Business, Government & the International Economy

Business, Government & the International Economy

Overview Faculty Curriculum Seminars & Conferences Awards & Honors
    • May 2022
    • Case

    TikTok and National Security: Investment in an Age of Data Sovereignty?

    By: Jeremy Friedman, Sarah Bauerle Danzman and David Lane

    This case covers TikTok’s purchase of Musical.ly and the reaction of the United States government, including the review of the purchase by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the reaction of the presidential administration of Donald Trump. The case delves into the mechanics of CFIUS’ legal mandate and its review process, in order to shed light on how the United States views data security in the context of rising geopolitical tensions, particularly with China and Russia. The case also looks at how China and Russia, among others, are seeking to establish their own versions of “internet sovereignty” in order to expand their domestic control and international influence. The case asks how these countervailing forces impact a company such as TikTok that seeks to become a global platform and how it can respond.

    • May 2022
    • Case

    TikTok and National Security: Investment in an Age of Data Sovereignty?

    By: Jeremy Friedman, Sarah Bauerle Danzman and David Lane

    This case covers TikTok’s purchase of Musical.ly and the reaction of the United States government, including the review of the purchase by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the reaction of the presidential administration of Donald Trump. The case delves into the mechanics of CFIUS’ legal mandate and its review...

    • May 2022
    • Case

    Cultivo: Investing in Natural Capital

    By: Gunnar Trumbull

    • 2022
    • Working Paper

    Small Campaign Donors

    By: Laurent Bouton, Julia Cagé, Edgard Dewitte and Vincent Pons

    In this paper, we study the characteristics and behavior of small donors, and compare them to those of large donors. We first build a novel dataset including all the340 million individual contributions reported to the U.S. Federal Election Commission between 2005 and 2020. Due to the particular legal structure of the new online fundraising platforms first used by Democrats (ActBlue) and now Republicans (WinRed), we are able to extract contribution-level information about a majority of the small donations. This allows us to identify “small" donors, i.e. donors who give less than $200 during a two-year electoral cycle to each committee, and to differentiate them from “large" donors. The analysis of this novel dataset delivers several new insights. First, we provide evidence on the growing number of small donors in the U.S. and on the magnitude of their contributions. Second, we find that small donors include more women and more ethnic minorities than large donors—with minorities still under-represented—while they do not differ much in terms of their geographical distribution. Third, using a saturated fixed effects model to explore the determinants of contributions by small and large donors, we find that the closeness of a race,whether the candidate and the donor live in the same district or state, and, to a lesser extent, the ethnic alignment between the donor and the candidate have a positive impact on contributions. We also find that donors contribute more to more extreme candidates. These effects are lower for small donors. Finally, we show that campaign TV ads affect the number and the size of contributions, and more so for small donors.

    • 2022
    • Working Paper

    Small Campaign Donors

    By: Laurent Bouton, Julia Cagé, Edgard Dewitte and Vincent Pons

    In this paper, we study the characteristics and behavior of small donors, and compare them to those of large donors. We first build a novel dataset including all the340 million individual contributions reported to the U.S. Federal Election Commission between 2005 and 2020. Due to the particular legal structure of the new online fundraising...

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

TikTok and National Security: Investment in an Age of Data Sovereignty?

By: Jeremy Friedman, Sarah Bauerle Danzman and David Lane
  • May 2022 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
This case covers TikTok’s purchase of Musical.ly and the reaction of the United States government, including the review of the purchase by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the reaction of the presidential administration of Donald Trump. The case delves into the mechanics of CFIUS’ legal mandate and its review process, in order to shed light on how the United States views data security in the context of rising geopolitical tensions, particularly with China and Russia. The case also looks at how China and Russia, among others, are seeking to establish their own versions of “internet sovereignty” in order to expand their domestic control and international influence. The case asks how these countervailing forces impact a company such as TikTok that seeks to become a global platform and how it can respond.
Related

Cultivo: Investing in Natural Capital

By: Gunnar Trumbull
  • May 2022 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Related

Small Campaign Donors

By: Laurent Bouton, Julia Cagé, Edgard Dewitte and Vincent Pons
  • 2022 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
In this paper, we study the characteristics and behavior of small donors, and compare them to those of large donors. We first build a novel dataset including all the340 million individual contributions reported to the U.S. Federal Election Commission between 2005 and 2020. Due to the particular legal structure of the new online fundraising platforms first used by Democrats (ActBlue) and now Republicans (WinRed), we are able to extract contribution-level information about a majority of the small donations. This allows us to identify “small" donors, i.e. donors who give less than $200 during a two-year electoral cycle to each committee, and to differentiate them from “large" donors. The analysis of this novel dataset delivers several new insights. First, we provide evidence on the growing number of small donors in the U.S. and on the magnitude of their contributions. Second, we find that small donors include more women and more ethnic minorities than large donors—with minorities still under-represented—while they do not differ much in terms of their geographical distribution. Third, using a saturated fixed effects model to explore the determinants of contributions by small and large donors, we find that the closeness of a race,whether the candidate and the donor live in the same district or state, and, to a lesser extent, the ethnic alignment between the donor and the candidate have a positive impact on contributions. We also find that donors contribute more to more extreme candidates. These effects are lower for small donors. Finally, we show that campaign TV ads affect the number and the size of contributions, and more so for small donors.
Keywords: Campaign Finance; Campaign Contributions; Small Donations; ActBlue; WinRed; TV Advertising; Political Elections; Finance; Demographics; Advertising; Analysis
Related

Of Learning and Forgetting: Centrism, Populism, and the Legitimacy Crisis of Globalization

By: Rawi Abdelal
  • 2022 |
  • Chapter |
  • Faculty Research
Every order is a bargain with disappointments and trade-offs. Thus is every order an unstable equilibrium. The first era of globalization, circa 1870–1914, created both international prosperity and domestic instability. That instability was fully realized during the interwar years, which were characterized by financial chaos, virulent populist movements, and war. European and American political leaders learned hard lessons from those decades: that the international order must tolerate a diversity of national capitalisms; and that capitalisms within nations must be tamed in order to be made compatible with democracy. A generation later, both scholars and policy makers seemed to have forgotten how important the post-war bargains were for maintaining economic and social stability. Instead, preoccupied by the disappointments of the 1970s, a new pro-market, pro-capital consensus emerged between the center-Left and center-Right. A second post-war international order emerged as a result: a new era of globalization made possible by this “neoliberal” political consensus. The new order was more trans-Atlantic than American, for European political transformations made it possible. This era of globalization created both prosperity and instability, just as the first era had done. Instability took the form again of virulent populism, driven by economic inequality, financial volatility, and a crisis of dignity among those who felt left behind by it. Although we are learning that neither national societies nor the international system can manage the trade-offs of globalization and neoliberalism well enough to avoid a backlash, in fact those lessons were learned once before. The cycle continues: learning, forgetting, and re-learning why these equilibria are unstable.
Keywords: Globalization; Policy; Economic Systems; Balance and Stability; Europe; European Union; United States
Related

Colossal: Bringing Back the Woolly Mammoth

By: Gunnar Trumbull
  • April 2022 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Related

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Is the Result of Its Own Failure to ‘Denazify’

By: Jeremy Friedman and Ingrid Burke Friedman
  • Article |
  • Jurist
Related

Indigenous Wisdom and the Climate Crisis

By: Reshmaan Hussam
  • April 2022 |
  • Teaching Note |
  • Faculty Research
Related

Stalin’s Capitalists: American Business and Soviet Industrialization

By: Jeremy Friedman, Jingyu Liu and Christine Riggle
  • April 2022 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Related
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Contact Information

Business, Government & the International Economy Unit
Harvard Business School
Morgan Hall
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
BGIE@hbs.edu