
- 06 Apr 2021
- Cold Call Podcast
Disrupting the Waste Industry with Technology
Rubicon began with a bold idea: create a cloud-based, full-service waste management platform, providing efficient service anywhere in the US. Their mobile app did for waste management what Uber had done for taxi service. Five years after the case’s publication, Harvard Business School Associate Professor Shai Bernstein and Rubicon founder and CEO Nate Morris discuss how the software startup leveraged technology to disrupt the waste industry and other enduring lessons of professor Bill Sahlman’s case about Rubicon. Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

- 15 Sep 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation
This study examines how reserve accumulation affects governments’ decisions to default. The analysis assumes that countries can accumulate reserves and borrow internationally using their own currency. Results suggest that the optimal level of international reserves is fairly large because their cost is mitigated by valuation-smoothing gains. The model matches some features of Brazil’s economic fluctuations.

A Quantity-Driven Theory of Term Premia and Exchange Rates
This paper provides a framework for understanding how the detailed structure of financial intermediation affects foreign exchange rates.
The Real Exchange Rate, Innovation and Productivity
Addressing debates on the effects of real exchange rate (RER) movements on the economy, this study examines manufacturing firm-level effects of medium-term fluctuations, in particular firm-level productivity across a wide range of countries. RER changes have different impacts depending on the export and import orientation of regions and the prevalence of credit constraints. Effects are non-linear and asymmetric, suggesting that the link between RER changes and macroeconomic performance might be much more nuanced than usually thought.