Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(689)
- Faculty Publications (142)
- March 2010 (Revised December 2010)
- Case
The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream"
By: Rafael M. Di Tella and Laura Winig
In 2010, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison operator in the U.S., was considering expansion options. The company's largest customers, federal and state governments, were under economic pressure to reduce the incarceration rate and... View Details
- March 2010
- Case
Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2007
By: Jan W. Rivkin, Michael Roberto and Ranjay Gulati
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Robert Mueller, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), sought to transform the storied Bureau. The FBI had long served as both the chief law enforcement agency and the main domestic intelligence wing of the... View Details
- October 2008
- Article
It's Time to Make Management a True Profession
By: Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana
In the face of the recent institutional breakdown of trust in business, managers are losing legitimacy. To regain public trust, management needs to become a true profession in much the way medicine and law have, argue Khurana and Nohria of Harvard Business School. True... View Details
- July 2008
- Article
Crime and Punishment in the 'American Dream'
By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra
We observe that countries where belief in the "American dream" (i.e., effort pays) prevails also set harsher punishment for criminals. We know that beliefs are also correlated with several features of the economic system (taxation, social insurance, etc). Our objective... View Details
- Article
The Causes and Consequences of Industry Self-Policing
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
Innovative regulatory programs are encouraging firms to police their own regulatory compliance and voluntarily disclose, or "confess," the violations they find. Despite the "win-win" rhetoric surrounding these government voluntary programs, it is not clear why... View Details
- May 2008
- Article
Coerced Confessions: Self-Policing in the Shadow of the Regulator
By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
As part of a recent trend toward more cooperative relations between regulators and industry, novel government programs are encouraging firms to monitor their own regulatory compliance and voluntarily report their own violations. In this study, we examine how regulatory... View Details
- March 2008 (Revised April 2009)
- Case
Eliot Spitzer: Pushing Wall Street to Reform
By: Rawi Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer
New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer faced a decision about how to stop wrongdoing committed by major Wall Street firms during the Internet boom. The equities analysts of Merrill Lynch and other Wall Street firms were charged with objectively advising retail... View Details
- 2007
- Book
From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession
By: Rakesh Khurana
Is management a profession? Should it be? Can it be? This major work of social and intellectual history reveals how such questions have driven business education and shaped American management and society for more than a century. The book is also a call for reform.... View Details
- September 2007
- Case
Tetra Pak Argentina
By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Gustavo A. Herrero
Deals with the hands-on management of a difficult situation facing the subsidiary of a multinational corporation (Tetra Pak) in a developing country (Argentina). The situation arises from a major economic, social, and institutional breakdown that jeopardizes the... View Details
- June 2006 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
Creditor Activism in Sovereign Debt: 'Vulture' Tactics or Market Backbone
By: Laura Alfaro and Ingrid Vogel
The role of distressed debt funds, also known as "vulture funds," in sovereign debt restructuring was a hotly debated topic, especially after the success of Elliot Associates in converting an $11 million investment in Peruvian bonds worth $21 million into a $58 million... View Details
- 2006
- Working Paper
The Limits of Authority: Motivation versus Coordination
This paper studies the effects of open disagreement on motivation and coordination. It shows how, in the presence of differing priors, motivation and coordination impose conflicting demands on the allocation of authority, leading to a trade-off between the... View Details
- June 2005 (Revised January 2007)
- Case
Equator Principles, The: An Industry Approach to Managing Environmental and Social Risks
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Aldo Sesia
In June 2003, 10 leading international banks adopted new voluntary guidelines, called the Equator Principles, to promote sustainable development in project finance. In recent years, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) had raised issues about the lenders'... View Details
- Article
Does Legal Enforcement Affect Financial Transactions?: The Contractual Channel in Private Equity
By: Josh Lerner and Antoinette Schoar
- March 2004
- Article
Do Police Reduce Crime? Estimates Using the Allocation of Police Forces after a Terrorist Attack
By: Rafael Di Tella and Ernesto Schargrodsky
An important challenge in the crime literature is to isolate causal effects of police on crime. Following a terrorist attack on the main Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in July 1994, all Jewish institutions received police protection. Thus, this hideous event... View Details
- September 2003
- Case
Nelson Mandela, Turnaround Leader
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Euvin Naidoo
Nelson Mandela was the first democratically elected president of South Africa. He had to shift the culture of a country after the end of the apartheid regime, which enforced separation of the races and stifled freedom of the press. He established more open dialogue,... View Details
- July 2003 (Revised February 2004)
- Background Note
M&A Legal Context: Standards Related to the Sale or Purchase of a Company
By: Carliss Y. Baldwin, Constance E. Bagley and James Quinn
Introduces students to the legal standards affecting officers and directors when selling or purchasing a company. Provides a practical understanding of the Revlon Standard, the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, Rule 10b-5, and the legal criteria for a cause of... View Details
- June 2003 (Revised May 2006)
- Case
Cipla
By: Rohit Deshpande and Laura Winig
The head of Cipla, a $325-million-dollar Indian pharmaceutical company and seller of low-cost AIDS drugs to South Africa, must decide what to do about Cipla's future. With India poised to enforce international patents in only two years, much of Cipla's product line... View Details
- Article
Informal Family Insurance and the Design of the Welfare State
By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch
We study unemployment benefit provision when the family also provides social insurance. In the benchmark case, more generous State transfers crowd out family risk-sharing one-for-one. An extension gives the State an advantage in enforcing transfers through taxes... View Details
- October 2001 (Revised March 2006)
- Case
Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project (A), The
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Carrie Ferman
On June 6, 2000, the World Bank's and IFC's board of directors was scheduled to vote on whether to approve funding for the $4 billion Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline project. Although the project presented a unique opportunity to alleviate poverty in... View Details
- September 2001 (Revised July 2002)
- Case
Fraud Prevention at Omni Bank
By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar
Omni Bank is undergoing a merger and has two important decisions ahead. First, should it enforce the use of its model-driven approach to interacting with customers at the recently acquired Friends Savings and Loan branches. Friends has a culture of personal touch with... View Details