Cases

Rebuilding Aceh: Indonesia's BRR Spearheads Post-Tsunami Recovery

Publication Date: April 30, 2014

The December 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami caused tremendous damage and suffering on several continents, with Indonesia's Aceh Province (located on the far northern tip of Sumatra Island) experiencing the very worst. In the tsunami's wake--and...

Performance Management for Health in Washington State

Publication Date: April 30, 2014

By the mid-2000s, Washington State's Department of Health (DOH) had earned a national reputation as an innovative and effective agency. But beginning in 2005, when newly elected Governor Christine Gregoire introduced a state-level performance...

Hero or Traitor? Edward Snowden and the NSA Spying Program

Publication Date: April 30, 2014

On June 5, 2013, a London newspaper reported that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting the telephone records of millions of Verizon customers in the U.S. The story was the first of many top secret revelations about the...

Primary Education in Pakistan: Show Me the Evidence

Publication Date: April 30, 2014

This case has two parts, a text-based case and a supplemental PowerPoint presentation. The case traces the evolution of an evidence-based research study on the education sector in Pakistan. In 2003, Atish (fictionalized character), a...

Role Responsibility, Official Disobedience, and the Supreme Court's Ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act

Publication Date: April 30, 2014

In June, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the federal Defense of Marriage Act violated the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment protection of equal liberty, effectively overturning the law. Pennsylvania, however, banned same-sex...

Health Care Reform in Massachusetts: Impacts on Public Health

Publication Date: April 24, 2014

In 2006, with healthcare costs and the number of uninsured rising, Massachusetts passed landmark legislation that aimed to provide health insurance to everyone in the state. A product of bipartisan collaboration between a legislature dominated...

Knowledge Management at the World Bank: Part 2

Publication Date: March 13, 2014

This case is about how the World Bank, after determining that the creation and dissemination of knowledge to the international development community was one of their strategic roles and objectives, transitioned from being just a lending bank to...

Providing Pensions for the Poor: Targeting Cash Transfers for the Elderly in Mexico

Publication Date: March 05, 2014

When the Mexican Congress approved the country's 2007 budget, it included an appropriation of 8.5 billion pesos allocated to provide non-contributive pensions to senior citizens. President Felipe Calderon wanted to introduce eligibility criteria...

Target of Opportunity: South Africa's Western Cape Seeks a Role in the African Oil Boom

Publication Date: March 05, 2014

This strategy case describes an initiative in the Western Cape province of South Africa to capitalize on an oil boom off the western coast of Africa by cultivating an industrial cluster of complementary businesses with the capacity to service,...

Shaping the Future of Solar Power: Climate Change, Industrial Policy and Free Trade (B)

Publication Date: December 04, 2013

Shaping the Future of Solar Power: Climate Change, Industrial Policy and Free Trade (Part B), is the second of a two part case but may also be taught on its own. In May 2013, European Union Trade Commissioner, Karel De Gucht faced a...

The Geography of Poverty: Exploring the Role of Neighborhoods in the Lives of Urban, Adolescent Poor

Publication Date: December 02, 2013

In the American canon of anti-poverty programs, Moving to Opportunity (MTO)--a housing experiment conducted in the 1990s--stood out for its ambitious yet simple design. Under the experiment, more than 4,600 extremely poor families were randomly...

The Hormone Therapy Controversy: What Makes Reliable Evidence

Publication Date: November 13, 2013

For nearly two decades, the leading evidence on hormone therapy was based on findings from observational studies like the Nurses Health Study. In 1985, researchers at Nurses Health Study confirmed that postmenopausal women who took estrogen had...