Business, Government & the International Economy
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- 2024
- Working Paper
Exports in Disguise: Trade Re-Routing During the U.S.-China Trade War
By: Jaya Y. Wen, Ebehi Iyoha, Edmund J. Malesky, Sung-Jun Wu and Bo Feng- 2024
- Working Paper
Exports in Disguise: Trade Re-Routing During the U.S.-China Trade War
By: Jaya Y. Wen, Ebehi Iyoha, Edmund J. Malesky, Sung-Jun Wu and Bo Feng
About the Unit
The BGIE Unit conducts research on, and teaches about, the economic, political, social, and legal environment in which business operates. The Unit includes scholars trained in economics, political science, and history; in its work, it draws on perspectives from all three of these disciplines.
The following demonstrates one way of classifying the approaches the Unit takes to learning and teaching.
- The Unit examines the “rules” and policies established by government and other non-business institutions that affect business in the United States.
- The Unit turns to history to understand the origins of today’s business environment as well as some of the alternatives that have emerged from time to time.
- The Unit examines other countries’ business environments and their historical development.
- The BGIE group is deeply interested in the impact of globalization and the way rules are emerging to govern international economic transactions as globalization proceeds.
Recent Publications
Exports in Disguise: Trade Re-Routing During the U.S.-China Trade War
By: Jaya Y. Wen, Ebehi Iyoha, Edmund J. Malesky, Sung-Jun Wu and Bo Feng
- 2024 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
The U.S. Secession Crisis as a Breakdown of Democracy
By: Dean Grodzins and David Moss
- 2024 |
- Chapter |
- Faculty Research
This chapter examines the U.S. secession crisis of 1860–1861 as a case of democratic breakdown. From December 1860 to early June 1861, eleven of the fifteen slaveholding states in the U.S. South declared secession from the Union. The trigger for the crisis was Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the presidential election of November 1860. Many Southerners rejected the outcome of the election as intolerable. Together, the seceding states tried to form a new, proslavery nation, the Confederate States of America (CSA). They went to war with the United States to win their independence, only to be completely defeated within four years. The death toll from the war was approximately 750,000 (on both sides). Importantly, the war also led to the emancipation of four million enslaved Americans.
When Democracy Breaks: Studies in Democratic Erosion and Collapse, from Ancient Athens to the Present Day
By: Archon Fung, David Moss and Odd Arne Westad
- 2024 |
- Book |
- Faculty Research
Democracy is often described in two opposite ways, as either wonderfully resilient or dangerously fragile. Curiously, both characterizations can be correct, depending on the context. When Democracy Breaks aims to deepen our understanding of what separates democratic resilience from democratic fragility by focusing on the latter. The volume’s collaborators—experts in the history and politics of the societies covered in their chapters—explore eleven episodes of democratic breakdown, ranging from ancient Athens to Weimar Germany to present-day Turkey, Russia, and Venezuela. Strikingly, in every case, various forms of democratic erosion long preceded the final democratic breakdown. Although no single causal factor emerges as decisive, linking together all of the episodes, some important commonalities (including extreme political polarization, explicitly anti-democratic political actors, and significant political violence) stand out across the cases. Moreover, the notion of democratic culture, while admittedly difficult to define and even more difficult to measure, may play a role in all of them. Throughout the volume, we see again and again that the written rules of democracy are insufficient to protect against tyranny. They are mere “parchment barriers,” as James Madison once put it, unless embedded within a strong culture of democracy, which itself embraces and gives life not only to the written rules themselves but to the essential democratic values that underlie them.
The Political Effects of Immigration: Culture or Economics?
By: Alberto Alesina and Marco Tabellini
- March 2024 |
- Article |
- Journal of Economic Literature
We review the growing literature on the political economy of immigration. First, we discuss the effects of immigration on a wide range of political and social outcomes. The existing evidence suggests that immigrants often, but not always, trigger backlash, increasing support for anti-immigrant parties and lowering preferences for redistribution and diversity among natives. Next, we unpack the channels behind the political effects of immigration, distinguishing between economic and non-economic forces. In examining the mechanisms, we highlight important mediating factors, such as misperceptions, the media, and the conditions under which inter-group contact occurs. We also outline promising avenues for future research.
ReNew (B): A New Direction
By: Gunnar Trumbull and Malini Sen
- February 2024 |
- Supplement |
- Faculty Research
The global renewables sector was in a slump, but the Indian market was booming. India’s largest renewable electricity generator, ReNew, faced a dilemma: it traded on the Nasdaq in New York, but saw huge opportunity in the Indian market. In response, CEO Sumant Sinha was broadening the company’s mission and activities to become a decarbonization solutions provider. The new scope included green hydrogen, manufacturing, storage, and contract power agreements. As India’s decarbonization accelerated, has Sumant made the right choices?
Stagflation: The 1970s and the Crisis of the Post-War Order
By: Jeremy Friedman
- January 2024 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 721-027.
Nigeria: Africa's Giant
- January 2024 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 723-056.
Harvard Business Publishing
Seminars & Conferences
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