Publications

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22 Mar 2017
Research & Ideas

What's the Ideal Frequency for a Sales Quota?

quota. This raises a key question for sales managers: What kind of quota is the most motivating? Could salesforce performance be kick-started if that quota incentive was delivered more frequently? The answer is contained in a new paper, The Effects of Quota View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

March 2016
Article

Trade Credit and Taxes

By: Mihir Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James R. Hines Jr.

This paper analyzes the extent to which firms use trade credit to reallocate capital in response to tax incentives. Tax-induced differences in pretax returns encourage the use of trade credit to reallocate capital from firms facing low tax rates to those facing high... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Trade; Credit; Capital

Find at Harvard

April 2015
Case

Domeyard: Starting a High-Frequency Trading (HFT) Hedge Fund

By: Lauren Cohen, Christopher Malloy and Matthew Foreman

The principals at Domeyard, a start-up high frequency trading (HFT) hedge fund based in Cambridge, faced a myriad of important decisions: which markets to trade on, how to raise capital, and from whom to raise capital. Many of these decisions were standard for... View Details

April 1995 (Revised August 1995)
Case

World Trade Organization, The: Toward Free Trade or World Bureaucracy?

By: George C. Lodge and Jack High

In January 1995, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) evolved into the World Trade Organization (WTO), which faced the task of implementing the recently approved Uruguay Round of international trade agreements. This case describes the development of GATT,... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Agreements and Arrangements; Negotiation Process; Business and Government Relations

29 Jun 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Trade Credit and Taxes

Keywords: by Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley & James R. Hines

2018
Working Paper

Hot or Not? What Makes Product Categories Attractive to Fair Trade and Eco-labeling Organizations

By: Kristin Sippl

This paper probes extant theory on product diversification in the empirical realm of fair trade and eco-labeling organizations (i.e., certification organizations). While much is known about diversification in for-profit firms, less is known about the more complex... View Details

Keywords: Hybrid Organizations; Fair Trade; Eco-labeling; Goods and Commodities; Diversification; Strategy

2024
Working Paper

What Do Bank Trading Desks Do?

By: Lina Lu and Jonathan Wallen

Bank trading desks earn profits from intermediating customer trading volume. Across a broad set of asset markets, we document that the trading desks of large U.S. dealer banks behave as financial intermediaries that profit from toll-taking as in Duffie et al. (2005).... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Profit; Financial Markets

October 1993 (Revised March 2023)
Case

Conflict on a Trading Floor (A)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Jerry Useem

A junior salesperson on FirstAmerica Bank's trading floor is assisting a top salesperson, Linda, on a deal to finance the construction of a new cruise ship for Poseidon Cruise Lines. While the terms of the deal are being worked out, he realizes Linda has taken... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Ethics; Values and Beliefs; Profit; Knowledge Use and Leverage

06 Dec 2006
Op-Ed

India Needs to Encourage Trade with China

countries to China in terms of trade, recent high profile visits on both sides notwithstanding. Another benchmark for today's China-India trade is historical. It is well known that the two countries have... View Details

Keywords: by Tarun Khanna

05 Dec 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Heterogeneous Technology Diffusion and Ricardian Trade Patterns

Keywords: by William R. Kerr

September 2016
Case

Partners Group: Ain't No Mountain High Enough

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Ricardo Andrade

Partners Group (PG), a Swiss-based PE manager, initiated a series of strategic shifts and evolved from a predominately fund-of-funds manager into a large, multi-asset class PE firm focused on direct investments. PG was the first PE firm to go public in 2006. A number... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Management Practices and Processes; Entrepreneurship

11 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

Free Trade Needs Nurturing—and Other Lessons from History

anymore, but it is a useful reminder of how high the stakes can be. Roscini: Normally the parties reach an agreement, ideally under the auspices and rules of the WTO. The problem is that nowadays trade wars... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto; Aerospace; Chemical; Consumer Products; Electronics; Energy; Industrial Products; Manufacturing; Shipping; Transportation

May 2017
Teaching Note

Partners Group: Ain't No Mountain High Enough

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz

Partners Group (PG), a Swiss-based PE manager, initiated a series of strategic shifts and evolved from a predominately fund-of-funds manager into a large, multi-asset class PE firm focused on direct investments. PG was the first PE firm to go public in 2006. A number... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Management Practices and Processes; Private Equity

05 Nov 2012
Research & Ideas

What Wall Street Doesn’t Understand About International Trade

firm to trade with any given country increased by more than 60 percent if the neighborhood surrounding headquarters had a high percentage of immigrants from that country. What's more, "the same effects... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

2025
Working Paper

Trade and Industrial Policy in Supply Chains: Directed Technological Change in Rare Earths

By: Laura Alfaro, Harald Fadinger, Jay Schymik and Gede Virananda

Trade and industrial policies, while primarily intended to support domestic industries, may unintentionally stimulate technological progress abroad. We document this mechanism in the case of rare earth elements (REEs)—critical inputs for manufacturing at the knowledge... View Details

Keywords: Industrial Policy; Global Value Chains; Directed Technological Change; Input-output Linkages; Innovation; Trade; Metals and Minerals; Technological Innovation; Supply Chain; Technology Industry

2010
Working Paper

Report on the State of Available Data for the Study of International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment

By: Robert C. Feenstra, Robert E. Lipsey, Lee G. Branstetter, C. Fritz Foley, James Harrigan, J. Bradford Jensen, Lori Kletzer, Catherine Mann, Peter K. Schott and Greg C. Wright

This report, prepared for the Committee on Economic Statistics of the American Economic Association, examines the state of available data for the study of international trade and foreign direct investment. Data on values of imports and exports of goods are of high... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Foreign Direct Investment; Price; Globalization; Policy; Information; Intellectual Property

23 Jul 2024
In Practice

The New Rules of Trade with China: Navigating Tariffs, Turmoil, and Opportunities

upending longstanding principles of free trade established when China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Today, multinational firms must adapt, both in terms of trade... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Manufacturing; Retail; Fashion; Industrial Products; Consumer Products; Steel; Transportation; Telecommunications

26 May 2015
Research & Ideas

Corporate Field Researchers Share Tricks of the Trade

smarter trades, according to the findings of a study by Soltes, an assistant professor at HBS, and David Solomon, a professor at the USC Marshall School of Business. To conduct the research, the duo obtained investor meeting records from a mid-cap company View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

September 2022 (Revised November 2022)
Case

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act: Trade and Genocide in U.S.-China Relations

By: Jeremy Friedman and David Lane

On June 21, 2022, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) went into effect, requiring companies to prove that goods imported from the People’s Republic of China were not made with forced labor. The bill was a reaction to reports of products being made with... View Details