Policy Analysis
These teaching cases provide students with a chance to discover or practice analytic tools that will help them sort through the kinds of messy, real-life decisions they are likely to face in public and nonprofit sectors. They are designed to improve learning on a host of topics including strategic alignment, generating alternatives, making trade-offs, decision-making under uncertainty, external actors, game theory, cost-benefit analysis, and political analysis.
Integrating Systems at Scale: Coordinating Health Care in Houston
Publication Date: November 8, 2023
This case concerns the Patient Care Intervention Center (PCIC) a values-based health technology social enterprise in Houston, Texas. This organization was founded to tackle fundamental problems in social and health services in the United...
Implementing the Inflation Reduction Act: Can the Tax Code Transform American Energy?
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
On August 16, 2022, President Joseph Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). The wide-ranging law included provisions for lowering prescription drug costs, expanding the Internal Revenue Service, subsidizing the...
A User-Centered Design Process for Data-Driven Policymaking
Publication Date: August 22, 2023
Well-conceived, user-friendly data visualizations have the potential to bring fresh perspectives derived from analyzing, visualizing, and presenting data to inform evidence-based policymaking. This case uses the Metroverse project from the...
Conflict Minerals: Influencing the Supply Chain for Public Purpose (Postscript)
Publication Date: November 2, 2022
This postscript accompanies HKS Case Number 2248.0. Gold, tungsten, tantalum, and tin are essential to a wide array of today's products. Industries ranging from electronics to health care to defense rely on these minerals. A sizable portion of...
Conflict Minerals: Influencing the Supply Chain for Public Purpose
Gold, tungsten, tantalum, and tin are essential to a wide array of today's products. Industries ranging from electronics to health care to defense rely on these minerals. A sizable portion of these minerals are sourced from Democratic Republic...
Work or Exploitation? Debating Whether to Decriminalize the Sex Industry
Publication Date: August 12, 2022
As traditionally written and enforced, laws regulating the sex trade in the United States and abroad have disproportionately penalized the least powerful players in the industry—the people, mostly cis- and transgender women, directly...
Power and Social Change
Publication Date: December 6, 2021
The concept of power has often been viewed very narrowly by public leaders. In this 30-minute video, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Archon Fung lays out a broader vision of how power works in our society. Public leaders need to understand...
Lobbying and Advocacy: Theory and Practice Course Bundle
Publication Date: August 10, 2021
The materials in this course are designed to help students understand how lobbying and advocacy impact the making of public policy. In doing so students will explore the power of persuasion, as well as the skills necessary to build an effective...
Lobbying and Advocacy: Theory and Practice Podcasts
These 3 podcasts are part of the Lobbying and Advocacy: Theory and Practice course and feature Professor Mark Fagan in conversation with leading practitioners in the field of lobbying. In addition, students will be able to watch video guidance...
Lobbying and Advocacy: Theory and Practice Video Lectures
These 14 video lectures are part of the Lobbying and Advocacy: Theory and Practice course. For the purpose of this course, a range of issues, from the history of lobbying to regulating the industry, and from lobbying in various geographic...
Lobbying and Advocacy: Theory and Practice Simulations
Publication Date: August 9, 2021
These two simulations are part of the Lobbying and Advocacy: Theory and Practice course. Materials in this course are designed to help students understand how lobbying and advocacy impact the making of public policy. In doing so students will...
Money & Morals: The Minimum Wage and the American South
Publication Date: December 27, 2017
In 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama called on Congress to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $10.10. To the surprise of no one, Congressional Republicans blocked the move, as they had a similar proposal the year before...
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