Publications

January 2000 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Cambridge Hospital Community Health Network - The Primary Care Unit

By: V.G. Narayanan, Lisa Brem and Ryan Moore

The Cambridge Hospital Community Health Network needed to gain a better understanding of its unit-of-service costs, which had been rising at a rate of 10% per year. The network's step-down costing system gave only aggregate costing information, and there was some... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Cost Accounting; Cost; Network Effects; Health Industry; Service Industry; Massachusetts

Research Summary

Corporate Debt, Firm Size and Financial Fragility in Emerging Markets

By: Laura Alfaro

The post-Global Financial Crisis period shows a surge in corporate leverage in emerging markets and a number of countries with deteriorated corporate financial fragility indicators (Altman’s Z-score). Firm size plays a critical role in the relationship between... View Details

2020
Working Paper

Immigration Policy Levers for U.S. Innovation and Startups

By: William R. Kerr and Sari Pekkala Kerr

Immigrants account for about a quarter of U.S. invention and entrepreneurship despite a policy environment that is not well suited for these purposes. This chapter reviews the U.S. immigration policy environment that governs how skilled migrants move to America for... View Details

Keywords: Invention; Innovation; Startups; High-tech; Immigration; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Business Startups; Venture Capital; United States

SSRN

Summer 2018
Article

CSR needs CPR: Corporate Sustainability and Politics

By: Thomas Lyon, Magali A. Delmas, John W. Maxwell, Pratima Bansal, Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline, Patricia Crifo, Rodolphe Durand, Jean-Pascal Gond, Andrew King, Michael Lenox, Michael W. Toffel, David Vogel and Frank Wijen

Corporate sustainability has gone mainstream, and many companies have taken meaningful steps to improve their own environmental performance. But while corporate political actions such as lobbying can have a greater impact on environmental quality, they are ignored in... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Communication; Policy; Business and Government Relations

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Article

The Economic Consequences of Bankruptcy Reform

By: Tal Gross, Raymond Kluender, Feng Liu, Matthew J. Notowidigdo and Jialan Wang

A more generous consumer bankruptcy system provides greater insurance against financial risks but may also raise the cost of credit. We study this trade-off using the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), which increased the costs of... View Details

Keywords: Bankruptcy; Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention And Consumer Protection Act; Borrowing and Debt; Credit

September 1994 (Revised March 1995)
Case

RailTex, Inc. (A)

By: Norman A. Berg and James Weber

By 1992, RailTex, Inc., had acquired and was operating 23 geographically separate short-line railroads (feeder lines for larger railroads) in Mexico, Canada, and primarily in the United States. Founded in 1977 with $500,000 of capital as a railcar leasing company, the... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Business Divisions; Cost Management; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Systems; Product Marketing; Logistics; Risk and Uncertainty; Valuation

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March 2005 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Capital Controls in Chile in the 1990s (A)

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

In 1991, Chile adopted a framework of capital controls focused on reducing the massive flows of foreign investment coming into the country as international interest rates remained low. Capital inflows threatened the Central Bank's ability to manage the exchange rate... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Financial Crisis; Capital; Governance Controls; Business and Government Relations; Chile

27 Feb 2009
News

Switzerland has the medical bills covered

May 2022
Case

Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?

By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger

Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank’s launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank’s mobile money app, Illico Cash... View Details

09 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 9, 2008

Working PapersHow Firms Respond to Being Rated Authors:Aaron K. Chatterji, Michael W. Toffel Abstract While many independent rating systems are designed primarily to help... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

Open to Negotiation: Phenomenological Assumptions and Knowledge Dissemination

By: Corinne Bendersky and Kathleen L. McGinn

Phenomenological assumptions-assumptions about the fundamental qualities of the phenomenon being studied and how it relates to the environment in which it occurs-affect the dissemination of knowledge from subfields to the broader field of study. Micro-process research... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Knowledge Dissemination; Research; Organizations; Negotiation; Information Publishing

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May 2016 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Building the Digital Manufacturing Enterprise of the Future at Siemens

By: Willy Shih

This case describes the motivation for and the development of Siemens' digital manufacturing enterprise vision, which became the foundation for its implementation of Industrie 4.0. While the effort started with a purely defensive move by Anton Huber, head of the... View Details

December 2001 (Revised February 2004)
Case

Argentina's Convertibility Plan

By: Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel

Describes the political and economic development in Argentina from 1989 to 1995, with a focus on the role of the currency board. Culminates in Argentine policy makers (Menem in particular) contemplating how to respond to the tequila crisis in the middle of 1995.... View Details

Keywords: Currency Exchange Rate; Government and Politics; Interest Rates; Balance and Stability; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Crisis; Crisis Management; Policy; Currency; Macroeconomics; Argentina

September 2010 (Revised September 2011)
Case

B Lab: Building a New Sector of the Economy

By: Christopher Marquis, Andrew David Klaber and Bobbi Thomason

The founders of B Lab are on a mission to create a new sector of the economy and are specifically focused on a three objectives: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations (B=Benefit) that legally expand their corporate responsibilities to include... View Details

Keywords: Economic Sectors; Social Entrepreneurship; Investment; Policy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Government Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Social Enterprise; Value Creation

Research Summary

Overview

The Information Age has introduced well-received opportunities to track performance. Fitbits and Fuelbands allow individuals to track their own performance; companies like Uber and leading hospitals help you choose a driver or a doctor based on how others rated... View Details

Keywords: Management Accounting; Disclosure; Performance Measurement; Incentives; Control; Education; Education Industry; Health Industry; Transportation Industry; Energy Industry; Auto Industry; United States; Japan; India

2017
Working Paper

Lessons Unlearned? Corporate Debt in Emerging Markets

By: Laura Alfaro, Gonzalo Asis, Anusha Chari and Ugo Panizza

This paper documents a set of new stylized facts about leverage and financial fragility for emerging market firms following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Corporate debt vulnerability indicators during the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) attributed to corporate... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Debt; Financial Fragility; Firm-level Data; Large Firms; Emerging Markets; Borrowing and Debt; Corporate Finance; Financial Condition

October 1998 (Revised April 2000)
Background Note

Complexity and Error in Medicine

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer

Reviews the issues underlying the rate of error in medical practice and discusses the range of potential management interventions to decrease the risk of error. View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Management Practices and Processes; Risk and Uncertainty; Complexity