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• Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2018

  Bretton Woods and the Liberal World Order

  Sophus A. Reinert and Jonathan Schlefer

  Keywords: Bretton Woods; Gold Standard; IMF; Banking Industry; Vermont;

  Citation:

  Reinert, Sophus A., and Jonathan Schlefer. "Bretton Woods and the Liberal World Order." Harvard Business School Case 718-037, April 2018.  View Details

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• Article | Journal of Economic Perspectives

  Space, the Final Economic Frontier

  Matthew C. Weinzierl

  After decades of centralized control of economic activity in space, NASA and U.S. policymakers have begun to cede the direction of human activities in space to commercial companies. NASA garnered more than 0.7% of GDP in the mid-1960s but is only around 0.1% of GDP today. Meanwhile, space has become big business, with $300 billion in annual revenue. The shift from public to private priorities in space is especially significant because a widely shared goal among commercial space's leaders is the achievement of a large-scale, mainly self-sufficient, developed space economy. Jeff Bezos has stated that the mission of his firm Blue Origin is "millions of people living and working in space." Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, has laid out plans to build a city of a million people on Mars within the next century. Both Neil deGrasse Tyson and Peter Diamandis have been given credit for stating that Earth's first trillionaire will be an asteroid miner. Such visions are clearly not going to become reality in the near future. But detailed roadmaps to them are being produced, and recent progress in the required technologies has been dramatic. If such space-economy visions are even partially realized, the implications for society will be enormous. Though economists should treat the prospect of a developed space economy with healthy skepticism, it would be irresponsible to treat it as science fiction. In this article, I provide an analytical framework—based on classic economic analysis of the role of government in market economies—for understanding and managing the development of the space economy.

  Keywords: Emerging Markets; Economics; Private Sector; Aerospace Industry;

  Citation:

  Weinzierl, Matthew C. "Space, the Final Economic Frontier." Journal of Economic Perspectives 32, no. 2 (Spring 2018): 173–192.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2016 (Revised December 2017)

  In the Name of Democracy? The Rise and Decline of India's Congress Party

  Akshay Mangla and Jonathan Schlefer

  In 1950 it looked highly doubtful that Indian democracy would hold—typical family income was $6 a month, only about 15% of the population was literate, there were deep religious and ethnic differences, and more than a dozen national languages were spoken. But after a half a century, India had proved to be the first democracy anywhere near so poor to survive. Why? As well, in 1950 India's economic prospects looked bright for a developing country—it had a well-trained government bureaucracy bequeathed by the British, a secure legal system, national railroads, and more advanced industry than, for example, China. Why did the economy do so poorly?

  Keywords: india; Congress Party; economic development; democratization; economic reform; Economic Systems; Government and Politics; Developing Countries and Economies; India;

  Citation:

  Mangla, Akshay, and Jonathan Schlefer. "In the Name of Democracy? The Rise and Decline of India's Congress Party." Harvard Business School Case 716-068, February 2016. (Revised December 2017.)  View Details

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