More from these Authors

• Case | HBS Case Collection | 2013 (Revised from original 2011 version)

  South Africa (A): Stuck in the Middle?

  Richard H. K. Vietor and Diego Comin

  Fifteen years after ending apartheid, formal unemployment in South Africa was still at 24%. While the country had grown at 4 to 5% annually during the 2000s, the financial crisis set it back by 1 million more unemployed. Moreover, it seemed as if the nation were stuck between low wage and fully developed competitors. The government of Jacob Zuma has just adopted a "New Growth Path," hoping to create several million jobs over the next few years. Both the Finance Minister and the head of the Central Bank support the initiative, but worry how they can sustain fiscal discipline and control inflation, in light of these stimulative policies. Organized labor, meanwhile, has little sympathy for any sort of sacrifice.

  Keywords: Financial Crisis; Inflation and Deflation; Policy; Employment; Wages; Competition; South Africa;

  Citation:

  Vietor, Richard H. K., and Diego Comin. "South Africa (A): Stuck in the Middle?" Harvard Business School Case 711-084, May 2013. (Revised from original April 2011 version.)

  CiteView DetailsPurchase

  Related

• Case | HBS Case Collection | 2013

  Europe: An Ever Closer Union?

  Gunnar Trumbull, Jonathan Schlefer and Diane Choi

  In 2010, the European Union faces the challenges of the global financial crisis. With 27 member states, each facing different challenges, can new EU institutions respond effectively? Will its new currency, the euro, survive?

  Keywords: Financial Crisis; Money; Trade; Currency; Policy; Government and Politics; European Union;

  Citation:

  Trumbull, Gunnar, Jonathan Schlefer, and Diane Choi. "Europe: An Ever Closer Union?" Harvard Business School Case 713-085, April 2013.

  CiteView Details

  Related

• Case | HBS Case Collection | 2013 (Revised from original 2011 version)

  Debt and Development in Jamaica

  Rafael Di Tella, Gunnar Trumbull and Natalie Kindred

  This case describes the economic development problems faced by the small Caribbean-island country of Jamaica over most of the past half-century. The Jamaican economy showed relatively strong growth in the 1960s but stagnated in the 1970s. By the end of that decade, Jamaica was forced to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for balance-of-payments support. Over the 1980s and early 1990s, the unpopular policy conditions associated with IMF loan programs made the Fund a lightning rod for criticism over Jamaica's lack of economic progress. Jamaicans celebrated the end of IMF borrowing in the mid-1990s, but a severe financial crisis later that decade created a new layer of economic problems. In 2010, in the context of the global economic downturn, Jamaica once again returned to the IMF for financing support. This case allows students to explore the complicated economic difficulties faced by Jamaica, which remains burdened by a self-reinforcing set of interrelated factors, including high public debt, a sluggish private sector, an inefficient public sector, poverty, and crime, among others.

  Keywords: History; Government Administration; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; International Finance; Crime and Corruption; Poverty; Private Sector; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Borrowing and Debt; Developing Countries and Economies; Jamaica;

  Citation:

  Di Tella, Rafael, Gunnar Trumbull, and Natalie Kindred. "Debt and Development in Jamaica." Harvard Business School Case 711-031, April 2013. (Revised from original April 2011 version.)

  CiteView DetailsPurchase

  Related