Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(586)
- Faculty Publications (144)
- January 22, 2015
- Other Article
Are Capital Controls Effective? Firm-level Evidence from Brazil
By: Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari and Fabio Kanczuk
Capital controls are back in fashion. This column discusses new firm-level evidence from Brazil showing that capital controls segment international financial markets, reduce external financing, and lower firm-level investment. They disproportionately affect small,... View Details
- Article
Deregulation, Misallocation, and Size: Evidence from India
By: Laura Alfaro and Anusha Chari
This paper examines the impact of the deregulation of compulsory industrial licensing in India on firm size dynamics and reallocation of resources within industries. Following deregulation, resource misallocation declines, and the left-hand tail of the firm size... View Details
- November 2014
- Article
The Global Agglomeration of Multinational Firms
By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Xiaoyang Chen
The explosion of multinational activities in recent decades is rapidly transforming the global landscape of industrial production. But are the emerging clusters of multinational production the rule or the exception? What drives the offshore agglomeration of... View Details
- October 2014
- Article
Sovereigns, Upstream Capital Flows and Global Imbalances
By: Laura Alfaro, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Vadym Volosovych
We construct measures of net private and public capital flows for a large cross-section of developing countries considering both creditor and debtor side of the international debt transactions. Using these measures, we demonstrate that sovereign-to-sovereign... View Details
- 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
Keywords: United Kingdom; Keynesian Multiplier; Inflation; Inflation Targeting; Government Spending; Government Intervention In The Markets; Monetary Policy; Financial Crisis Management; Austerity; Inequality; Public Finance; Government Finance; Macroeconomics; Economics; Government and Politics; Inflation and Deflation; Financial Crisis; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Economic Growth; Business Cycles; Welfare; United Kingdom
- 2014
- Article
Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men
By: Alison Wood Brooks, Laura Huang, Sarah Kearney and Fiona Murray
Entrepreneurship is a central path to job creation, economic growth, and prosperity. In the earliest stages of start-up business creation, the matching of entrepreneurial ventures to investors is critically important. The entrepreneur's business proposition and... View Details
- 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
- July 2013 (Revised January 2014)
- Case
Experience! The Finger Lakes: The Groupon Partnership Decision
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Chekitan S. Dev, Gabriele Piccoli and Arnold B. Peinado
In 2010, Experience! The Finger Lakes (ExperienceFLX), a tour operator offering guided tours and concierge services in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, was at a crossroads. The business was poised for growth, and its owners, Laura and Alan Falk, were... View Details
- March 2013
- Case
Currency Wars
By: Laura Alfaro and Hilary White
In February 2013, the G-20 finance ministers met in Moscow, Russia to discuss the rising anxieties over a potential international currency war. It was speculated that certain countries were purposely devaluing their currencies in order to improve their competitiveness... View Details
Keywords: Currency; Competitiveness; Trade Policy; Devaluation; Exchange Rate; Monetary Policy; Quantitative Easing; Inflation Targeting; Capital Flows; Central Banking; Currency Exchange Rate; Competitive Strategy; Emerging Markets; Policy; Trade; Conflict and Resolution; Banking Industry; Public Administration Industry; Moscow
- 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
- 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
- December 2010
- Article
Nominal versus Indexed Debt: A Quantitative Horse Race
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
The main arguments in favor of and against nominal and indexed debt are the incentive to default through inflation versus hedging against unforeseen shocks. We model and calibrate these arguments to assess their quantitative importance. We use a dynamic equilibrium... View Details
- 2010
- Other Unpublished Work
International Capital Allocation, Sovereign Borrowing, and Growth
By: Laura Alfaro, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Vadym Volosovych
The key in the investigation of "where" and "why" capital flows, relative to the neoclassical benchmark, is how we measure these flows. The macro literature has been using three main yardsticks: the current account balance, returns to capital, and the volume of net... View Details
- 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
- 2010
- Working Paper
Trade Policy and Firm Boundaries
By: Laura Alfaro, Paola Conconi, Harald Fadinger and Andrew F. Newman
We study how trade policy affects firms' ownership structures. We embed an incomplete contracts model of vertical integration choices into a standard perfectly-competitive international trade framework. Integration decisions are driven by a trade-off between the... View Details
- March 2010 (Revised May 2013)
- Case
Chile's Copper Surplus: The Road Not Taken (A)
By: Laura Alfaro, Dante Roscini and Renee Kim
In 2008, Andres Velasco, Chile's Finance Minister, was under mounting criticisms over his fiscal policy. As the world's largest copper producer, Chile was benefiting from the rise in copper prices, which had more than tripled since 2003. Copper revenues translated into... View Details
- 2010
- Casebook
Global Capital and National Institutions: Crisis and Choice in the International Financial Architecture
By: Laura Alfaro
All managers face a business environment in which international and macroeconomic phenomena matter. International capital flows can significantly affect countries' development efforts and provide clear investment opportunities for businesses. During the 1990s and early... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
International Capital Allocation, Sovereign Borrowing, and Growth
By: Laura Alfaro, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Vadym Volosovych
The key in the investigation of "where" and "why" capital flows, relative to the neoclassical benchmark, is how we measure these flows. The macro literature has been using three main yardsticks: the current account balance, returns to capital, and the volume of net... View Details
- December 12, 2009
- Other Article
The Transformation of India: Incumbent Control, Reforms, and Newcomers
By: Laura Alfaro and Anusha Chari
What microeconomic forces drove the structural transformation of India's economy in recent decades? This column studies firm-level data and portrays a dynamic economy driven by the growth of private and foreign firms. But the Indian economy did not go through an... View Details
- December 2009 (Revised March 2013)
- Case
Woolf Farming and Processing
By: David E. Bell, Laura Winig and Mary Louise Shelman
Woolf Farming Company, a privately owned family farming business in California's Central Valley, found its business threatened by a lack of water, brought on by a combination of drought, poor quality well water and unavailability of surface water due to federally... View Details