Debora L. Spar

Debora Spar is the Spangler Family Professor at Harvard Business School, where she works on issues of business-government relations and the political environment of international commerce. Dr. Spar's current research focuses on issues of foreign trade and investment, examining how firms compete in foreign markets and how government policies shape and constrain their options. She is particularly interested in information-based industries such as media, entertainment, and biotechnology. Her current research examines the politics of reproductive science, analyzing how the “baby business” has developed and how commerce, politics and technology are likely to interact in and affect this market. Other projects examine the political drivers of foreign direct investment and the impact of investment on human rights and labor standards. At Harvard, Dr. Spar is Senior Associate Dean, Director of Research and teaches courses on the politics of international business, comparative capitalism, and economic development. She is also Chair of Making Markets Work, an executive education program devoted to public and private sector leaders in Africa, and teaches and consults for a number of multinational corporations, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations.

Dr. Spar is the author of numerous publications in academic and public policy journals. Her latest book, The Baby Business was published by Harvard Business School Press in January 2006. She is also author of Ruling the Waves: Cycles of Discovery, Chaos, and Wealth from the Compass to the Internet and The Cooperative Edge: The Internal Politics of International Cartels, and co-author with Raymond Vernon of Beyond Globalism: Remaking American Foreign Economic Policy.

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