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- 2024
- Working Paper
Why Has Construction Productivity Stagnated? The Role of Land-Use Regulation
By: Leonardo D’Amico, Edward Glaeser, Joseph Gyourko, William Kerr and Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto
We document a Kuznets curve for construction productivity in 20th-century America.
Homes built per construction worker remained stagnant between 1900 and 1940, boomed after
World War II, and then plummeted after 1970. The productivity boom from 1940 to 1970
shows... View Details
- May 2024
- Case
HarvEast
By: Jeremy Friedman and Natalie Kindred
In late 2023, Dmitry Skornyakov, CEO of Ukrainian agribusiness HarvEast, was navigating the turmoil caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began in 2014 and escalated into full-scale war in February 2022. Before the full-scale invasion, HarvEast managed 127,000... View Details
Keywords: Goods and Commodities; Natural Resources; Food; Problems and Challenges; Adaptation; Innovation and Management; Crisis Management; Logistics; Supply Chain; Risk and Uncertainty; Loss; Trust; Human Needs; War; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Chile; South America; Latin America; Ukraine
- February 2023
- Teaching Note
Bangladesh: Into the Maelstrom
In the fall of 2018, Rohima Begum considered her options as the small island, or “char,” on which her family’s house rested slowly but inescapably eroded into the mighty Brahmaputra River in northern Bangladesh. Should she move to another island or into the city on the... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Property Rights and Urban Form
By: Simeon Djankov, Edward L. Glaeser, Valeria Perotti and Andrei Shleifer
How do the different elements in the standard bundle of property rights, including those of possession and transfer, influence the shape of cities? This paper incorporates insecure property rights into a standard model of urban land prices and density, and makes... View Details
- 2020
- Chapter
Climate Change Is Going to Transform Where and How We Build
By: John D. Macomber
As fires, floods, and droughts increasingly threaten homes, businesses, and other institutions, climate risk has become financial risk. This implies that homeowners and investors have been making location decisions without properly pricing the cost of potential peril,... View Details
- January 2020
- Case
Terra Nova: A Social Business Trying to Unlock Land Rights for the Urban Poor in Brazil
By: Julie Battilana, Ruth Costas, Marissa Kimsey and Priscilla Zogbi
Brothers André and Daniel Albuquerque founded the company Terra Nova in 2001 to mediate land disputes between poor families illegally living in urban areas and the official landowners—with the aspiration to improve the lives of the poor. A business-led approach to the... View Details
- January 2019 (Revised December 2020)
- Case
Angola Starts Now
By: Jeremy Friedman and Sophus A. Reinert
After five centuries of colonialism, four decades of civil war, an extended experiment with Marxism-Leninism, and nearly four decades of rule by a single man, José Eduardo Dos Santos, Angola finally has a chance to realize its enormous economic potential. A country... View Details
- September 2018 (Revised January 2019)
- Case
Sobha Group Real Estate: Backward Integration for Quality
By: John Macomber and Alpana Thapar
From humble beginnings in Kerala, India, Mr. PNC Menon built a reputation for quality, detail, and trustworthiness, earning him major construction commissions in the Gulf region. This paved the way for venturing into real estate development in Dubai, UAE. Striving to... View Details
- February 2018
- Case
Root Capital and the Efficient Impact Frontier
By: Shawn Cole and Caitlin Reimers Brumme
In 2015 Root Capital, a pioneer in the impact investing space, began to explore how to more systematically integrate impact and financial management. After much deliberation, Root Capital landed on ex-ante rating system for any potential investment that produced a... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised April 2019)
- Case
The Olmos Project: Value Creation and Value Capture
By: John Macomber, Fernanda Miguel, Laura Urdapilleta and Valeria Moy
Private investment in public infrastructure can be encouraged when there are multiple avenues to capture and to share the value created by such a project. Gains in the market value of land adjacent to projects are not customarily channeled back into defraying the... View Details
Keywords: Value Capture; Infrastructure; Decision Making; Agribusiness; Value Creation; South America; Peru
- September 2016 (Revised September 2016)
- Case
The Tavistock Group and the Australian Agricultural Company
By: Dante Roscini and Matthew Preble
In late 2015, Dr. Shehan Dissanayake, a managing director and board member of Bahamian investment firm The Tavistock Group (Tavistock), the largest shareholder in the Australian Agricultural Company (AACo), one of the country's largest agribusinesses, faces a... View Details
- August 2016
- Teaching Note
The Role of Real Estate in Endowment Portfolios: The Case of Christ Church College
By: Arthur I. Segel and Alexander W. Schultz
The case centers on Christ Church’s Treasurer, James Lawrie, who is contemplating his options for investing a portion of the College’s endowment in real estate. Approximately 1/3 of the total $690 million endowment was allocated towards real estate, much higher than... View Details
- June 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
The Role of Real Estate in Endowment Portfolios: The Case of Christ Church, Oxford
By: David Chambers, Elroy Dimson, Arthur I Segel and Eva Steiner
The case centers on Christ Church's Treasurer, James Lawrie, who is contemplating his options for investing a portion of the College's endowment in real estate. Approximately 1/3 of the total $690 million endowment was allocated towards real estate, much higher than... View Details
- May 2016
- Supplement
2016 Update: Argentina Turns the Page
By: David E. Bell, Forest Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred
This brief case is a supplement to “Cresud and Argentina” (515-043) and “Note on Agriculture in Argentina” (515-069). Set in early 2016, it describes developments in Argentina under newly elected President Mauricio Macri, including the country’s return to international... View Details
Keywords: Argentina; ＂ Cresud; Agriculture; Economic Reform; Economic Policy; Land Investment; Macri; Currency; Agribusiness; Diversification; Economy; Emerging Markets; Credit; Currency Exchange Rate; Investment; Business and Government Relations; Government and Politics; Inflation and Deflation; Trade; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Argentina; Buenos Aires; South America
- July 2013 (Revised October 2014)
- Case
Value Retail: Opportunities for European Expansion
By: Arthur I Segel
Scott Malkin, CEO of Value Retail, a developer and operator of European outlet villages serving luxury brands, is planning on developing a 18,503 m2 open-air outlet village to be built 98 kilometers south of Milan on land he was about to acquire for 7.26 million lira.... View Details
- July 2013
- Case
B. Zaitz & Sons Co. Farmland Investing
By: Andre F. Perold
In April 2013, Ben Zaitz was looking down at an expanse of agricultural land as his plane flew over the Midwest. He would soon arrive in northern Minnesota to meet with farmers regarding land he had recently purchased there. The vast tracts of row-crop acreage below... View Details
- July 2012 (Revised July 2012)
- Case
The Madera Ranch and Water Bank
By: Andre F. Perold and Geoffrey Bernstein
The protagonist is trying to decide whether to purchase and develop an aquifer lying beneath rural land near Fresno, California. The project could fill a void for local farmers as well as surrounding municipalities and a variety of other customers throughout... View Details
- June 2011 (Revised October 2012)
- Case
Patagonia Sur: For-Profit Land Conservation in Chile
By: Arthur I Segel, Nicolas Ibanez and Jay Verjee
Warren Adams founded Patagonia Sur in 2007 as one of the world's first for-profit land conservation businesses. His goal was to purchase over 100,000 acres of land in southern Chile and to run a variety of sustainable businesses to generate annual returns for... View Details
- November 2010 (Revised February 2013)
- Case
Cresud S.A., Farmer or Real Estate Developer?
By: Ray Goldberg, Arthur I Segel, Gustavo Herrero and Andrew Terris
Alejandro Elsztain, CEO of Cresud S.A., is faced with the difficult choice of whether to sell, develop, or continue to hold the 151,000 hectares of remaining undeveloped farmland at the company's Los Pozos farm in Argentina. Developing the land will further expose... View Details
- June 2010 (Revised December 2013)
- Case
Hang Lung Properties and the Chengdu Decision (A)
By: John D. Macomber, Michael Shih-Ta Chen and Keith Chi-Ho Wong
A residential real estate developer competes in a heated auction for a prime retail development site in the interior of China during the 2009 boom. Total project cost might be in excess of $1 billion U.S. for over 4,000,000 square feet of building. Hang Lung Properties... View Details