Publications

28 Sep 2010
First Look

First Look: September 28, 2010

Review (forthcoming) Abstract Companies in Victorian Britain operated in a laissez-faire legal environment from the perspective of outside investors, implying that such investors were not protected by the legal system. This article seeks... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2015
Working Paper

What Is Corruption?

By: Dutch Leonard and Karthik Ramanna

February 2012 (Revised October 2012)
Case

Caijing Magazine (A)

By: Karthik Ramanna and G.A. Donovan

In late 2009, Wang Boming, publisher of Caijing Magazine, widely regarded as China's most independent newsmagazine, gathered his core team for an urgent meeting. His pioneering editor Hu Shuli, described for her fiercely independent journalism as "the most dangerous... View Details

Keywords: Journals and Magazines; Publishing Industry; China

December 2010
Teaching Note

Urban Water Partners (TN) (A) and (B)

By: Karthik Ramanna and George Serafeim

Teaching Note for 111016 and 111029. View Details

Keywords: Health Industry; Utilities Industry; Dar es Salaam

June 2012
Teaching Note

Deferred Tax Assets in Basel III: Lessons from Japan (TN)

By: David F. Hawkins and Karthik Ramanna

April 2012
Article

The Question of IFRS Adoption: A Very Long Engagement

By: Karthik Ramanna and Ross L. Watts

Keywords: Accounting Standards; Political Economy; International Accounting; International Relations

Find at Harvard

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January 31, 2014
Editorial

On Section 377, A Call to Leadership

By: S.P. Kothari and Karthik Ramanna

Read Now

June 2013 (Revised March 2015)
Teaching Note

Business and Government: Campaign Contributions and Lobbying in the United States

By: Karthik Ramanna and Sandra Sucher

November 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Case

A Politician in a Leather Suit and the Paradox of Japanese Capitalism

By: Karthik Ramanna and Matthew Shaffer

Two lost decades later, capitalism in Japan embodies peculiar contradictions—preserving wealth and social stability in the face of declining economic power. Scant transparency in Japanese corporate practices plays an important role in this phenomenon. Sometimes... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Economic Systems; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Fairness; Values and Beliefs; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Civil Society or Community; Japan; Tokyo

February 2012 (Revised July 2012)
Supplement

Caijing Magazine (B)

By: Karthik Ramanna and G.A. Donovan

In late 2009, Wang Boming, publisher of Caijing Magazine, widely regarded as China's most independent newsmagazine, gathered his core team for an urgent meeting. His pioneering editor Hu Shuli, described for her fiercely independent journalism as "the most dangerous... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Corporate Accountability; Restructuring; Corporate Disclosure; Organizations; Publishing Industry; China

January 2012 (Revised March 2014)
Module Note

Managers and Market Capitalism

By: Rebecca Henderson and Karthik Ramanna

The last thirty years have seen the widespread embrace of market capitalism as not only a highly efficient form of economic organization but also as one that best meets the diversity of human preferences. In large, complex societies, an increasing body of theoretical... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Management

December 2010
Supplement

Urban Water Partners (A) Spreadsheet Solutions (CW)

By: Karthik Ramanna and George Serafeim

Teaching Note for Spreadsheet (111701). View Details

Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Accrual Accounting; Financial Statements; Health Industry; Utilities Industry; Dar es Salaam

2018
Working Paper

Show or Tell? Improving Agent Decision Making in a Tanzanian Mobile Money Field Experiment

By: Jason Acimovic, Chris Parker, David F. Drake and Karthik Balasubramanian

When workers make operational decisions, the firm's global knowledge and the workers’ domain-specific knowledge complement each other. Oftentimes workers have the final decision-making power. Two key decisions a firm makes when designing systems to support these... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Decision Making; Training; Performance Improvement; Money; Mobile Technology; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Services Industry

SSRN

2014
Working Paper

Return on Political Investment in the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004

By: Hui Chen, Katherine Gunny and Karthik Ramanna

Prior literature raises a "puzzle" of high rates of return on corporate political investment, but evidence for this puzzle is largely descriptive in nature. We exploit the setting of the American Jobs Creation Act's passage in 2004 to provide more robust estimates of... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Business and Government Relations; Corporate Finance; United States

SSRN

16 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 16

research. We test this assertion by analyzing studies of negotiation published in top peer-reviewed management, psychology, sociology, and industrial relations journals from 1990 to 2005. Our findings reveal a continuum of open-systems to... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

July 2014
Article

Network Effects in Countries' Adoption of IFRS

By: Karthik Ramanna and Ewa Sletten

If the differences in accounting standards across countries reflect relatively stable institutional differences (e.g., auditing technology, the rule of law, etc.), why did several countries rapidly, albeit in a staggered manner, adopt IFRS over local standards in the... View Details

Keywords: International Accounting; Financial Reporting; Network Effects

August 2009 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Choosing a GAAP for Canada

By: Karthik Ramanna and Beiting Cheng

Explores Canadian regulators' decision to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The Canadian decision in 2005 to adopt IFRS is particularly interesting because Canada had well-developed domestic accounting standards and because a significant... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; International Accounting; Cost vs Benefits; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Standards; Accounting Industry; Canada

2025
Working Paper

E-ledgers Carbon Accounting

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna

In prior publications, we introduced a global system of interconnected E-ledgers that produces—in as close to real time as practicable—accurate, comparable, and verifiable accounts of the cradle-to-gate (net) greenhouse-gas emissions in any product or service that... View Details

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January 2013 (Revised March 2016)
Case

The Private Company Council

By: Karthik Ramanna and Luis M. Viceira

Financial Accounting Foundation chairman Jack Brennan is under pressure from private-company interests to set up a new body—the Private Company Council—to determine separate GAAP for private companies. PCC advocates—including the US Chamber of Commerce—argue that... View Details

Keywords: FASB; Lobbying; Political Economy; Accounting; Government and Politics; Leadership; Financial Markets; Accounting Industry; Financial Services Industry; Public Administration Industry