Founded in 578 AD, Kongo Gumi was a family-owned business until 2006, when the firm went into liquidation to pay its creditors. While its demise is briefly covered, the case study is focused on its longevity. A renowned builder of traditional temples, in a country where these are major tourist attractions, Kongo Gumi has left an indelible mark on Japanese culture and history. Many of the temples built by its carpenters are listed and some are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The case is about the Hoshi Ryokan, a hot springs hotel in Japan established more than 1,300 years ago, that is among the world's oldest family enterprises. Owned and managed by a descendant (or adopted son) of the founder for 46 generations, it is a popular with domestic and international tourists alike. The current owner will almost certainly pass the baton to his daughter, thus making her the first female to own the legendary inn. This gender re-balancing act, coming after 1,305 years of male ownership, coincides with efforts by the prime minister of Japan to create a more balanced and diverse business climate. The case also covers the intangible assets that have ensured the longevity of this unique family-owned hotel.

The case is about Birkenstock, the renowned German shoemaker, and two turning points in its 248-year history: the owner's decision to bring in a professional CEO in 2012, and the sale of a majority stake to a French-American investment firm in 2021. Founded by German cobbler Johann Adam Birkenstock in 1774, the company had always been 100% owned by the same family and managed by a single descendant, a tradition upended in 2002 when Carl Birkenstock, the CEO and owner, handed over his shares and job to his three sons. Ten years later, unable to agree on strategy and with tensions rising in the family, the brothers decided to bring in a professional CEO to put the struggling shoemaker back on its feet. Under the new manager, sales of Birkenstock sandals increased to such an extent that the company attracted the interest of investors. Meanwhile, one of the sons sold his shares to his two brothers, who then instructed the CEO to find a buyer. Offered the opportunity to become billionaires overnight, they sold the company to a private equity firm backed by the world's largest fortune and owner of LVMH, Bernard Arnault.

There is a pressing need for global reform of inheritance taxation systems. On average, only 0.5% of total tax revenues are sourced from inheritance taxes across the 24 OECD countries that levy them. If designed properly, inheritance taxes could play a greater role in raising revenues for cash-strapped authorities seeking to overcome mounting public deficits. A new equity-based approach to inheritance taxes could also prevent wealth inequality from becoming even more concentrated as the baby-boomers transfer intergenerational wealth. The case explores the challenges facing public policy makers as they seek to balance variables like tax exemption thresholds designed to ensure heirs receive a fair share of wealth tax-free, the operative word being fair. The case also explains the tools used to avoid paying a fair share of inhertance tax, such as trusts and tax havens. Extra teaching materials are available at https://publishing.insead.edu/case/inheritance-tax

In a historic agreement on 8 October 2021, 136 countries approved the OECD two-pillar solution in a major overhaul of the century-old international taxation system. At the G20 Summit in Rome on 30 October 2021, the leaders of the world's biggest economies endorsed the two-pillar solution, decades in the making but which will be implemented in 2023. The new agreement will overcome the tax challenges arising from the digital economy and will ensure that big businesses pay a fair share of taxes on profits from market jurisdictions where they operate. The case explores the two parts, placing a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% on the profits of the world's largest businesses; and shifting tax revenues to market jurisdictions where large businesses have their customers and sell their products. Protagonist Janet Yellen, Secretary of the US Treasury, played an instrumental role in getting reluctant finance ministers on board. President Joe Biden supported the OECD plan in part because it will stop growing tensions between G20 countries over digital service taxes.

The case provides an alternative view of the antitrust dilemma facing Lina Khan, newly appointed commissioner of the US Federal Trade Commission. Her nomination to the FTC by President Biden sent a clear signal to tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google that their enormous power would be reined in by his administration. Khan takes up an antitrust complaint filed against Facebook by her predecessor that its acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014 violated antitrust regulations. This offers an opportunity to review current thinking about the acquisition of start-ups by large technology platforms and discuss the controversy over the privacy practices of social networking platforms. Beyond the legal dimensions, the case examines the growing competitive forces that could pose a threat to WhatsApp and its longstanding domination of the instant messaging market.

What has been the impact of the Affordable Care Act (2010) on healthcare coverage in the United States? While this significant piece of legislation put America's healthcare system on a long-awaited path towards universal healthcare coverage, the struggle to provide coverage to millions of uninsured people is far from over. The case examines aspects of the national healthcare system including Medicaid and Medicare, employer-based insurance and healthcare exchanges. It also examines what the ACA left undone and how legislative changes in 2017 and the COVID pandemic highlighted the fragility of health care provision in the US.

On 30 August 2016, Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition, ordered Ireland to recover €13 billion in illegal state aid (plus interest) that Ireland was alleged to have granted Apple over a decade from 2003. Within months of the ruling, both Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, and Enda Kenny, the Irish Prime Minister, appealed the Commission's judgment to the European General Court in Luxembourg, the EU's second highest court. In mid-July 2020, the General Court returned its verdict and annulled the Commission's ruling giving Commissioner Vestager two months and 10 days to appeal. At the very last minute, the Commissioner announced that she would seek an appeal before the EU's highest court, the Court of Justice of the European Union, citing "errors of law" committed by the lower court. No date has been set for the CJEU to decide on the merits of the appeal. The case explores these events from five analytical pillars: 1) the role of Ireland's low corporate tax rate in attracting FDI; 2) Apple's decision to allocate its earnings to a paper company in Ireland with no physical presence in the country; 3) the repatriation of foreign earnings to the United States; 4) the transfer payments that Apple makes to the USA to pay for R&D; 5) the Commissioner's decision to impose a retroactive tax penalty on a foreign company that acted in accordance with the tax arrangements granted by its host country.

Ontario's basic income pilot was a social policy experiment designed to redistribute income with the aim of reducing poverty and adapting the social safety net in the face of a changing and increasingly precarious labour market. The three-year project, launched in 2017, was described as the largest government-run basic income project to date. It was designed to provide basic income in the form of negative income tax to 4,000 eligible individuals who were assured a minimum level of income regardless of their employment status. The debate about universal basic income (UBI) continues as governments and private entities around the world pilot different projects. How should UBI funded and who should receive the money? How would it change people's behavior and labor market participation? Could UBI help society address surging levels of inequality?

The case accounts for the gender pay gap in companies and industries around the world. In Europe, women earn on average 84 cents per hour for every euro men make. In the United States, they earn between 80 and 82 cents per hour for every dollar made by a man. The gap widens further after women have children. Iceland is a rare exception; companies in Iceland are under a legal obligation to prove that they offer equal pay. Elsewhere, the under-representation of women in leadership roles in government, industry, the boardroom and c-suite means a dearth of role models for girls. The case shines a spotlight on ingrained behaviours and perceptions that condone the gender pay gap on the grounds that men have more responsible jobs and hold more senior positions.

The case explores the murky world of tax havens and hidden wealth. The so-called 'Panama Papers', 'Paradise Papers', 'Swiss Leaks' and 'LuxLeaks' are essentially digital dumps that exposed where the the ultra-rich had for decades stashed their billions to evade paying taxes. Academics such as Gabriel Zucman have mined these revelations for insights about global wealth inequality. Their research and that of investigative journalists have put public policymakers under pressure to make laws to "regain control over globalized financial capitalism" as economist Thomas Piketty calls it, arguing that the continued legality of tax havens puts at stake the basic social contract on which democracies are founded, and that the resulting shortfall in tax revenues deprives advanced economies of resources for nation building for future generations.

The case examines the reforms to the French labour code made by President Emmanuel Macron after his election in April 2017, essentially designed to loosen restrictions on hiring and firing. The new laws gave smaller companies more flexibility in negotiating wages and conditions directly with employees (rather than being bound by industry-wide collective deals negotiated by trade unions) and the right to lay off workers in periods of economic difficulty. In the context of an upturn, Macron was hoping the reforms would encourage foreign investment such as financial institutions relocating in response to Brexit. He resorted to issuing executive decrees (ordonnances) to avoid the massive street protests typically sparked by macro-economic adjustments in France, ultimately consolidating his leadership at home and in the larger European Union.