Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(765)
- Faculty Publications (272)
- 2015
- Other Teaching and Training Material
Entrepreneurship Reading: Launching Global Ventures
By: William R. Kerr
Core Curriculum in Entrepreneurship is a series of Readings that cover fundamental course material in Entrepreneurship. Readings include Interactive Illustrations which help students master complex concepts quickly.
Global ventures are those that weave... View Details
Global ventures are those that weave... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
The Logic of Agglomeration
By: Gilles Duranton and William R. Kerr
This review discusses frontier topics in economic geography as they relate to firms and agglomeration economies. We focus on areas where empirical research is scarce but possible. We first outline a conceptual framework for city formation that allows us to contemplate... View Details
Keywords: Agglomeration; Clusters; Cities; Innovation; Industry Clusters; City; Innovation and Invention
- 2020
- Working Paper
Social Networks, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship
By: William R. Kerr and Martin Mandorff
We study the relationship between ethnicity, occupational choice, and entrepreneurship. Immigrant groups in the United States cluster in specific business sectors. For example, Koreans are 34 times more concentrated in self-employment for dry cleaning than other... View Details
- 2015
- Chapter
Innovation and Business Growth
By: William R. Kerr
Innovation and the pursuit of new business opportunities are essential for growth at the firm level; moreover, they provide the foundation for an economy to achieve new levels of technological prowess, productivity, and ultimately prosperity. This chapter describes... View Details
- July 2015
- Article
Skilled Immigration and the Employment Structures of U.S. Firms
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and William F. Lincoln
We study the impact of skilled immigrants on the employment structures of U.S. firms using matched employer-employee data. Unlike most previous work, we use the firm as the lens of analysis to account for a greater level of heterogeneity and the fact that many skilled... View Details
Keywords: Firms; Scientists; Engineers; Inventors; H-1B; Age; Employment; Immigration; United States
- Article
How Local Context Shapes Digital Business Abroad
By: William R. Kerr
This article identifies how digital businesses need to be adapted to the local environment in which they are being applied. Core ideas include the development of strong barriers to entry, the types of network effects encountered, and the localization of business... View Details
- 2015
- Chapter
Agglomeration and Innovation
By: Gerald Carlino and William R. Kerr
This chapter reviews academic research on the connections between agglomeration and innovation. We first describe the conceptual distinctions between invention and innovation. We then describe how these factors are frequently measured in the data and some resulting... View Details
- Article
Entrepreneurship and Urban Growth: An Empirical Assessment with Historical Mines
By: Edward L. Glaeser, Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr
We study entrepreneurship and growth through the lens of U.S. cities. Initial entrepreneurship correlates strongly with urban employment growth, but endogeneity bedevils interpretation. Chinitz (1961) hypothesized that coal mines near cities led to specialization in... View Details
- 2015
- Chapter
Firms and the Economics of Skilled Immigration
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and William F. Lincoln
Firms play a central role in the selection, sponsorship, and employment of skilled immigrants entering the United States for work through programs like the H-1B visa. This role has not been widely recognized in the literature, and the data to better understand it have... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Informal Tradables and the Employment Growth of Indian Manufacturing
By: Ejaz Ghani, William R. Kerr and Alexander Segura
India's manufacturing growth from 1989 to 2010 displays two intriguing properties: 1) a substantial fraction of absolute and net employment growth is concentrated in informal tradable industries, and 2) much of this growth is connected to the development of one-person... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
House Prices, Home Equity and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from U.S. Census Micro Data
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda
During 1992-2007, house price growth is strongly correlated with local entrepreneurship. We show with Census Bureau data that most of this entry is related to construction and real estate; these entrants tend to be small and short-lived. Using a 1998 Texas reform that... View Details
- Article
Spatial Determinants of Entrepreneurship in India
By: Ejaz Ghani, William R. Kerr and Stephen O'Connell
We analyze the spatial determinants of entrepreneurship in India in the manufacturing and services sectors. Among general district traits, quality of physical infrastructure and workforce education are the strongest predictors of entry, with labor laws and household... View Details
- November 2014
- Article
The Dynamics of Firm Lobbying
By: William R. Kerr, William F. Lincoln and Prachi Mishra
We study the determinants of the dynamics of firm lobbying behavior using a panel data set covering 1998–2006. Our data exhibit three striking facts: (i) few firms lobby, (ii) lobbying status is strongly associated with firm size, and (iii) lobbying status is highly... View Details
- Winter 2014
- Article
Labor Regulations and European Venture Capital
By: Ant Bozkaya and William R. Kerr
European nations substitute between employment protection regulations and labor market expenditures (e.g., unemployment insurance benefits) for providing worker insurance. Employment regulations more directly tax firms making frequent labor adjustments than other labor... View Details
- 2014
- Other Teaching and Training Material
Entrepreneurship Reading: Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures
By: William R. Kerr, Ramana Nanda and James McQuade
"Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures" introduces students to the key issues involved in the financing of entrepreneurial enterprises. The Reading begins by examining how business models shape external financing requirements. It then contrasts the choice to bootstrap... View Details
- September 2014
- Article
Income Inequality and Social Preferences for Redistribution and Compensation Differentials
By: William R. Kerr
In cross-sectional studies, countries with greater income inequality typically exhibit less support for government-led redistribution and greater acceptance of wage inequality (e.g., United States versus Western Europe). If individual nations evolve along this pattern,... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Entrepreneurship as Experimentation
By: William R. Kerr, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf
Entrepreneurship research is on the rise but many questions about its fundamental nature still exist. We argue that entrepreneurship is about experimentation: the probabilities of success are low, extremely skewed and unknowable until an investment is made. At a macro... View Details
- July 2014
- Teaching Note
Homestrings, Inc.: Diaspora-Based Financing and the Crowd Funding of Development
By: William R. Kerr and Penelope Rossano
- July 2014
- Article
Diasporas and Outsourcing: Evidence from oDesk and India
By: Ejaz Ghani, William R. Kerr and Christopher Stanton
This study examines the role of the Indian diaspora in the outsourcing of work to India. Our data are taken from oDesk, the world's largest online platform for outsourced contracts, where India is the largest country in terms of contract volume. We use an ethnic name... View Details