Publications

2010
Working Paper

Surviving the Global Financial Crisis: Foreign Direct Investment and Establishment Performance

By: Laura Alfaro and Maggie Chen

We examine in this paper the differential response of establishments to the global financial crisis, with particular emphasis on the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in determining micro economic performance. Using a new worldwide dataset that reports the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; International Finance; Foreign Direct Investment; Local Range; Multinational Firms and Management; Production; Performance Evaluation; Networks

This paper examines the short-run impact of the 2025 U.S. tariffs on consumer prices using a unique integration of high-frequency retail pricing data, product-level country-of-origin information, and detailed tariff classifications. By linking daily prices from major... View Details

2013
Working Paper

International Health Economics

By: Mark Egan and Tomas J. Philipson

Perhaps because health care is a local service sector, health economists have paid little attention to international linkages between domestic health care economies. However, the growth in domestic health care sectors is often attributed to medical innovations whose... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Global Range; Economics

June 2024
Article

Oral History and Business History in Emerging Markets

By: Geoffrey Jones

This article describes the motivation, structure and use of the Creating Emerging Markets (CEM) oral history-based project at the Harvard Business School. The project consists of lengthy interviews with business leaders from emerging markets. By June 2024 183... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Economies; Oral History; Emerging Markets; Business History; Research

TeachingInterests

Globalization and Emerging Markets

Globalization and Emerging Markets is designed for students who will be investing, managing a business or nonprofit, or working for a government in an emerging market. The unit of analysis of the course ranges from countries to multinational and domestic companies... View Details

September 2022
Article

The Power and Limits of Expertise: Swiss–Swedish Linking of Vehicle Emission Standards in the 1970s and 1980s

By: Mattias Näsman and Sabine Pitteloud

Recent decades have witnessed increased public concern about vehicle emissions and growing frustration with political inaction and business preferences for the status quo. This article provides historical perspective on such regulatory dynamics by analyzing the Swiss... View Details

Keywords: Business And The Environment; Business And Society; Emission Reduction; Automobiles; Standard Setting; Norm-enforcement; Regulation; Expertise; Experts; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Regulation; Standards; Auto Industry; Switzerland; Sweden

08 Jul 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Surviving the Global Financial Crisis: Foreign Direct Investment and Establishment Performance

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro & Maggie Chen

2017
Working Paper

Cluster Mapping as a Tool for Development

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

This report builds on the foundational work on cluster mapping that Prof. Michael E. Porter has led at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness (ISC), Harvard Business School over the last two decades. He launched the U.S. Cluster Mapping Initiative in the late... View Details

Keywords: Industry Clusters; Development Economics

2010
Book

A History of Irish Economic Thought

For a country that can boast a distinguished tradition of political economy from Sir William Petty through Swift, Berkeley, Hutcheson, Burke, and Cantillon through to that of Longfield, Cairnes, Bastable, Edgeworth, Geary, and Gorman, it is surprising that no... View Details

Keywords: History; Government and Politics; Economics; Republic of Ireland

2019
Chapter

Spatial Agglomeration and Superstar Firms: Firm-level Patterns from Europe and U.S.

By: Laura Alfaro, Maggie X. Chen and Harald Fadinger

We characterize the agglomeration patterns of industries and plants in Europe, distinguishing Eurozone countries and the United States. Using a micro-level index, we quantify the degree of geographic concentration in industrial activities and explore how firm... View Details

Keywords: Agglomeration; Patterns; Industry Clusters; Europe; United States

12 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 12, 2007

the performance of mechanisms intended for human use. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/08-064.pdf PublicationsBusiness Analysis and Valuation: Using Financial Statements. 4th ed. Authors:Paul M. Healy and Krishna G.... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Research Summary

Spatial Agglomeration and Superstar Firms

By: Laura Alfaro

We characterize the agglomeration patterns of industries and plants in Europe, distinguishing Eurozone countries and the United States. Using a micro-level index, we quantify the degree of geographic concentration in industrial activities and explore how firm... View Details

Article

A Case for Contextual Intelligence

By: Tarun Khanna

In this perspective, I make a case for entrepreneurs and academics alike to focus on what I have referred to elsewhere as Contextual Intelligence, the ability to understand the limits of our knowledge, and to adapt that knowledge to a context different from the one in... View Details

Keywords: Contextual Intelligence; Institutional Voids; Entrepreneurship In Emerging Markets; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Situation or Environment; Developing Countries and Economies; Entrepreneurship

Register to Read

April 2006
Module Note

Cross-Border Financial Opportunities

By: Mihir A. Desai and Kathleen Luchs

Describes the fifth module in the International Finance course at Harvard Business School. This module explores how segmented capital markets create financing opportunities for firms and the mechanisms that evolve to take advantage of those opportunities. The issues... View Details

Keywords: Opportunities; Capital Markets; Decisions; International Finance; Motivation and Incentives; Taxation

02 Sep 2013
Research & Ideas

The Curse of Double-Digit Growth

its current status as a low-income country to a middle-income one by 2030. “The timeline could be two or three years, or a decade later” While the International Monetary Fund predicted the country could... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

2009
Other Unpublished Work

Singapore Competitiveness Report

By: Christian H.M. Ketels, Ashish Lall and Boon Siong Neo

The 2009 Singapore Competitiveness Report, the first in this new series of regular assessments by the Asia Competitiveness Institute (ACI) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, provides data and analysis to inform the discussions on the impact of the crisis... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Financial Crisis; Macroeconomics; Microeconomics; Policy; Competitive Strategy; Singapore

Research Summary

Family, Inc. Historical Development of German and US Family Firm

Family-owned businesses are the most common form of business organization worldwide. This project deals with the main characteristics of closely-held ownership and more precisely families as majority owners. It strives for an international comparison of family firms... View Details

January 2010 (Revised November 2017)
Background Note

GUIDES: Insight through Indicators

By: Matthew Weinzierl, Jonathan Schlefer and Ann Cullen

GUIDES is an easily remembered framework that can help the business leader and student to confidently and quickly identify, organize, and interpret a country's key economic indicators. Alternatively, it can help them to evaluate third-party analyses and to compare such... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Macroeconomics; Framework; Country; Analysis; Performance Evaluation

Educators

August 2015
Article

Poultry in Motion: A Study of International Trade Finance Practices

By: Pol Antràs and C. Fritz Foley

This paper analyzes the financing terms that support international trade and sheds light on how these terms shape the impact of economic shocks on trade. Analysis of transaction-level data from a U.S.-based exporter of frozen and refrigerated food products, primarily... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; International Finance; Financing and Loans; Trade