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Crime
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- 2012
- Working Paper
How Short-Termism Invites Corruption—And What to Do About It
Researchers and business leaders have long decried short-termism: the excessive focus of executives of publicly traded companies-along with fund managers and other investors-on short-term results. The central concern is that short-termism discourages long-term... View Details
- March 2012
- Case
Fighting Corruption at Siemens
By: Paul Healy and Djordjija Petkoski
On November 15, 2006, German prosecutors raided offices and homes of Siemens AG staff as part of an ongoing investigation into bribery. The subsequent investigations covered business representing 60% of Siemens' revenues and spanned operations in Asia, Africa, Europe,... View Details
- February 2012 (Revised June 2012)
- Case
Rospil.info
By: Paul Healy, Karthik Ramanna and Matthew Shaffer
What should business leaders do about corruption? In December 2011, four HBS alumni met to debate how to engage the unprecedented protests against Vladimir Putin's corrupt government, which had erupted in Russia in response to alleged fraud in the recent parliamentary... View Details
- January 2012 (Revised September 2012)
- Case
Aadhaar: India's 'Unique Identification' System
By: Tarun Khanna and Anjali Raina
- 2012
- Chapter
An Assessment of How Urban Crime and Victimization Affects Life Satisfaction
By: Carlos Medina and Jorge Tamayo
We use data for Medellín, Colombia, to assess the effect of the homicide rate, individual’s perception of security in their neighborhood of residence, and of the effect of their having been victimized, on life satisfaction. We find a negative effect of the homicide... View Details
- 2012
- Chapter
Evidence from the Firm: A New Approach to Understanding Corruption
By: Shawn A. Cole and Anh Tran
Due to its clandestine nature, most of what we understand about corruption comes from survey evidence and self-reported perceptions of corruption: this limits both the range of questions that can be asked and the precision of answers that can be provided. This chapter... View Details
- Article
Is It Time for Auditor Independence Yet?
By: M. H. Bazerman and D. A. Moore
Well before the collapse of Enron and Arthur Andersen, we argued that the auditing system had been corrupted by the incentives auditors face to please their clients. We stated that even honest auditors were incapable of independence within the current regulatory... View Details
- Article
The Pursuit of Power Corrupts: How Investing in Outside Options Motivates Opportunism in Relationships
By: D. Malhotra and F. Gino
Across three laboratory studies, this paper illustrates how a common strategic decision aimed at increasing one's own power—investing in outside options—can lead to opportunistic behavior in exchange relationships. We show that the extent to which individuals have... View Details
- October 2011
- Case
Chris and Alison Weston (A)
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Celia Moore
Chris and Alison Weston describe how they, a well-educated middle class couple, ended up committing mail fraud, for which they each served a year and a half in federal prison. The case highlights for students how otherwise upstanding individuals much like themselves... View Details
- October 2011
- Supplement
Chris and Alison Weston (B)
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Celia Moore
Chris and Alison Weston describe their trial process and time in prison. View Details
- October 2011 (Revised December 2022)
- Background Note
Ethical Analysis: Moral Disengagement
By: Sandra J. Sucher and Celia Moore
Moral disengagement is a process that enables people to engage in negative behaviors, from small misdeeds to great atrocities, without believing that they are causing harm or doing wrong. When Conrad Black, the fallen Canadian mogul convicted of multiple counts of... View Details
- October 2011
- Article
Government Advertising and Media Coverage of Corruption Scandals
By: Rafael Di Tella and Ignacio Franceschelli
We construct measures of the extent to which the four main newspapers in Argentina report government corruption in their front page during the period 1998-2007 and correlate them with government advertising. The correlation is negative. The size is considerable: a one... View Details
- August 2011 (Revised October 2015)
- Case
Boardroom Battle Behind Bars: Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings—A Corporate Governance Drama
By: William C. Kirby and Tracy Yuen Manty
Despite widespread news of the incarceration of Gome Electronics' CEO, Huang Guangyu, Bain Capital felt they carefully undertook due diligence before making a significant investment in the company. The venture capital firm was confident that it and the current... View Details
Keywords: China; Legal Aspects Of Business; Corruption; Risk; Corporate Governance; Crime and Corruption; Power and Influence; Risk Management; Business and Shareholder Relations; Venture Capital; Ethics; Governing and Advisory Boards; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Values and Beliefs; Private Equity; China
- 2011
- Working Paper
Free to Punish? The American Dream and the Harsh Treatment of Criminals
By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra
We describe the evolution of selective aspects of punishment in the U.S. over the period 1980-2004. We note that imprisonment increased around 1980, a period that coincides with the "Reagan revolution" in economic matters. We build an economic model where beliefs about... View Details
- April 2011 (Revised February 2016)
- Case
Jamaica's Anemic Growth: The IMF, China and the Debt(th) Trap
By: Rafael Di Tella and Natalie Kindred
This case describes the economic development problems faced by the small Caribbean-island country of Jamaica over most of the past half-century. The Jamaican economy showed relatively strong growth in the 1960s but stagnated in the 1970s. By the end of that decade,... View Details
- April 2011
- Case
Shell Nigeria: The WikiLeaks Cables
By: Sandra J. Sucher, Rebecca M. Henderson and Matthew Preble
In November 2010, WikiLeaks began releasing the first of hundreds of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables that it had obtained. Among the thousands of cables published by early 2011, were several that shed light on Royal Dutch Shell's operations in Nigeria and its... View Details
- March 2011 (Revised December 2019)
- Case
Wealth Management Crisis at UBS (A)
By: Paul M. Healy
The case describes the challenges that UBS faced as a result of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation for tax fraud, that claimed that UBS had helped some 52,000 U.S. residents hide billions of dollars in untaxed assets in secret Swiss accounts between... View Details
Keywords: Fraud; Regulatory Enforcement; Reputation Incentives; Crony Capitalism; Tax Havens; Legitimacy; Multinational; Strategic Change; Incentives; Transparency; Financial Services; Taxation; Crime and Corruption; Global Range; Asset Management; Ethics; Problems and Challenges; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Corporate Governance; Financial Services Industry; United States; Switzerland
- March 2011 (Revised February 2018)
- Supplement
Wealth Management Crisis at UBS (B)
By: George Serafeim
The case describes the resolution of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation for tax fraud and the increasing pressure on the wealth management business. View Details
Keywords: Fraud; Regulatory Enforcement; Reputation Incentives; Crony Capitalism; Tax Havens; Legitimacy; Multinational; Strategic Change; Corporate Governance; Incentives; Transparency; Financial Services; Wealth; Taxation; Crime and Corruption; Global Range; Governance; Business and Government Relations; Asset Management; United States
- 2011
- Book
Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do about It
By: Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel
When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability... View Details
- February 5, 2011
- Book Review
Early America, Ripe for Counterfeiters
By: Nancy F. Koehn
Keywords: Crime and Corruption