Publications

June 2009 (Revised May 2013)
Case

Australia: The Riches and Challenges of Commodities

By: Laura Alfaro and Renee Kim

Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd faced a daunting task that he never imagined he would have to face when he was elected two years ago. Australia at that time was poised to enter its 17th year of uninterrupted growth. Commodity exports were booming, largely driven... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Trade; Foreign Direct Investment; Policy; Crisis Management; China; Australia

Educators

Purchase

2008
Working Paper

International Financial Integration and Entrepreneurial Firm Activity

By: Laura Alfaro and Andrew Charlton

We explore the relation between international financial integration and the level of entrepreneurial activity in a country. We use a unique firm-level data set in a broad sample of developed and developing countries, which enables us to present both cross-country and... View Details

Keywords: International Financial Integration; Capital Mobility; Firm Entry; Capital Controls; Finance; Integration; Global Range; Capital; Entrepreneurship; Foreign Direct Investment; Developing Countries and Economies

29 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 29, 2019

was roughly half as large as prior estimates have suggested. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55509 Fiscal Rules and Sovereign Default By: Alfaro, Laura, and View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

October 2012
Case

Brazil 2003: Inflation Targeting and Debt Dynamics (Abridged)

By: Laura Alfaro and Rafael Di Tella

In October 2002, Brazilians elected a left-wing president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, for the first time in that country's history. As markets faltered in response, Lula sought to reaffirm his commitment to fiscal discipline, a floating exchange rate, and inflation... View Details

Keywords: Brazil; Inflation; Emerging Markets; Inflation and Deflation; Brazil

Educators

2018
Chapter

Transportation Cost and the Geography of Foreign Investment

By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Chen

Falling transportation costs and rapid technological progress in recent decades have precipitated an explosion of cross-border flows in goods, services, investments, and ideas led by multinational firms. Extensive research has sought to understand the geographic... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Cost; Transportation; Geographic Scope; Geographic Location

Article

Gains from Foreign Direct Investment: Macro and Micro Approaches

This paper discussed the importance of an “integrated approach” to the study of the effects of FDI on host countries. Macro-level work that examines countries at different stages of development and institutional capacity is needed to surface the role of local... View Details

Keywords: Spillovers; Complementarities; Mechanism; Foreign Direct Investment; Economic Growth

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05 Jan 2010
First Look

First Look: January 5

Working PapersThe Global Networks of Multinational Firms Authors:Laura Alfaro and Maggie Chen Abstract In this paper we characterize the topology of global multinational networks View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Research Summary

Selection and Market Reallocation: Productivity Gains from Multinational Production

Assessing the productivity gains from multinational production has been a vital topic of economic research and policy debate. Positive aggregate productivity gains are often attributed to within-firm productivity improvement; however, an alternative, less emphasized... View Details

27 Jun 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, June 27

Policy Experiment By: Alfaro, Laura, Anusha Chari, and Fabio Kanczuk Abstract—Emerging-market governments adopted capital control taxes to manage the massive surge in foreign... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Sep 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, September 12, 2017

prevents executives from investing in management capabilities, arguing that such investments are a powerful way to become more competitive. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53203 Debt Redemption and Reserve... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

06 Mar 2018
First Look

First Look at Research and Ideas, March 6, 2018

provide insights into why and how investors use reported environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information. Relevance to investment performance is the most frequent motivation for use of ESG data... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2017
Chapter

Multinational Activity in Emerging Markets: How and When Does Foreign Direct Investment Promote Growth?

Among the prominent economic trends in recent decades is the exponential increase in flows of goods and capital driven by technological progress and a falling number of restrictions. A key driver of this phenomenon has been the cross-border production, foreign... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Activity; Growth; Spillovers; Complementarities; Foreign Direct Investment; Emerging Markets; Growth and Development; Multinational Firms and Management

Purchase

2013
Chapter

Growth and the Quality of Foreign Direct Investment: Is All FDI Equal?

By: Laura Alfaro and Andrew Charlton

In this paper we distinguish different "qualities" of FDI to re-examine the relationship between FDI and growth. We use "quality" to mean the effect of a unit of FDI on economic growth. However, this is difficult to establish because it is a function of many different... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Economic Growth; Foreign Direct Investment

fall 2010
Article

Lawsuits and Empire: On the Enforcement of Sovereign Debt in Latin America

By: Faisal Z. Ahmed, Laura Alfaro and Noel Maurer

The re-occurring phenomenon of sovereign default has prompted an enormous theoretical and empirical literature. Most of this research has focused on why countries ever chose to pay their debts (or why private creditors ever expected repayment). The problem originates... View Details

Keywords: Lawsuits and Litigation; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Sovereign Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Debt Securities; Motivation and Incentives; Markets; Equity; Banking Industry; Latin America

2012
Other Unpublished Work

Selection, Reallocation, and Knowledge Spillover: Identifying the Sources of Productivity Gains from Multinational Activity

By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie X. Chen

The impact of multinational activity on host-country productivity has been a major topic of economic research. A positive impact can be attributed to knowledge spillovers from foreign multinational to domestic firms or a less stressed, alternative explanation—firm... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Performance Productivity; Supply and Industry; Knowledge; Manufacturing Industry

04 Jun 2013
First Look

First Look: June 4

predicted by the theory. Publisher's link: http://www.people.hbs.edu/mrhodeskropf/VCRiskReturn59.pdf 2006 Harvard Business Review Health Care's Service Fanatics: How the Cleveland Clinic Leaped to the Top of the Patient-satisfaction... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Growth and the Quality of Foreign Direct Investment: Is All FDI Equal? (joint with Andrew Charlton)