Publications

December 2011 (Revised February 2019)
Case

The Indian Removal Act and the 'Trail of Tears'

By: Tom Nicholas, Ari Medoff, Raven Smith and Sam Subramanian

Native Americans were subjected to a protracted and painful process of forced removal from their land. The case provides "first hand" evidence on the debate over Indian removal as it took place during the early nineteenth century. The first document is excerpted from... View Details

Keywords: Native Americans; History; Laws and Statutes; United States

July 2023 (Revised June 2025)
Case

The Miccosukee Tribe and the Battle to Save the Everglades: A Miami Climate Action Story

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Joyce J. Kim

The Miccosukee Indians, a small tribe of indigenous people in South Florida, have a long-standing interest in protecting the land, waterways, and habitats of the Everglades, their ancestral home, which serves as a watershed for urban areas in Miami-Dade County and a... View Details

Keywords: Native Americans; Climate Change; Change; Leadership; Natural Environment; Florida; Everglades National Park

April 2018
Case

Revitalizing the Cherokee Nation Health System

By: Tom Nicholas and Ross Bloom

Keywords: Native Americans; Healthcare Industry; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

25 Jan 2021
Book

In a Nutshell, Why American Capitalism Succeeded

How did the United States become the world’s center of business growth following its founding in 1776? Surely a number of nations had powerful natural resources, stable financial and legal institutions, and dynamic entrepreneurs over that same span. Why was View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Manufacturing

05 Nov 2007
Research & Ideas

The Changing Face of American Innovation

many research and policy questions on issues such as the appropriate quota for H1-B temporary visas, the possible crowding out of native students from the science and engineering fields, the brain-drain or brain-circulation effect on... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Technology

May 2017
Article

Immigration and the Rise of American Ingenuity

By: Ufuk Akcigit, John Grigsby and Tom Nicholas

We build on the analysis in Akcigit, Grigsby, and Nicholas (2017) by using U.S. patent and census data to examine the relationship between immigration and innovation. We construct a measure of foreign born expertise and show that technology areas where immigrant... View Details

Keywords: Immigration; Innovation and Invention; Experience and Expertise; Wages; United States

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06 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

How Younger Immigrants Gain an Edge in American Business

individual anonymized career trajectories, implied by job titles and income, with far more specificity than previously available, Kerr notes. State Department data suggest that from 1989 to 1995, two-thirds of immigrants from Vietnam were refugees or were biracial and... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

19 Sep 2018
Working Paper Summaries

From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation During the Great Migration

Keywords: by Vasiliki Fouka, Soumyajit Mazumder, and Marco Tabellini

February 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

Democracy, Sovereignty, and the Struggle over Cherokee Removal

By: David Moss, Marc Campasano and Dean Grodzins

By the mid-1830s, the U.S. Government and the State of Georgia had for years been pushing the Cherokees to turn all of their territory over to white settlers and move west, yet it appeared that most Cherokees wanted to keep their ancestral homeland. In October 1835,... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Nationality; Ethics; Government and Politics; Agreements and Arrangements; History; United States

2021
Working Paper

The Great Unequalizer: Initial Health Effects of COVID-19 in the United States

By: Marcella Alsan, Amitabh Chandra and Kosali I. Simon

We measure inequities from the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality and hospitalizations in the United States during the early months of the outbreak. We discuss challenges in measuring health outcomes and health inequality, some of which are specific to COVID-19 and others... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Health Inequality; Health Pandemics; Demographics; Equality and Inequality

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10 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

In Empowering Black Voters, Did a Landmark Law Stir White Angst?

As another election season approaches, American politics feels more polarized than ever, with racial tensions flaring in an uncertain economy. And a recent study parsing newly available data shows how a landmark Civil Rights-era law may... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

27 Nov 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Skilled Immigration and the Employment Structures of US Firms

Keywords: by Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr & William F. Lincoln

2021
Chapter

The Economic and Political Effects of Immigration: Evidence from the Age of Mass Migration

By: Marco Tabellini

Between 1850 and 1920, during the Age of Mass Migration, more than 30 million Europeans moved to the United States. European immigrants provided ample supply of cheap labor as well as specific skills and know-how, contributing to American economic growth. These... View Details

Keywords: Age Of Mass Migration; Political Ideology; Political Economy; Assimilation; Immigration; Economics; History; United States

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12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

It Came in the First Ships: Capitalism in America

had much compunction about dispossessing Native Americans or each other. Sometimes they resorted to outright murder. The movement west constituted a great epic, but in its details was not a pretty story.... View Details

Keywords: by Thomas K. McCraw

October 2023 (Revised November 2023)
Teaching Note

The Miccosukee Tribe and the Battle to Save the Everglades: A Miami Climate Action Story

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jacob A. Small

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 324-002. "Miccosukee" explores the challenges of coordinating actions to solve a complex systems problem—from individuals, small organizations, and coalitions of multiple organizations. The case discusses the impact of climate change and... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Leading Change; Natural Environment; Florida; Everglades National Park