Publications

2022
Working Paper

Causal Inference During A Pandemic: Evidence on the Effectiveness of Nebulized Ibuprofen as an Unproven Treatment for COVID-19 in Argentina

By: Sebastian Calonico, Rafael Di Tella and Juan Cruz Lopez Del Valle

Many medical decisions during the pandemic were made without the support of causal evidence obtained in clinical trials. We study the case of nebulized ibuprofen (NaIHS), a drug that was extensively used on COVID-19 patients in Argentina amidst wild claims about its... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Drug Treatment; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Decision Making; Outcome or Result; Argentina

April 2022
Teaching Note

Tempur Sealy International (A, B & C)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 718-422, 718-423, and 718-424. The cases explore the long-term relationship between Tempur Sealy (TPX, a mattress manufacturer) and Mattress Firm (MFRM, a bedding retailer and TPX's largest customer). For almost 20 years, the firms... View Details

2022
Working Paper

THEMIS: A Framework for Cost-Benefit Analysis of COVID-19 Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions

By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Michael Lingzhi Li and Saksham Soni

Since December 2019, the world has been ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, with over 150 million confirmed cases and 3 million confirmed deaths worldwide. To combat the spread of COVID-19, governments have issued unprecedented non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs),... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Health Pandemics; Policy; Framework; Cost vs Benefits; Outcome or Result; United States; Germany; Brazil; Singapore; Spain

March 2022
Case

Copper Nationalization in Chile

By: Jeremy Friedman, John Masko and Jingyu Liu

In 1970 Chile became the first country to elect a Marxist president through open, multi-party elections in Salvador Allende. In his first year as president, Allende nationalized the copper industry, Chile’s largest export industry that was developed and owned by US... View Details

Keywords: Nationalism; History; Political Elections; Natural Resources; Globalized Markets and Industries; National Security; Government Administration; Government and Politics; Chile

March 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Winning Business at Russell Reynolds (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco

In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting–and... View Details

March 2022
Supplement

Winning Business at Russell Reynolds (B)

By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco

In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting–and... View Details

March 2022
Case

The Future of Start-Up Chile

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Ruth Costas and Pedro Levindo

In 2021, public accelerator program Start-Up Chile, which ten years earlier had created a global buzz, might be losing its competitive edge to similar programs or one-year visas for digital nomads offered by other countries. The case follows SUP’s CEO, Angeles Romo, as... View Details

Article

From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation During the Great Migration

By: Vasiliki Fouka, Soumyajit Mazumder and Marco Tabellini

How does the arrival of a new minority group affect the social acceptance and outcomes of existing minorities? We study this question in the context of the First Great Migration. Between 1915 and 1930, 1.5 million African Americans moved from the U.S. South to Northern... View Details

Keywords: Assimilation; Great Migration; Group Identity; Immigration; Race; History; United States

January 2022
Case

Walmart Goes Global (A)

By: Juan Alcácer

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Success; Globalized Markets and Industries; Expansion; Market Entry and Exit; Failure; Retail Industry; Germany; China; Argentina; South Korea; Canada; Japan; Brazil; Africa; United Kingdom; United States; Mexico

2022
Book

Leadership to Last: How Great Leaders Leave Legacies Behind

By: Geoffrey Jones and Tarun Khanna

Society tends to glorify the get-rich-quick entrepreneur who builds a company, takes it public and then (maybe) contributes to charity. In Leadership to Last, Geoffrey Jones and Tarun Khanna discuss the interviews they and other Harvard faculty have undertaken... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Corruption; Gender; Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Society; India; Pakistan; Bangladesh; Middle East; Africa; Latin America; Philippines

2022
Chapter

Luxury Tourism and Environmentalism

By: Geoffrey Jones

This chapter examines the evolution of luxury tourism and its environmental impact. Whilst mass tourism is widely seen as environmentally damaging, the impact of luxury tourism is nuanced. During the first stage of the growth in the nineteenth century, the numbers of... View Details

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January 2022
Article

Who Creates New Firms When Local Opportunities Arise?

By: Shai Benjamin Bernstein, Emanuele Colonnelli, Davide Malacrino and Timothy McQuade

We examine the characteristics of the individuals who become entrepreneurs when local opportunities arise. We identify local demand shocks by linking fluctuations in global commodity prices to municipality level agricultural endowments in Brazil. We find that the firm... View Details

Keywords: Firms; Entrepreneurs; Demand Shocks; Entrepreneurship; Personal Characteristics; Demographics; Opportunities; Brazil

December 2021
Case

The Instant Payment Mandate: The Central Bank of Brazil and Pix

By: Lauren Cohen and Spencer C. N. Hagist

João M. P. De Mello and his team at the Central Bank of Brazil are preparing a move that would seek to tilt the scales in favor of financial inclusion for the entire country. The innovation at hand is the unprecedented nation-wide instant payment scheme: Pix. The fruit... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Finance; Entrepreneurship; Innovation Strategy; Banking Industry; Brazil

November 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Advent International and Walmart Brazil's Deal

By: Victoria Ivashina, Ruth Costas and Pedro Levindo

Advent International, one of the world’s leading private equity firms, must decide whether to acquire Walmart’s subsidiary in Brazil or not. Although Walmart Brazil is losing cash at a rapid pace, Advent thinks it has a solid plan to recover the company’s finances.... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Acquisition; Decision Making; Risk Management; Retail Industry; Brazil

November 2021
Article

Borrower Leakage from Costly Screening: Evidence from SME Lending in Peru

By: Irani Arraiz, Miriam Bruhn, Benjamin N. Roth, Claudia Ruiz-Ortega and Rodolfo Stucchi

We provide evidence that commercial lenders in Peru suffer leakages in their loan approval process. Leveraging a discontinuity in the loan approval process of a large bank, we find that receiving a loan approval from the bank causes loan applicants to receive offers... View Details

Keywords: Information Spillovers; SME Lending; Financial Inclusion; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Small Business; Information; Peru

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2021
Working Paper

Does Social Media Cause Polarization? Evidence from Access to Twitter Echo Chambers during the 2019 Argentine Presidential Debate

By: Rafael Di Tella, Ramiro H. Gálvez and Ernesto Schargrodsky

We study how two groups, those inside vs. those outside echo chambers, react to a political event when we vary social media status (Twitter). Our treatments mimic two strategies often suggested as a way to limit polarization on social media: they expose people to... View Details

Keywords: Political Polarization; Political Elections; Internet and the Web; Attitudes; Social Media; Argentina

October 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Green Hydrogen in Chile

By: Tarun Khanna, Jenyfeer Martínez Buitrago and Mariana Cal

In 2020, the Chilean government wants to promote green hydrogen, a technology with high potential to help mitigate climate change. President Sebastián Piñera, aware of the country's advantages to produce green hydrogen competitively, asks Energy Minister Juan Carlos... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Decision Making; Alternative Energy; Renewable Energy; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology; Financial Instruments; Energy Policy; Government Administration; Strategy; Government and Politics; Social Issues; Energy Industry; Latin America; South America; Chile

2021
Working Paper

Saving for a Dry Day: Coal, Dams, and the Energy Transition

By: Michele Fioretti and Jorge Tamayo

Renewable generation creates a tradeoff between current and future energy production as generators produce energy by releasing previously stored resources. Studying the Colombian market, we find that diversified firms strategically substitute fossil fuels for... View Details

Keywords: Energy Generation; Renewable Energy; Production; Green Technology Industry; Energy Industry; Colombia

2021
Working Paper

The Luck of the Draw: The Causal Effect of Physicians on Birth Outcomes

By: Arlen Guarin, Christian Posso, Estefania Saravia and Jorge Tamayo

Identifying the effect of physicians’ skills on health outcomes is a challenging task due to the nonrandom sorting between physicians and hospitals. We overcome this challenge by exploiting a Colombian government program that randomly assigned 2,126 physicians to 618... View Details

Keywords: Physicians' Health Skills; Health Birth Outcomes; Birthing Outcomes; Experimental Evidence; Health Care and Treatment; Competency and Skills; Outcome or Result; Health Industry; Colombia