May 2015
Teaching Note

The United Kingdom and the Means to Prosperity

By: Laura Alfaro, Lakshmi Iyer and Hilary White

After struggling through the country's longest recession since 2008, the U.K. was expected to grow faster than any other G7 nation in 2014. Analysts wondered whether the return to growth was because, or in spite of, Prime Minister David Cameron's controversial £113... View Details

January 2022
Article

Global Behaviors, Perceptions, and the Emergence of Social Norms at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: Lukas Hensel, Marc Witte, Stefano Caria, Thiemo Fetzer, Stefano Fiorin, Friedrich M. Goetz, Margarita Gomez, Johannes Haushofer, Andriy Ivchenko, Gordon T. Kraft-Todd, Elena Reutskaja, Christopher Roth, Erez Yoeli and Jon M. Jachimowicz

We conducted a large-scale survey covering 58 countries and over 100,000 respondents between late March and early April 2020 to study beliefs and attitudes towards citizens' and governments' responses at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most respondents reported... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Government Regulation; Social Norms; Health Pandemics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Behavior; Perception; Global Range; Surveys

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January 2012 (Revised September 2012)
Case

Aadhaar: India's 'Unique Identification' System

By: Tarun Khanna and Anjali Raina

Keywords: Business Government Relations; Information; Information Technology; Organizational Design; Infrastructure; Leadership Style; Business and Government Relations; Change Management; Crime and Corruption; Identity; Projects; Information Management; Information Technology Industry; India

January 2021
Article

How Personality and Policy Predict Pandemic Behavior: Understanding Sheltering-in-Place in 55 Countries at the Onset of COVID-19

By: Friedrich M. Götz, Andrés Gvirtz, Adam D. Galinsky and Jon M. Jachimowicz

The spread of COVID-19 within any given country or community at the onset of the pandemic depended in part on the sheltering-in-place rate of its citizens. The pandemic led us to revisit one of psychology’s most fundamental and most basic questions in a high-stakes... View Details

Keywords: COVID; COVID-19; Pandemic; Shelter-in-place; Personality; Government; Interactionism; Health Pandemics; Behavior; Personal Characteristics; Policy; Governance Compliance

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Research Summary

Corruption

By: Paul M. Healy

World Bank estimates indicate that as much as $1 trillion is paid in bribes throughout the world in a given year. Corruption has been shown to slow economic development. My research focuses on how corruption affects multinational companies. It discusses differences... View Details

Keywords: Corruption; Internal Governance

03 Jul 2014
News

How to Hire a CEO You Won't Want to Fire

Keywords: CEO succession; corporate governance

November 2019 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Russia: A Drama In Three Acts

By: Rawi Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella, Galit Goldstein, Sogomon Tarontsi and Lavinia Teodorescu

The collapse of central authority in the Soviet Union in 1991 ushered in a period of revolutionary transformations for the states that emerged in its wake. The leaders of Russia, the USSR's successor, struggled to reestablish central authority while also seeking to... View Details