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What the Rise of Far-Right Politics Says About the Economy in an Election Year

by Rachel Layne

With voters taking to the polls in dozens of countries this year, could election outcomes lean conservative? Paula Rettl says a lack of social mobility and a sense of economic insecurity are some of the factors fueling far-right movements around the world.

Party-State Capitalism in China

by Margaret Pearson, Meg Rithmire, and Kellee Tsai

China’s political economy has evolved from “state capitalism” to a distinctly party-driven incarnation. Party-state capitalism, via enhanced party monitoring and industrial policy, deepens ambiguity between the state and private sectors, and increases pressure on foreign capital, prioritizing the regime’s political survival above all.

Varieties of Outward Chinese Capital: Domestic Politics Status and Globalization of Chinese Firms

by Meg Rithmire

Most popular and scholarly writing about China’s global push overemphasizes the power of the state. This paper explains how three types of domestic Chinese capital—state capital, private capital, and crony capital—differ in political vulnerability and pursue globalization in different ways. All prefer capital openness, but they do so for different reasons.

The Unconventional Capitalism That Shapes Business History

by Geoffrey G. Jones

Geoffrey G. Jones reports on a business history conference studying the many shades of capitalism around the world and through time. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Rehabilitating Corporate Purpose

by Malcolm S. Salter

Shareholder value maximization has become the de facto expression of the institutional purpose guiding many managers’ decision making. The author proposes an alternative, justice-based guideline for corporate purpose based on established moral and organizational principles.

Oral History and Writing the Business History of Emerging Markets

by Geoffrey Jones and Rachael Comunale

Oral history is a valuable resource to explore how businesses developed and functioned in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, regions with a growing share of global economic activity and the majority of the world’s population. While oral history is not uncritical, it provides openings for opinions, voices, and judgements on events on which there was often silence.

Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism

by Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona

This chapter shows how a new kind of predominantly Italian merchants emerged as global figures during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Then as now, they pooled capital and shared risk to enrich themselves and their polities, utilized the infrastructure and markets that they helped make, and created new legal and financial instruments to facilitate their ventures.

Quantitative Easing Didn’t Ease the Housing Crisis for the Neediest

by Carmen Nobel

A new study by Marco Di Maggio and colleagues takes a deep dive into the efficacy of the Fed’s quantitative easing strategy to understand how the various rounds of QE affected “the real economy.” Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How Should Wealth Be Redistributed?

by James Heskett

SUMMING UP James Heskett's readers weigh in on Thomas Piketty and how wealth disparity is burdening society. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

A Manager’s Moral Obligation to Preserve Capitalism

by Michael Blanding

Harvard Business School's Rebecca M. Henderson and Karthik Ramanna argue that company managers have a moral obligation to preserve capitalism. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Is ‘Conscious Capitalism’ an Antidote to Income Inequality?

by James Heskett

Summing-Up If capitalism creates unacceptable income inequality, what can be done about it? asks Jim Heskett. Whole Foods Market offers one possible solution, and now Jim's readers offer their own. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

When Does Domestic Saving Matter for Economic Growth?

by Philippe Aghion, Diego Comin, Peter Howitt & Isabel Tecu

The researchers begin with a simply stated question: Can a country grow faster by saving more? Long-run growth theories imply that a country can grow faster by investing more in human or physical capital or in R&D, but that a country with access to international capital markets cannot grow faster by saving more. Domestic saving is therefore not considered an important ingredient in the growth process because investment can be financed by foreign saving. From the point of view of standard growth theory, the positive cross-country correlation between saving and growth that many commentators have noted appears puzzling. HBS professor Diego Comin and colleagues develop a theory of local saving and growth in an open economy with domestic and foreign investors. Key concepts include: Domestic saving is more critical for adopting new technologies in developing rather than developed economies. Familiarity with the technology frontier reduces its cost of adoption. Advanced countries readily adopt the frontier technology, but for countries far from the technology frontier, it is too expensive to adopt such technology without outside help. Entrepreneurs in these countries need to rely on foreign investors. However, domestic entrepreneurs may not deliver on their input contribution unless they have invested sufficient capital in the project. This co-investment is in turn financed out of domestic saving, highlighting the role of domestic saving in economic growth. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

The Time is Right for Creative Capitalism

by Nancy Koehn

Bill Gates has it right. Business is the most powerful force for change in the world right now and gives the idea of creative capitalism real power, writes Harvard Business School Professor Nancy F. Koehn. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

It Came in the First Ships: Capitalism in America

by Thomas K. McCraw

The Virginians in Jamestown, the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay, the Quakers in Pennsylvania and other early settlers of what later became the United States all brought with them elements of capitalism, precursors of the future nation's market-driven direction. In this excerpt from his article "American Capitalism" in Creating Modern Capitalism: How Entrepreneurs, Companies, and Countries Triumphed in Three Industrial Revolutions, HBS Professor Thomas K. McCraw looks at the early years of capitalism on the North American continent. Open for comment; 0 Comments.