Publications

August 1996 (Revised January 1999)
Background Note

Achieving and Sustaining Superior Profits

A basic premise of strategy is that superior profits occur when a corporation secures favorable positions in attractive industries, and pursues economies of scope across business units. This note draws on research that documents the importance of industry, positioning,... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Profit

06 May 2019
News

Forget Socialism. The U.S. Needs Responsible Capitalism

April 2002 (Revised April 2003)
Case

Malaysia: Capital and Control

By: Rawi E. Abdelal and Laura Alfaro

On September 1, 1998, the government of Malaysia imposed currency and capital controls in response to the financial crisis that had swept Asia. The controls sparked an enormous controversy in the world of international finance. Some celebrated the controls for... View Details

Keywords: Capital Controls; Business and Government Relations; International Finance; Policy; Crisis Management; Balance and Stability; Globalized Economies and Regions; Malaysia

2017
Working Paper

Structural Transformation: A Competitiveness-based View

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

Competitiveness research aims to enhance our understanding of the drivers of prosperity differences across locations and of policies that can sustainably raise a location’s prosperity level. The paper outlines key elements of the competitiveness framework and discusses... View Details

Keywords: Competitiveness; Cluster; Development; Growth; Economic Policy; Competition; Development Economics; Economic Growth; Policy

Article

Physical and Situational Inequality on Airplanes Predict Air Rage

By: K. A. DeCelles and Michael I. Norton

We posit that the modern airplane is a social microcosm of class-based society, and that the increasing incidence of “air rage” can be understood through the lens of inequality. Research on inequality typically examines the effects of relatively fixed, macrostructural... View Details

Keywords: Physical Inequality; Equality and Inequality; Behavior; Air Transportation; Situation or Environment

2011
Article

Too Big to Live: Why We Must Stamp Out State Monopoly Capitalism

The problems of excessive economic concentration, so lucidly and incisively analysed here, are not limited to the financial services industry. For the problem is now widespread: while five firms control 80% of the banking industry, a similar or greater concentration is... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Monopoly

15 Oct 2013
News

A Solution to Our 'Manufactured' Crisis

Article

Technology Diffusion and Postwar Growth

By: Diego A. Comin and Bart Hobijn

In the aftermath of World War II, the world's economies exhibited very different rates of economic recovery. We provide evidence that those countries that caught up the most with the U.S. in the postwar period are those that saw an acceleration in the speed of adopting... View Details

Keywords: Hardware; Country; Business Cycles; Globalized Economies and Regions; Economic Growth; Welfare or Wellbeing; War; Technology Industry; United States; Japan; Europe

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25 Feb 2014
First Look

First Look: February 25

Tella, Rafael, Javier Donna, and Robert MacCulloch 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... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2022 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Ava Labs: Navigating the Next Blockchain

By: Marco Di Maggio and Wenyao Sha

John Wu, President of Ava Labs, the primary developer of the Avalanche blockchain, and Emin Gün Sirer, the software company’s Founder and CEO, team up to develop a lending and borrowing protocol that would jumpstart the Decentralized finance (DeFi) economy on... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Decentralized Finance; Alternative Assets; Financial Instruments; Assets; Decisions; Financing and Loans; Technology Industry; Financial Services Industry

January 1993 (Revised September 1993)
Background Note

Managing Information: The IT Architecture

Information is a critical resource in the information economy and Information Technology (IT) enables information to be managed as a strategic resource. However, IT is extremely complex and fast-changing. As a result, the general manager cannot leave IT decisions... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Information Technology

January 2012 (Revised April 2015)
Case

India 2014: The Challenges of Governance

By: Lakshmi Iyer and Richard H. K. Vietor

In January 2012, the government of India faced significant challenges to achieving three key objectives of high growth, inclusive development, and improved governance. The economy was experiencing a growth slowdown, persistently high inflation, and infrastructure and... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Government and Politics; Problems and Challenges; Economic Growth; India

04 Sep 2021
News

Kiel Institute Honors Climate Economist Nicholas Stern and Young Academics

2020
Working Paper

HBS COVID-19 Global Policy Tracker

By: Alberto Cavallo and Tannya Cai

The HBS COVID-19 Global Policy Tracker is an initiative by the Business, Government and the International Economy (BGIE) unit at Harvard Business School (HBS) to collect and standardize economic policies implemented as a response to the coronavirus pandemic around the... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Economics; Policy; Health Pandemics; Government and Politics; Global Range

2017
Article

High-Skilled Migration and Agglomeration

By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr, Çağlar Özden and Christopher Parsons

This paper reviews recent research regarding high-skilled migration. We adopt a data-driven perspective, bringing together and describing several ongoing research streams that range from the construction of global migration databases, to the legal codification of... View Details

Keywords: Migration; Talent; Diaspora; Agglomeration; Diasporas; Industry Clusters; Talent and Talent Management; Immigration

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