Publications

Web

Influence of the China Trade and the Heard Legacy - A Chronicle of the China Trade

of the China Trade Introduction Doing Business with China Augustine Heard & Co. The Canton Trade Commodities & Currencies Treaty Ports & Compradors Clippers & Steamships Exploring View Details

March 1999 (Revised January 2000)
Background Note

A Note on Microeconomics for Strategists

By: Kenneth S. Corts and Jan W. Rivkin

Summarizes the core ideas about the microeconomics of markets that are most relevant to business strategy. Sections I and II develop two basic building blocks of any market, demand and supply. Section II discusses how demand and supply interact to determine the... View Details

Keywords: Microeconomics; Cost; Cost of Capital; Market Entry and Exit; Business Strategy; Competition; Corporate Strategy

February 2023
Teaching Note

The First Opium War and Global Free Trade

By: Jeremy Friedman

Teaching Note for HBS Case 722-052. View Details

September 1987 (Revised November 1992)
Background Note

Note on Transaction and Translation Exposure

By: W. Carl Kester and Richard P. Melnick

Describes the transaction and translation exposures that companies doing business internationally face when foreign exchange rates change. Also discusses how to measure and cover both types of exposure. Covering techniques are demonstrated using examples of forward... View Details

Keywords: Currency Exchange Rate; International Finance

September 1987 (Revised November 1992)
Background Note

Note on Operating Exposure to Exchange-Rate Changes

By: Timothy A. Luehrman

Describes the effects on operating cash flows of a real change in exchange rates. Describes different elements of operating exposure and includes illustrative examples. View Details

Keywords: Currency Exchange Rate; Fluctuation

March 2001
Teaching Note

Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate TN

By: David A. Moss

Teaching Note for (9-701-080). View Details

Keywords: Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Great Britain

11 Mar 2001
Research & Ideas

Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

In this excerpt taken from the chapter entitled "From Trade to Investment," HBS visiting professor Geoffrey Jones traces the transition of the British trading companies from purely View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

May 1994
Teaching Note

Conflict on a Trading Floor (A) & (B) TN

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Jerry Useem

Teaching Note for (9-394-060) and (9-394-061). View Details

January 1990 (Revised November 1990)
Background Note

Note on Compensation and Incentive Systems

Provides a brief analysis of issues in the design of an effective compensation system, with particular emphasis on incentives. Provides an analytic framework for thinking about compensation. Topics covered include the composition of the pay package, fringe benefits,... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Compensation and Benefits

July 1986 (Revised August 1987)
Background Note

Note on Comparative Advantage

By: David B. Yoffie and John J. Coleman

Discusses David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage and the refinement of his model developed by Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin. Presents several criticisms of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, including Wassily Leontief's empirical demonstration that the nature of... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Forecasting and Prediction; Macroeconomics; Trade; Theory

March 2006 (Revised April 2015)
Case

China: To Float or Not To Float? (B)- Timeline of Changes Relevant to the Chinese Renminbi

By: Laura Alfaro and Rafael M. Di Tella

On July 21, 2005 China revalued its decade-long quasi-fixed exchange rate of approximately 8.28 yuan per U.S. dollar by 2.1% to 8.11% and, at the same time, introduced a more market-based exchange rate system. Many analysts and economists were disappointed with what... View Details

Keywords: Currency; Exchange Rate; China; Macroeconomics; Trade; Currency Exchange Rate; Governance Controls; Policy; China; United States

June 2019 (Revised October 2019)
Technical Note

Note on the Future of Commerce

By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor and Nathaniel Schwalb

In 2019, the retail and consumer product industries were undergoing a significant transformation. Over the past 50 years, what was once a highly fragmented industry began to consolidate, digitize, and increase convenience while lowering costs. The winning enterprises... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Demand and Consumers; Demographics; Transformation; Global Range; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Model; Leading Change; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry

Web

Trade Cards - The Art of American Advertising

in question.” 18 Innovators in chromolithography included the noted firms Mayer, Merkel & Ottmann, New York; Donaldson Brothers, New York; Bufford & Sons, Boston and New York; and Louis Prang, Boston. Their colorful View Details

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Trade Catalogs - The Art of American Advertising

salesmen. “Numbers of firms selling at wholesale . . . have discarded traveling salesmen altogether and are now selling by catalogue,” Sidney Sherman noted in his 1900 study of advertising in the United States. 15 View Details

Web

Manuscript Collections - A Chronicle of the China Trade

of the China Trade Introduction Doing Business with China Augustine Heard & Co. The Canton Trade Commodities & Currencies Treaty Ports & Compradors Clippers & Steamships Exploring View Details

26 May 2015
Research & Ideas

Corporate Field Researchers Share Tricks of the Trade

smarter trades, according to the findings of a study by Soltes, an assistant professor at HBS, and David Solomon, a professor at the USC Marshall School of Business. To conduct the research, the duo obtained investor meeting records from a mid-cap company View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

April 2004
Article

Do CEOs in Mergers Trade Power for Premium? Evidence from 'Mergers of Equals'

By: Julie Wulf

I analyze chief executive officer (CEO) incentives to negotiate shared control in the postmerger governance of the surviving firm. In order to do this, I study abnormal returns in a sample of "mergers of equals" (MOEs) transactions in which the two firms are... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Negotiation; Governance Controls; Power and Influence; Value Creation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Governing and Advisory Boards; Motivation and Incentives; Market Transactions

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January 2004
Teaching Note

Worker Rights and Global Trade: The U.S.-Cambodia Bilateral Textile Trade Agreement (TN)

Teaching Note to (9-703-034). View Details

Keywords: Rights; Labor; Trade; Agreements and Arrangements; Markets; Business and Shareholder Relations; Development Economics; United States; Cambodia