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New research on emerging markets from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including strategy development, government relations, exploiting local opportunities, history, and risk management when dealing in emerging economies.
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Long-Run Returns to Impact Investing in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies

by Shawn Cole, Martin Melecky, Florian Mölders, and Tristan Reed

Examination of every equity investment made by the International Finance Corporation, one of the largest and longest-operating impact investors, shows this portfolio has outperformed the S&P 500 by 15 percent.

Taking on the Taboos That Keep Women Out of India's Workforce

by Julia Hanna

Giving women in rural India more control over household finances reduces the social stigma of working, says research by Natalia Rigol. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Why Does Business Invest in Education in Emerging Markets? Why Does It Matter?

by Valeria Giacomin, Geoffrey Jones, and Erica Salvaj

Drawing on 110 interviews with business leaders as part of the Creating Emerging Markets project at Harvard Business School, this paper represents the first systematic attempt to identify and compare investment in education across emerging economies, specifically in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Turkey, and the Persian Gulf between the 1960s and the present day.

The Effect of Payment Choices on Online Retail: Evidence from the 2016 Indian Demonetization

by Chaithanya Bandi, Toni Moreno, Donald Ngwe, and Zhiji Xu

Online sellers in many emerging markets are in the early stages of a shift from cash-based payments to digital payments. Findings from this study of a leading Indian online retailer show that firms may enjoy gains from consumer demand on top of operational gains resulting from payment digitization.

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.

Business, Governments, and Political Risk in South Asia and Latin America Since 1970

by Geoffrey Jones and Rachael Comunale

This study shows how perceptions of political risk by business leaders in emerging markets have differed between regions. For Latin Americans, macroeconomic and policy turbulence were the biggest sources of risk. For South Asians, excessive bureaucracy was the biggest source of risk. The study is based on a unique Harvard Business School oral history database.

International Business and Emerging Markets: A Long-Run Perspective

by Geoffrey Jones

This paper examines how strategies by Western multinational enterprises in emerging markets over the last century have been shaped by context. These strategies evolved from resolving logistical challenges to managing assertive governments. More recently the focus has been to locate activities in the lower end of global value chains, whilst responding to local competitors.

Emerging Markets and the Future of Business History

by Gareth Austin, Carlos Dávila, and Geoffrey Jones

This paper argues that there are important commonalities about the business history of countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America despite differences between countries and within regions of each country. It is possible to discern a distinctive body of scholarship different from that on the West.

Lessons Unlearned? Corporate Debt in Emerging Markets

by Laura Alfaro, Gonzalo Asis, Anusha Chari, and Ugo Panizza

Emerging markets are contending with a worrisome slowdown in economic growth accompanied by the build-up of corporate debt. Understanding this and other potential vulnerabilities requires knowing more about the state of emerging market corporate balance sheets, the drivers of debt accumulation, and the effects of both on the macroeconomy.

Overcoming Institutional Voids: A Reputation-Based View of Long Run Survival

by Cheng Gao, Tiona Zuzul, Geoffrey Jones, and Tarun Khanna

Why are some firms able to persistently survive challenging, uncertain, and underdeveloped business environments? To address this question, the authors utilize the HBS Creating Emerging Markets project―a novel collection of in-depth, publicly available video interviews conducted by HBS researchers with leaders of emerging market firms that have survived over decades and even centuries. Analyzing these interviews for the first time, the authors theorize that firm reputation is a key strategic driver, and outline how a favorable reputation allows a firm to more fully utilize its existing resources by decreasing uncertainty. They also show that reputation has offensive and defensive properties that make it valuable during both positive and negative economic cycles. Finally, the authors propose new ideas about how reputation facilitates survival and discuss why a reputation-based source of competitive advantage is hard to imitate.

The Coffee Economy That Bloomed Out of Nowhere

by Carmen Nobel

How did a world-class coffee region arise out of a land once decimated by smallpox and measles? Casey Lurtz discusses the rise of a coffee economy in a desolate region of Mexico. Open for comment; 4 Comment(s) posted.

Sharpening Your Skills: Doing Business in Emerging Markets

Going global is one thing, targeting emerging economies quite another. In this collection from our archives, HBS faculty discuss strategy development, government relations, exploiting local opportunities, and risk management when dealing in emerging economies. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

Strategy and Execution for Emerging Markets

by Martha Lagace

How can multinationals, entrepreneurs, and investors identify and respond to new challenges and opportunities around the world? In this Q&A, HBS professors and strategy experts Tarun Khanna and Krishna G. Palepu offer a practical framework for succeeding in emerging markets. Plus: Book excerpt with action items. Key concepts include: The ambition level of large, fast-growing emerging markets around the world rivals that of companies in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Khanna and Palepu outline how to identify and respond to institutional voids in product, labor, and capital markets. Investors and entrepreneurs can respond to niches in institutional infrastructure in the private sector, such as the need for information analyzers and advisors, aggregators and distributors, transaction facilitators, and more. A useful starting point for managers is to construct an institutional map to identify institutional voids—which may themselves present business opportunities. Western multinational companies as well as local entrepreneurs are innovating products to attract the emerging middle class. Such innovations could potentially benefit consumers living in mature markets. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.