by Paul Healy and George Serafeim - Publications - Faculty & Research

Web

Curriculum - Case Method Project

Curriculum Curriculum Cases James Madison, the 'Federal Negative,' and the Making of the U.S. Constitution (1787) This case begins with the American Revolution and concludes at the Constitutional Convention.... View Details

Web

Business & Environment - Faculty & Research

Integrated Reporting and Investor Clientele By: George Serafeim In this paper, I examine the relation between Integrated Reporting (IR) and the... View Details

November 2016
Article

Corporate Sustainability: First Evidence on Materiality

By: Mozaffar Khan, George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon

Using newly available materiality classifications of sustainability topics, we develop a novel dataset by hand-mapping sustainability investments classified as material for each industry into firm-specific sustainability ratings. This allows us to present new evidence... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Investments; Corporate Social Responsibility; Accounting; Corporate Reporting; Regulation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Investment; Corporate Governance

March 2015
Case

Statoil: Transparency on Payments to Governments

By: George Serafeim

The Statoil case describes the challenge of increasing transparency, in extractive industries, around host county government payments. The case describes Statoil's reasoning behind voluntarily disclosing host country government payments, and the events that led to this... View Details

Keywords: Corruption; Disclosure; Disclosure Strategy; Regulation; Industry Self-regulation; Corporate Governance; Corporate Accountability; Bribery; Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Government Legislation; Cost vs Benefits; Corporate Disclosure; Mining; Mining Industry; United States

Citation

Educators

Purchase

20 May 2014
First Look

First Look: May 20

Corporate and Integrated Reporting: A Functional Perspective By: Eccles, Robert G., and George Serafeim Abstract—In this paper, we present the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2016
Working Paper

Who Pays for White-Collar Crime?

By: Paul Healy and George Serafeim

Using a proprietary dataset of 667 companies around the world that experienced white-collar crime, we investigate what drives punishment of perpetrators of crime. We find a significantly lower propensity to punish crime in our sample, where most crimes are not reported... View Details

Keywords: Crime; Gender Bias; Women; Women Executives; Corruption; Legal Aspects Of Business; Firing; Human Capital; Human Resource Management; Prejudice and Bias; Crime and Corruption; Judgments; Law Enforcement; Human Resources; Corporate Governance; Gender

Citation

SSRN

Read Now

July – August 2008
Article

Buy-Side vs. Sell-Side Analysts' Earnings Forecasts

By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Craig James Chapman

We compare the earnings forecast performance of analysts at a large buy-side firm to that of sell-side analysts. Our tests show that the buy-side firm analysts make more optimistic and less accurate forecasts than their counterparts on the sell-side. These performance... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Business Earnings; Forecasting and Prediction; Performance Effectiveness

Citation

Find at Harvard

Read Now

September 2000
Case

MCI-WorldCom Combination, The (A)

By: Paul M. Healy and Jacob Cohen

Outlines the accounting decision faced by WorldCom in its acquisition of MCI. Two methods are discussed (purchase and pooling) and students are asked to evaluate which would be more suitable for WorldCom. View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Accounting; Telecommunications Industry

Citation

Find at Harvard

18 Mar 2014
First Look

First Look: March 18

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=46779 Working Papers An Analysis of Firms' Self-Reported Anticorruption Efforts By: Healy, Paul M., and George View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2014
Article

Wall Street Research

By: Paul M. Healy

This article discusses a research program investigating the workings of both the sell and buy sides of financial analysis, tackles how the U.S. securities industry research adds value in financial markets, and evaluates the business model problems that the industry... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Business Model; Research; Financial Services Industry; United States

Citation

Find at Harvard

June 2012
Article

Short Termism: Don't Blame the Investors

By: Francois Brochet, George Serafeim and Maria Loumioti

The article presents research on executives and corporation investor relations. A study is conducted of the language used by executives in conference calls discussing earnings with investors and financial analysts. A correlation was found between the use of language... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Business Earnings; Managerial Roles; Investment; Agency Theory; Communication Strategy; Business and Shareholder Relations

Citation

Register to Read

13 Nov 2015
News

If CEOs Care About the Long Term, Why Don’t They Talk About It?

September 2023 (Revised November 2023)
Case

Seeds of Innovation: GALY's Quest to Cultivate the Future of Agriculture in the Lab

By: George Serafeim and Michael Norris

In 2023, Luciano Bueno, CEO and founder of plant cell culture agriculture company GALY, was considering the best path forward for his company as he planned to pitch Series B investors. GALY, founded in 2019, aimed to produce cotton and other crops from cells grown in... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Green Technology; Goods and Commodities; Growth and Development Strategy; Science-Based Business; Entrepreneurship; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Startups; Decisions; Technological Innovation; Production; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Boston; Sao Paulo

Citation

Educators

Purchase

Editorial

Elon Musk's Unusual Compensation Plan Isn't Really About Compensation at All

By: George Serafeim

Earlier this year, Tesla shareholders approved likely the largest compensation package ever awarded to a CEO—for a CEO who clearly doesn’t need the money. Elon Musk is already incredibly rich and also doesn’t seem particularly motivated by further wealth. So why do it?... View Details

Keywords: Tesla; Elon Musk; Innovation; Investor Communication; Investor Relations; Short-termism; Long-termism; Disruption; Executive Compensation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Communication Intention and Meaning; Mission and Purpose

Citation

Register to Read

October 2013 (Revised December 2015)
Case

Alcoa's Bid for Alcan (A)

By: Paul Healy and Penelope Rossano

In spring 2007, Alcoa CEO Alain Belda was concerned about the company's market position in light of increased competition from developing markets. China's recent entry into the aluminum market was affecting both supply and demand. Furthermore, downstream and upstream... View Details

Keywords: Acquisitions; Strategy; Aluminum; Accounting; Financials; Alcoa; Rio Tinto; Alcan; Metals and Minerals; Competition; Consolidation; Emerging Markets; Acquisition; Financial Statements; Manufacturing Industry; Canada; China; Russia

Citation

Educators

Purchase

Web

Finance - Faculty & Research

Inequality." Journal of Finance 80, no. 3 (June 2025): 1497–1531. More Publications Faculty Josh Lerner Paul A. Gompers William A. Sahlman Robert S. Kaplan Kenneth A. Froot Laura Alfaro Benjamin C. Esty Robert C. Merton Andre F. Perold W.... View Details

Web

Europe - Global

Did the expansion of the family branches in G3—where cousins and siblings might find themselves at odds—further complicate the path forward? June 2025 Case Transforming a Titan (A) By: George View Details

Web

Faculty & Research - Entrepreneurship

Professor of Business Administration Jeffrey F. Rayport Senior Lecturer of Business Administration William A. Sahlman Baker Foundation Professor Dimitri V. D'Arbeloff - MBA Class of 1955 Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus Jesse M. Shapiro View Details

25 Jun 2015
News

Responsible investment: Vice versus nice

2022
Article

Which Corporate ESG News Does the Market React To?

By: George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon

Using a dataset that classifies firm-level ESG news as positive and negative, we examine how stock prices react to different types of ESG news. We analyze 111,020 firm-day observations for 3,126 companies and find that prices react only to issues identified as... View Details