More from these Authors

• Supplement | HBS Case Collection | 2013 (Revised from original 2012 version)

  Foreign Direct Investment and South Africa (B)

  Eric Werker and Ian McKown Cornell

  Incoming and outgoing foreign direct investment in an environment of politics, geography, globalization, and history. Updates the 2006 case to 2012. The subsequent six years only reinforce the message of the original case. Since the end of apartheid, South Africa had undertaken substantial economic reforms in order to attract more foreign direct investment, but it was slow in coming. At the same time, South African firms had become major players in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. Collectively, these investment decisions could have a major long-run impact on South Africa's economic growth and political stability. South African policymakers needed to decide what they wanted from the private sector, and how to achieve it.

  Keywords: global business; developing countries; foreign direct investment; business government relations; South Africa;

  Citation:

  Werker, Eric, and Ian McKown Cornell. "Foreign Direct Investment and South Africa (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 712-054, May 2013. (Revised from original June 2012 version.)

  CiteView Details

  Related

• Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2013

  How Does Risk Management Influence Production Decisions? Evidence from a Field Experiment

  Shawn Cole, Xavier Gine and James Vickery

  Weather is a key source of income risk for many firms and households, particularly in emerging market economies. This paper studies how an innovative risk management instrument for hedging rainfall risk affects production decisions among a sample of Indian agricultural firms, using a randomized controlled trial approach. We find that the provision of insurance induces farmers to shift production towards higher-return but higher-risk cash crops, particularly amongst more-educated farmers. Our results support the view that financial innovation may help mitigate the real effects of uninsured production risk. In a second experiment we elicit willingness to pay for insurance policies that differ in their contract terms, using the Becker-DeGroot-Marshak mechanism. Willingness-to-pay is increasing in the actuarial value of the insurance, but substantially less than one-for-one, suggesting that farmers' valuations are inconsistent with a fully rational benchmark.

  Citation:

  Cole, Shawn, Xavier Gine, and James Vickery. "How Does Risk Management Influence Production Decisions? Evidence from a Field Experiment." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 13–080, March 2013.

  CiteView DetailsRead Now

  Related

• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | 2013

  SKS and the AP Microfinance Crisis (TN)

  Shawn Cole

  Citation:

  Cole, Shawn. "SKS and the AP Microfinance Crisis (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 213-092, March 2013.

  CiteView DetailsPurchase

  Related