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What’s Driving Superstar Companies, Industries, and Cities

Harvard Business Review

To analyze the superstar dynamics of firms, our metric was economic profit, a measure of a firm’s profit above and beyond opportunity cost. (To To do this, we take the firm’s returns, deduct the cost of capital, and multiply by the firm’s total invested capital.)

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The Key to a Jobs Plan that Works

Harvard Business Review

Small businesses constitute the majority of our GDP and have historically been the source of most new job creation. Banks aren't looking for cheaper capital; they are looking for lower risk. Cost of capital is passed on to the businesses borrowing the money so it is not a huge factor for lenders.)

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Even for Companies, the U.S. Is Split Between Haves and Have-Nots

Harvard Business Review

Companies in the top one-fifth of profitability earn, in aggregate, about 70 times more economic profit (accounting profit less cost of capital) than those in the middle three-fifths combined, according to McKinsey’s database of 3,000 large, publicly listed, nonfinancial U.S. GDP growth could hit nearly 5% in 2016.

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The Case for Investing More in People

Harvard Business Review

In the decade between 2005 and 2015, labor productivity in the US as measured by GDP per labor hour was less than 1% for 7 of the 10 years, according to the OECD. Unfortunately, this virtuous cycle appears to be broken. Productivity in most developed economies has been anemic. And wages are stagnant.

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How to Quantify Sustainability’s Impact on Your Bottom Line

Harvard Business Review

The industry makes up approximately 6% of Brazil’s GDP. These values can be estimated credibly and cost-effectively, and we set about applying them to the Brazilian beef sector. Brazil is the world’s biggest beef exporter, with 19.6% of the world market, and the second-largest beef producer and consumer. million and $16.5

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Why the 21st Century Will Belong to Family Businesses

Harvard Business Review

In this brave new world, public companies are losing their dominance : their share of America’s GDP, workforce, and assets has fallen by 50% over the last quarter of the 20th century. For family-owned businesses, the story is rather different.

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What If Companies Managed People as Carefully as They Manage Money?

Harvard Business Review

Financial capital is relatively abundant and cheap. According to Bain’s Macro Trends Group, the global supply of capital stands at nearly 10 times global GDP. Invest human capital just like you invest financial capital. We run Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate various returns under uncertainty.