Publications

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March 2024 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Doing Business in São Paulo, Brazil

By: Laura Alfaro, Hise O. Gibson, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Pedro Levindo

The case gives readers an overview of key factors of doing business in Brazil, including Brazil’s economic transformation since its colonial years until 2023, when leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in for his third term, after the most polarized... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Economic Sectors; Economy; Macroeconomics; Business History; International Relations; Political Elections; Taxation; Consumer Behavior; Brazil; Latin America; Sao Paulo

June 2012 (Revised August 2014)
Supplement

Foreign Direct Investment and South Africa (B)

By: Eric Werker and Ian McKown Cornell

Incoming and outgoing foreign direct investment in an environment of politics, geography, globalization, and history. Updates the 2006 case to 2012. The subsequent six years only reinforce the message of the original case. Since the end of apartheid, South Africa had... View Details

Keywords: Global Business; Developing Countries; Business Government Relations; Economic Growth; Foreign Direct Investment; Globalized Markets and Industries; Developing Countries and Economies; Business and Government Relations; South Africa

February 2017 (Revised December 2018)
Case

From Start-Up to Grown-Up Nation: The Future of the Israeli Innovation Ecosystem (Abridged)

By: Elie Ofek and Margot Eiran

In June 2016, Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, wrestled with how to sustain Israel’s strong innovation track record and the country’s reputation as the “start-up nation.” Despite the economic miracle the country had wrought since its founding, he... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Management; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Government and Politics; Economy; Equality and Inequality; Israel

29 Jul 2008
First Look

First Look: July 29, 2008

response of the family business to major political crises, demonstrates how they dealt with the transition to a socialist government in 1949, and interprets the success of overseas Chinese family business as well as the revival of family... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

September 2014 (Revised May 2015)
Case

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

25 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research, April 25

The result would be improved deal process design in MBOs and improved capital formation in the economy overall. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50980 Patent Trolls: Evidence from Targeted Firms By: Cohen,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2016
Article

Positive and Normative Judgments Implicit in U.S. Tax Policy, and the Costs of Unequal Growth and Recessions

By: Benjamin B. Lockwood and Matthew Weinzierl

Calculating the welfare implications of changes to economic policy or shocks to the economy requires economists to decide on a normative criterion. One way to make that decision is to elicit the relevant moral criteria from real-world policy choices, converting a... View Details

Keywords: Judgments; Taxation

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April 2015 (Revised October 2024)
Case

The German Export Engine

By: Gunnar Trumbull, Jonathan Schlefer and Sophus A. Reinert

In fall of 2018, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel had logged significant successes. Germany was the largest exporter in the world, had maintained low unemployment through the 2008 financial crisis, and was gradually reforming its welfare state to meet future pension... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Economic Growth; Success; Leadership; Problems and Challenges; Germany

Forthcoming
Article

Half the Firms, Double the Profits: Public Firms' Transformation, 1996–2022

By: Mark J. Roe and Charles C.Y. Wang

The number of public firms in the United States has halved since the beginning of the twenty-first century, causing consternation among corporate and securities law regulators. The dominant explanations, often advanced by Securities and Exchange commissioners when... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Law; Securities Regulation; Sarbanes-Oxley Act; Concentration Levels; Antitrust; Initial Public Offering; Public Ownership; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Mergers and Acquisitions; Monopoly; United States

SSRN

22 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

“Too Big To Fail”: Reining In Large Financial Firms

key role "in conceptualizing and drafting" significant parts of the final product. Not everyone on the politically divided panel bought into Moss's analysis and recommendations. Warren and two Democrats embraced Moss's views on the need... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson; Banking; Financial Services

08 Jan 2008
First Look

First Look: January 8, 2008

Working PapersThe Political Economy of 'Natural' Disasters Authors:Charles Cohen and Eric D. Werker Abstract Natural disasters occur in a political space. Although events... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

12 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 12, 2006

markets allow the backward linkages between foreign and domestic firms to turn into FDI spillovers. Our calibration exercises indicate that a) holding the extent of foreign presence constant, financially well-developed economies... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2007
Working Paper

A Resource Belief-Curse: Oil and Individualism

By: Rafael Di Tella, Juan Dubra and Robert MacCulloch

We study the correlation between a belief concerning individualism and a measure of luck in the US during the period 1983-2004. The measure of beliefs is the answer to a question related to whether the poor should be helped by the government or if they should help... View Details

Keywords: Energy; Price; Policy; Government and Politics; Poverty; Welfare; Energy Industry; United States

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February 2020 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Getting Brexit Done

By: Alberto Cavallo

In the early hours of Friday, December 13, 2019, a triumphant Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, stood in front of his supporters and declared, “We did it – we pulled it off, didn’t we? We broke the deadlock, [. . .] we smashed the roadblock. [. . .] This election... View Details

Keywords: Economic Integration; Brexit; Economics; Trade; Political Elections; Government Administration; Policy; Negotiation; Globalized Economies and Regions; Problems and Challenges; European Union; Europe

27 Dec 2010
Research & Ideas

HBS Faculty on 2010’s Biggest Business Developments

where I sit as an economist, it's still all about the economy and the long-term impact of the problems laid bare by the Great Recession. During the financial crisis, the world came to the apparently shocking realization that debt... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

November 2022
Technical Note

National Security and Transnational Capitalism

By: Meg Rithmire

Though the relationship between national security and transnational commerce had long been interrogated and contested, the 2020s saw the escalation of concerns about insecurity and interdependence. These concerns manifested in a suite of institutional innovations and... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; National Security; Globalization