A note from the Directors

While it’s good to have turned the page on 2020, the new year has no shortage of challenges. Vaccine production and distribution, new strains of coronavirus, economic recession, racial injustices, deep political divisions, and climate change are just a few of the many issues the new administration, and indeed much of the planet, confronts. Below, we detail some of our work at M-RCBG addressing various challenges. The partnership and engagement of so many in our community enable this fine work, and we are grateful for your support.

Lawrence H. Summers, M-RCBG Director
John Haigh, M-RCBG Co-Director

COVID-19 and the Economy resource

The Center's COVID-19 and the Economy  webpage aggregates research and commentary from our key faculty and fellows working on the issues surrounding the coronavirus, from vaccine rollout to the impact on minority communities , the effects on municipal budgets , the overall effect on the economy , and more .  

Summers and Furman offer fiscal policy advice to Biden

M-RCBG Director Lawrence H. Summers, faculty affiliates Jason Furman, and other distinguished scholars including Doug Elmendorf, Kenneth Rogoff and Ben Bernanke, provided fiscal policy advice for President Joe Biden at a recent event sponsored by Brookings and the Peterson Institute for International Economics. In a discussion draft presented at the event, Summers and Furman argued that persistently low interest rates require a rethinking of the framework for fiscal policy. Separately, in a February Wall Street Journal op-ed , Summers cautioned about the risks of the Biden Administration’s ambitious $1.9 trillion covid-19 relief plan.

New book on public-private partnerships from Zeckhauser and Donahue

The governments of China and the United States - despite profound differences in history, culture, economic structure, and political ideology - both engage the private sector in the pursuit of public value. This book employs the term collaborative governance to describe relationships where neither the public nor private party is fully in control, arguing that such shared discretion is needed to deliver value to citizens. It was co-written by M-RCBG faculty affiliates Richard Zeckhauser and John Donahue, as well as Stanford's Karen Eggleston. To learn more about The Dragon, the Eagle, and the Private Sector: Public-Private Collaboration in China and the United States , click here .

Race, Work, and Leadership webinar

In January, M-RCBG Co-Director John Haigh hosted Laura Morgan Roberts, University of Virginia professor and author of Race, Work, and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience , for the first Business & Government Seminar of the spring semester. She discussed how race matters in work and leadership experiences, and what organizations and individuals can do to create a healthier and more inclusive work environment. Watch the recorded webinar on YouTube .

Making stakeholder capitalism work

In a new working paper, co-authors John Ruggie, Caroline Rees and Rachel Davis explore key questions surrounding stakeholder capitalism in Making 'Stakeholder Capitalism' Work: Contributions From Business & Human Rights . For the first time in four decades, leading business associations, corporations, and the corporate law and governance community are seriously debating the social purpose of the corporation. The idea of stakeholder governance, moving beyond shareholder primacy toward some form of 'stakeholder capitalism', is in play. But the "how" question unveils significant differences of opinion as well as difficulties. Click here to read the PDF.

SSP launches new research and teaching site

The Sustainability Science Program has launched an experiment in collaboration and online publishing  to engage scholars involved in research and teaching about sustainable development. Built on PubPub, an open access web platform designed by MIT’s Knowledge Futures Group to support scholarly collaboration and community building, the project promotes development of research and teaching materials via open review, community annotation, and invited commentary, and extending to discussion of community needs and the launching of new projects to meet them. The initial project is a dynamic Research Guide to the principal findings of sustainability science. The goal of the project is to provide a synthesis of research in the field that highlights its principle insights and their practical implications for the pursuit of sustainable development. 

HEEP workshop on the economics of the Clean Air Act

In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Clean Air Act of 1970, the Harvard Environmental Economics Program (HEEP) conducted a Workshop on the Economics of the Clean Air Act on January 8, 2021. The 23 participants were primarily economists who have conducted research on aspects of environmental policy directly related to the Act. Three topics were covered: (1) the environmental effectiveness and economic efficiency of the Act over the past 50 years, that is, its cumulative benefits and costs, with focus on specific sections of the Act, including criteria air pollutants, hazardous air pollutants, and transboundary air pollutants (SO2 and acid rain); (2) the evolution and efficacy of specific policy instruments utilized, including performance standards, technology standards, and market-based instruments (largely emissions trading); and (3) business left unfinished by the Clean Air Act, with a focus on environmental justice.

Click here for additional information.

SSP's Clark co-chairs national workshop

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a virtual public workshop, Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities for Sustainability Science Nov. 30-Dec. 2, 2020. Co-chaired by SSP’s William Clark with Pamela Matson, the workshop reviewed the state of cutting edge research that can help societies meet the goals of sustainable development and aimed at providing scientific input to the ongoing discussions of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Grand Challenges in Science initiative and to the first-ever Nobel Prize Summit, Our Planet, Our Future (National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, April 26-28, 2021). The Summit will bring together Nobel Laureates, scientists, policymakers, business leaders, and today’s youth leaders to explore the question: What can be achieved in this decade to put the world on a path to a more sustainable, more prosperous future for all of humanity? Videos and meeting materials for the National Academies workshop are available here .

Rosengren delivers annual Glauber Lecture

In November, Eric Rosengren, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, presented the annual Robert Glauber Lecture, Financial Stability Factors and the Severity of the Current Recession. Professor Roger Porter, IBM Professor of Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School, moderated the discussion.

As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Eric Rosengren is a participant in the Federal Open Market Committee or FOMC, the monetary policymaking body for the United States. In his talk, he explored factors that influence financial stability and their role in the severity of the current recession. Rosengren also covered the ramifications of low-interest rate policies, the impact on leverage, and the resulting consequences in economic downturns – based on the U.S. experience in the current recession.

Watch the full video here .

Recent passing of Glauber, Vogel and Sandler

It is with great sadness that M-RCBG notes the recent passing of Prof. Robert Glauber, Prof. Ezra Vogel and Michael Sandler.

Glauber was an adjunct lecturer at HKS and a longtime faculty affiliate of M-RCBG who passed away in February. Vogel, who died in December at the age of 90 was a prominent contributor to M-RCBG's annual Kansai Keizi Doyukai Symposium for over 20 years. Sandler also died in December, at the age of 80. He was a former M-RCBG senior fellow and a longtime member of its Leadership Council.

Please click through for full obituaries of Robert Glauber ,  Ezra Vogel and Michael Sandler . Additionally, click here for a tribute to Ezra Vogel from M-RCBG senior research fellow William Overholt and here for a Harvard Gazette tribute to Robert Glauber. 

Weekly webinars continue

As the spring semester begins, M-RCBG continues its weekly Business & Government and Regulatory Policy seminar series.
Upcoming topics include cost-benefit analysis after Trump, EU-China relations and the regulation of crypto-currencies. Click to view our full schedule .