Publications

2010
Chapter

Leadership and History

By: Walter A. Friedman

Historians have written a lot about business leaders, especially successful ones. In fact, rags-to-riches stories have come to embody the philosophy of America itself, yet the term "business leadership" was rarely used until the early twentieth century. This chapter... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; History; Leadership

Forthcoming
Chapter

Oil, Macroeconomic Volatility and Crime in the Determination of Beliefs in Venezuela

By: Rafael Di Tella, Javier Donna and Robert MacCulloch

Book Abstract: At the beginning of the twentieth century Venezuela had one of the poorest economies in Latin America, but by 1970 it had become the richest country in the region and one of the twenty richest countries in the world, ahead of countries such as Greece,... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Volatility; Crime and Corruption; Values and Beliefs; Non-Renewable Energy; Energy Industry; Venezuela

August 2018 (Revised September 2019)
Case

Magnus Resch: Transforming the Art Market Through Transparency

By: Henry McGee and Sarah Mehta

Economist and entrepreneur Magnus Resch was on a mission to make the art market more transparent. To that end, in 2014, he began building the Magnus app, which catalogued the price and transaction history of millions of works of art. Users could download the app, take... View Details

Keywords: Art Market; Transparency; Art Pricing; Business Startups; Decision Making; Innovation Strategy; Culture; Business Strategy; Mobile Technology; Fine Arts Industry; Information Technology Industry

Educators

10 Jul 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Communicating Frames in Negotiations

Keywords: by Kathleen L. McGinn & Markus Nöth

June, 2024
Book Review

Debunking Immigration Myths: A Review Essay of 'Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success' (PublicAffairs, 2022) by Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan

By: Marco Tabellini

This essay reviews Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success by Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan. This elegantly written book, highly accessible to both economists and non-economists, is a must-read for anyone interested in the topic of... View Details

Keywords: Immigration; History; United States

March 2006 (Revised April 2010)
Case

China: To Float or Not To Float? (A)

By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel

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: Macroeconomics; Trade; Currency Exchange Rate; Governance Controls; Policy; Growth and Development Strategy; China

Educators

2020
Working Paper

Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation

By: Benjami Lockwood, Afras Y. Sial and Matthew C. Weinzierl

Economists typically check the robustness of their results by comparing them across plausible ranges of parameter values and model structures. A preferable approach to robustness—for the purposes of policymaking and evaluation—is to design policy that takes these... View Details

Keywords: Optimal Taxation; Robust Optimization; Taxation; Income; Policy; Design

November 2019
Teaching Note

Magnus Resch: Transforming the Art Market Through Transparency

By: Henry McGee and Sarah Mehta

Teaching Note for HBS No. 319-002. This teaching note pairs with a case on economist and entrepreneur Magnus Resch, who is on a mission to make the art market more transparent. He has built the Magnus app, which catalogues the price and transaction history of millions... View Details

Keywords: Art Market; Transparency; Art Pricing; Business Startups; Innovation Strategy; Culture; Business Strategy; Mobile Technology; Fine Arts Industry; Information Technology Industry

28 Jan 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Does Product Market Competition Lead Firms To Decentralize?

Keywords: by Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen

Research Summary

International Trade

Economists believe that there is substantial “missing trade” due to trade barriers, such as tariffs and transport costs, that constrain the global activities of firms. Professor Steinwender goes a step farther by studying indirect trade barriers, notably information... View Details

January 2020
Teaching Note

Chile: Unrest in the Copper Nation

By: Laura Alfaro and Sarah Jeong

For decades, Chile enjoyed the stability of being the world’s largest producer of copper. Keynes would have advised that this period of growth would have been the time for the government to save, that “the boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the... View Details

Keywords: Copper Production; Protests; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Metals and Minerals; Production; Economy; Emerging Markets; Chile

January 2017
Article

Impact Evaluation Methods in Public Economics: A Brief Introduction to Randomized Evaluations and Comparison with Other Methods

By: Dina Pomeranz

Recent years have seen a large expansion in the use of rigorous impact evaluation techniques. Increasingly, public administrations are collaborating with academic economists and other quantitative social scientists to apply such rigorous methods to the study of public... View Details

Keywords: Practice; Public Sector; Research; Policy; Performance Evaluation

25 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

How Gender Stereotypes Kill a Woman’s Self-Confidence

“occupational sorting,” with men choosing careers that pay higher wages than women do, labor economists say. For example, women represent only 26 percent of US workers employed in computer and math jobs, according to the Department of... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

22 May 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Strategy-Proofness versus Efficiency in Matching with Indifferences: Redesigning the NYC High School Match

Keywords: by Atila Abdulkadiroglu, Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth

2019
Article

Pay-for-Monopoly?: An Assessment of Reverse Payment Deals by Pharmaceutical Companies

By: Sana Rafiq and Max Bazerman

Abstract Over the past eighteen years, pharmaceutical firms have developed a blueprint to impede competition in order to maintain their monopoly profits. This scheme, termed pay-for-delay, involves direct or indirect payment of money from a branded-drug manufacturer... View Details

Keywords: Monopoly; Policy; Competition; Agreements and Arrangements; Pharmaceutical Industry