Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(514)
- Faculty Publications (89)
- May 2018
- Article
U.S. Treasury Premium
By: Wenxin Du, Joanne Im and Jesse Schreger
We quantify the difference in the convenience yield of U.S. Treasuries and government bonds of other developed countries by measuring the deviation from covered interest parity between government bond yields. We call this wedge the “U.S. Treasury Premium.” We document... View Details
- February 2018
- Case
Infrastructure in Nigeria: Unlocking Pension Fund Investments
By: John Macomber and Pippa Tubman Armerding
The so-called “infrastructure finance gap” was a problem in Nigeria as in many parts of the world. Infrastructure projects like power plants and dams were very large capital investments that could generate long-term consistent cash flows, but their financing and... View Details
- January 2018 (Revised January 2021)
- Case
Colombia's 4G Road Program: The Pacífico 3 Bond Offer
By: John Macomber, Maria Fernanda Miguel and Mariana Cal
Colombia conceived its 4G (Fourth Generation) Road Program to try to attract $17 billion from the private sector for investment in toll roads. The nation had also created the National Infrastructure Agency of Colombia (ANI) to oversee multiple investments, and the... View Details
Keywords: Private Public Partnerships; Infrastructure; Projects; Finance; Emerging Markets; Colombia
- June 2017
- Article
The Social Trajectory of a Finance Professor and the Common Sense of Capital
By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana
This paper traces the career of Michael Jensen, a Chicago finance PhD turned Harvard Business School professor to reveal the intellectual and social conditions that enabled the emergence and institutionalization of what we call the “neoliberal common sense of capital,”... View Details
- April 2017 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Restructuring Ukraine
By: Kristin Mugford, Seema Amble and Tian Feng
In June 2015, Ukraine found itself struggling with a volatile and devalued currency, dramatically diminished foreign reserves, and a projected financing shortfall of $40 billion. Ukraine’s new government sought to return the nation to stability following political... View Details
Keywords: Exchange Rates; Politics; Macroeconomics; Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Restructuring; Economy; Currency Exchange Rate; Banks and Banking; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Bonds; Sovereign Finance; Capital Markets; Credit; Debt Securities; Financial Liquidity; Financial Markets; Government and Politics; Ukraine
- Article
Market Reactions to Sovereign Litigation
By: Faisal Z. Ahmed and Laura Alfaro
Recent rulings in the ongoing litigation over the pari passu clause in Argentinian sovereign debt instruments have generated considerable controversy. Some official-sector participants and academic articles have suggested that the rulings will disrupt or impede... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Global Portfolio Diversification for Long-Horizon Investors
By: Luis M. Viceira and Zixuan (Kevin) Wang
This paper conducts a theoretical and empirical investigation of global portfolio diversification for long-horizon investors in the presence of permanent cash flow shocks and transitory discount rate shocks to asset prices and returns. An increase in the cross-country... View Details
- 2016
- Chapter
Forward Guidance in the Yield Curve: Short Rates versus Bond Supply
By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel Gregory Hanson and Dimitri Vayanos
We present a model of the yield curve in which the central bank can provide market participants with forward guidance on both future short rates and on future Quantitative Easing (QE) operations, which affect bond supply. Forward guidance on short rates works through... View Details
- November 2016 (Revised March 2018)
- Case
Deutsche Bank: Structured Retail Products
By: Boris Vallée and Jérôme Lenhardt
Describes how Deutsche Bank, a leading European bank, is deciding whether or not to launch a new structured retail product in Germany: an autocallable note. Will this product find a market and how does it fit into the bank’s product portfolio? The case investigates how... View Details
Keywords: Structured Products; Structured Retail Products; Germany; Auto Callable Note; Financial Product; Financial Product Development; Financial Product Marketing; Financial Product Launch; Financial Product Positioning; Finance; Assets; Asset Pricing; Asset Management; Capital Markets; Financial Institutions; Banks and Banking; Commercial Banking; Financial Instruments; Annuities; Bonds; Stocks; Financial Management; Financial Markets; Financial Strategy; Interest Rates; Investment
- September 2016
- Article
Disproportional Control Rights and the Bonding Role of Debt
By: Aiyesha Dey, Valeri Nikolaev and Xue Wang
We examine the governance role of debt in the context of U.S.-based dual class ownership structures. We hypothesize that the use of debt alleviates the conflict between shareholder classes by balancing the power of controlling insiders. We document that dual class... View Details
- June 2016
- Article
Local Currency Sovereign Risk
By: Wenxin Du and Jesse Schreger
We introduce a new measure of emerging market sovereign credit risk: the local currency credit spread, defined as the spread of local currency bonds over the synthetic local currency risk-free rate constructed using cross-currency swaps. We find that local currency... View Details
- March 2016 (Revised May 2021)
- Case
Michael Milken: The Junk Bond King
By: Tom Nicholas and Matthew G. Preble
Michael Milken, an investment banker who dominated the junk bond market in the 1980s, was sentenced to jail in 1990 after pleading guilty to a number of securities and tax-related felonies. In the preceding decade, Milken had helped usher in a new wave of leveraged buy... View Details
Keywords: Junk Bonds; High-yield Bonds; Financial Innovation; Shareholder Value; Bonds; Capital; Capital Structure; Cost of Capital; Crime and Corruption; Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Finance; Investment Banking; Leveraged Buyouts; Mergers and Acquisitions; Ownership; Private Equity; Restructuring; United States
- 2015
- Working Paper
Corporate Sponsorship in Culture—A Case of Partnership in Relationship Building and Collaborative Marketing by a Global Financial Institution and a Major Art Museum
By: Ragnar Lund and Stephen A. Greyser
Purpose: This paper examines cultural sponsorship from a partnership and relationship marketing perspective. It studies a case of how a partnership between two international institutions, a bank and a museum, adds value to both in terms of interaction with... View Details
- Article
Reaching for Yield in the Bond Market
By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina
Reaching for yield—the propensity to buy riskier assets in order to achieve higher yields—is believed to be an important factor contributing to the credit cycle. This paper analyzes this phenomenon in the corporate bond market. Specifically, we show evidence for... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
The Rise and Fall of Demand for Securitizations
By: Sergey Chernenko, Samuel G. Hanson and Adi Sunderam
Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and private-label mortgage-backed securities (MBS) backed by nonprime loans played a central role in the recent financial crisis. Little is known, however, about the underlying forces that drove investor demand for these... View Details
- October 2014 (Revised April 2018)
- Supplement
Creditor Activism in Sovereign Debt: Argentina vs. Holdout Investors (B)
By: Laura Alfaro, Gaurav Toshniwal and Hilary White
Keywords: Argentina; Debt; Debt Crisis; Debt Markets; Debt Repayment; Debt Restructuring; Government Bonds; Government Debt; Law; Default; Sovereign Debt; Sovereign Debt Crisis; Hedge Fund; Hedge Funds; Strategy; Bonds; Bond Risk; Debt Management; Borrowing and Debt; Governance; Macroeconomics; Economics; Economy; Government Legislation; Argentina; Latin America; United States
- September 2014 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
Fresno's Social Impact Bond for Asthma
By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez
In 2014, Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) were quickly gaining popularity as an investment vehicle which joined together private investors and nonprofits to tackle social issues. Although numerous SIB projects and proposals had cropped up across the U.S. following the launch... View Details
- Article
Making 'Green Giants': Environment Sustainability in the German Chemical Industry, 1950s–1980s
By: Geoffrey Jones and Christina Lubinski
This article examines the evolution of corporate environmentalism in the West German chemical industry between the 1950s and the 1980s. It focuses on two companies, Bayer and Henkel, that have been identified as "green giants," and traces the evolution of their... View Details
- March 2014
- Article
Cyclicality of Credit Supply: Firm Level Evidence
By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina
Theory predicts that there is a close link between bank credit supply and the evolution of the business cycle. Yet fluctuations in bank-loan supply have been hard to quantify in the time series. While loan issuance falls in recessions, it is not clear if this is due to... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Opting Out of Good Governance
By: C. Fritz Foley, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Jonathan Greenstein and Eric Zwick
Cross-listing on a U.S. exchange does not bond foreign firms to follow the corporate governance rules of that exchange. Hand-collected data show that 80% of cross-listed firms opt out of at least one exchange governance rule, instead committing to observe the rules of... View Details