Publications

01 Mar 2018
News

Can a Digital Platform Open Up the Opaque Metals Industry?

revenues compared to third-party traders who orchestrated sales between the two. “It felt fundamentally unfair to us,” Eykher says. “We figured there had to be a better way to do things.” In September 2017, they launched Open Mineral,... View Details

Keywords: Nicole Torres

April 2011 (Revised February 2013)
Background Note

How Government Debt Accumulates

By: Dante Roscini and Jonathan Schlefer

This note discusses the economics of government-debt accumulation. Fiscal deficits are only part of the picture; other factors include the level of debt as a percent of nominal GDP; the interest rate; the inflation rate; the growth rate; and changes in the exchange... View Details

Keywords: Government and Politics; Borrowing and Debt

Educators

2017
Working Paper

Cluster Mapping as a Tool for Development

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

This report builds on the foundational work on cluster mapping that Prof. Michael E. Porter has led at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness (ISC), Harvard Business School over the last two decades. He launched the U.S. Cluster Mapping Initiative in the late... View Details

Keywords: Industry Clusters; Development Economics

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Research Summary

Dynamic Demand Estimation in Platform and Two-Sided Markets

This paper develops techniques to structurally estimate consumer demand in general platform-intermediated and two-sided markets. By estimating both sides of the market simultaneously, the methodology presented here is able to (1) endogenize the utility of a platform as... View Details

2024
Working Paper

Webmunk: A New Tool for Studying Online Behavior and Digital Platforms

By: Chiara Farronato, Andrey Fradkin and Chris Karr

Understanding the behavior of users online is important for researchers, policymakers, and private companies alike. But observing online behavior and conducting experiments is difficult without direct access to the user base and software of technology companies. We... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Technology Adoption; Behavior; Research; Consumer Behavior; Internet and the Web

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May 2018
Case

Environmental Platform LEEDership at USGBC

By: Michael W. Toffel, Timothy S. Simcoe and Aldo Sesia

By 2018, it was clear that U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) had significantly contributed to the growth of green building and over its 25-year history had become a powerful brand in the construction sector with its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Standards; Business Model; Leadership; Problems and Challenges; Construction Industry; Green Technology Industry

Educators

Research Summary

Financial Markets and Corporate Governance

By: Dwight B. Crane

Corporate scandals beginning in the late 1990s focused renewed attention on corporate governance, but significant cracks in the governance system also contributed to recent problems. Deregulation and growth of financial markets, as well as changes in the competitive... View Details

16 Aug 2018
Blog Post

A Day in the Life as a ‘Spreadsheet Ranger’

Olivia Staffon, MBA 2019, shares a day in the life during her summer internship at the National Park Service, Dinosaur Park. Her project is focused on evaluating opportunities for sharing operational resources such View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit / Government

2018
Other Teaching and Training Material

Finance Reading: Corporate Governance

By: John Coates and Suraj Srinivasan

Core Curriculum Readings in Finance cover the fundamental concepts, theories, and frameworks in finance. This reading presents an overview of corporate governance, focusing on for-profit businesses that are privately owned by dispersed investors—that is, not owned by a... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Corporate Governance; For-Profit Firms; Private Ownership; Conflict of Interests

28 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Sophisticated Investors May Be Harming Fintech Lending Platforms

Zeng found, is the amount of information available about loan applicants. When platforms share a lot of information about applicants with potential investors—data such as... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Banking; Financial Services

23 Jun 2015
News

Governance reforms add significance to being a public company

October 14, 2019
Article

A Guide to the Big Ideas and Debates in Corporate Governance

By: Lynn S. Paine and Suraj Srinivasan

How corporations govern themselves has become a matter of broad public interest in recent decades. Amid this many commentators and experts still disagree on such basic matters as the purpose of the corporation, the role of corporate boards of directors, the rights of... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Mission and Purpose; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Shareholder Relations; Performance; Measurement and Metrics

Register to Read

2025
Working Paper

The Invention of Corporate Governance

By: Yueran Ma and Andrei Shleifer

The analysis of corporate governance begins with a central feature of modern capitalism—the separation of ownership and control in large corporations—first empirically documented by Berle and Means (1932). Such separation entails several agency problems reflecting... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Law; Business and Shareholder Relations

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September 2024
Module Note

Governance for Non-Profit Social Enterprises

By: Brian Trelstad, Gerald Chertavian and Alexis Lefort

An overview of the various roles a non-profit board of directors plays, including the board’s principal responsibilities and how those evolve as organizations grow and scale. Looks closely at the overall role in setting the mission of the organization; supervising and... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Nonprofit Organizations; Growth Management; Mission and Purpose; United States

2010
Book

Government and Markets: Toward a New Theory of Regulation

By: Edward J. Balleisen and David A. Moss

After two generations of emphasis on governmental inefficiency and the need for deregulation, we now see growing interest in the possibility of constructive governance, alongside public calls for new, smarter regulation. Yet there is a real danger that regulatory... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government and Politics; Markets; Business and Government Relations; Research

10 Feb 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Government Preferences and SEC Enforcement

Keywords: by Jonas Heese

March 2016
Module Note

Government Policy and Distributive Justice

By: Matthew Weinzierl

This note introduces the second of two main modules in the HBS elective curriculum course, The Role of Government in Market Economies (RoGME). This module is focused on policies, such as taxes, that change the distribution of economic outcomes. Like the... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Government and Politics; Economics