Publications

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February 1999 (Revised April 1999)
Case

Bain & Company, Inc.: Making Partner

By: Ashish Nanda

In June 1998, Bain's compensation and policy committee meets to review candidates for elevation to partnership. The case presents the profiles of four candidates and ends with the promotion committee debating the merits of the candidates. View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Personal Development and Career; Employees

Educators

December 2020
Article

Sovereign Debt Portfolios, Bond Risks, and the Credibility of Monetary Policy

By: Wenxin Du, Carolin Pflueger and Jesse Schreger

We document that governments whose local currency debt provides them with greater hedging benefits actually borrow more in foreign currency. We introduce two features into a government's debt portfolio choice problem to explain this finding: risk-averse lenders and... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Currency; Policy; Risk and Uncertainty

01 Dec 2010
News

Making a Difference

faster. Associate Editor Julia Hanna’s interview with Catalyst president and CEO Ilene Lang (MBA ’73) reveals how the New York–based global research and policy nonprofit is advancing the cause of women in business. In the third story... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; meta

06 Mar 2019
News

Making Sabbaticals Mainstream

experiences also sent him on a quest to find academics who were studying sabbaticals so he could better understand how the implementation of sabbatical policies impact employee behavior. Informally called the Sabbatical Project, DiDonna’s... View Details

April–June 2022
Other Article

Commentary on 'Causal Decision Making and Causal Eﬀect Estimation Are Not the Same... and Why It Matters'

By: Edward McFowland III

There has been a substantial discussion in various methodological and applied literatures around causal inference; especially in the use of machine learning and statistical models to understand heterogeneity in treatment effects and to make optimal decision... View Details

Keywords: Causal Inference; Treatment Effect Estimation; Treatment Assignment Policy; Human-in-the-loop; Decision Making; Fairness

26 May 2015
News

Exploring tax policy and our quality of life

He’s exploring how people feel about making taxation decisions based on personal attributes, which current US tax policy does. Some of his other research, in part for his elective curriculum course at HBS,... View Details

2013
Chapter

The Welfare State as an Investment Strategy: Denmark’s Flexicurity Policies

By: Arthur Daemmrich and Thomas Bredgaard

This chapter examines how the welfare state can serve as a national strategy to invest in economic competitiveness and sustainable national prosperity, as well as the significant challenges associated with operating an open economy in a period of increased labor... View Details

Keywords: Open Economy; Welfare; Competitive Advantage; Economic Growth; Human Capital; Government and Politics; Denmark

Article

Do Strong Fences Make Strong Neighbors?

By: Mihir Desai and Dhammika Dharmapala

Many features of U.S. tax policy towards multinational firms-including the governing principle of capital export neutrality, the byzantine system of expense allocation, and anti-inversion legislation-reflect the intuition that building "strong fences" around the United... View Details

Keywords: International Taxation; Initial Public Offerings; Foreign Portfolio Investment; Policy; Taxation; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Initial Public Offering; Mergers and Acquisitions; Foreign Direct Investment; United States

SSRN

25 Apr 2014
Video

Matt Weinzierl - Making A Difference

Web

Privacy Policy & Legal Info | HBS Online

over any conflicting terms in this Notice to the extent permitted under applicable law. REGIONAL PRIVACY POLICY DISCLOSURE If you are located in certain specific regions (such as the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or... View Details

Article

How Venture Capitalists Make Decisions

By: Paul A. Gompers, Will Gornall, Steven Kaplan and Ilya Strebulaev

For decades now, venture capitalists have played a crucial role in the economy by financing high-growth start-ups. While the companies they’ve backed—Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and more—are constantly in the headlines, very little is known about what VCs actually... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment; Decision Making

Register to Read

2012
Chapter

Citizens' Perceptions and the Disconnect Between Economics and Regulatory Policy

By: Jonathan Baron, William T. McEnroe and Christopher Poliquin

Economic theory is clear about the advantages and disadvantages of various ways of regulating negative externalities, such as command and control, cap and trade, taxation, subsidies, and tort law. Yet public policy rarely follows the recommendations that follow from... View Details

Keywords: Regulation; Decision Making; Government and Politics; United States

June 2016
Supplement

FANUC Corporation: Reassessing the Firm's Governance and Financial Policies Spreadsheet Supplement

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Akiko Kanno

In February 2015, Daniel Loeb (a US-based activist investor) announced his firm had a large investment in FANUC Corporation, a leading producer of industrial robots and software for machine tools. Loeb was demanding that the Japanese firm change its financial and... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Valuation; Investment Funds; Policy; Corporate Governance; Macroeconomics; Investment Activism; Change Management; Financial Strategy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan; United States

13 Dec 2022
HBS Seminar

Christine Beckman, USC Price School of Public Policy

01 Sep 2005
News

Making History, Starting Over

skeptics who figured he would sidestep company policy that requires retirement by age 60. “I’m not really retiring,” Cohen pointedly explains in an interview at Apax’s Portland Place headquarters, a stately townhouse on a tree-lined... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Finance

20 Aug 2001
Research & Ideas

Making an Ally of Uncle Sam

influence them. More specifically, this approach steers attention away from the political processes whereby administrative policies are formed and implemented . . . . These difficulties are compounded by the typical simplifying device of... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Watkins, Mickey Edwards & Usha Thakrar

02 Apr 2024
What Do You Think?

What's Enough to Make Us Happy?

who fail to have this conversation with ourselves run the risk of chasing and acquiring things that are never enough. These matters are highly personal. I like to think that how we make decisions on these matters determines, as the old... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

2009
Working Paper

Policy Bundling to Overcome Loss Aversion: A Method for Improving Legislative Outcomes

By: Katherine L Milkman, Mary Carol Mazza, Lisa L. Shu, Chia-Jung Tsay and Max H. Bazerman

Policies that would create net benefits for society but would also involve costs frequently lack the necessary support to be enacted because losses loom larger than gains psychologically. To reduce this harmful consequence of loss aversion, we propose a new type of... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Cost vs Benefits; Policy; Government Legislation; Outcome or Result; Welfare