Publications

March 2014
Article

Information Environment and the Investment Decisions of Multinational Corporations

By: Nemit O. Shroff, Rodrigo S. Verdi and Gwen Yu

This paper examines how the external information environment in which foreign subsidiaries operate affects the investment decisions of multinational corporations (MNCs). We hypothesize and find that the investment decisions of foreign subsidiaries in country-industries... View Details

Keywords: Capital Budgeting; Multinational Firms; Cross-border Frictions; Agency Frictions; Transparency; Financial Reporting Quality; Information Quality; Information; Multinational Firms and Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment

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Article

Geographic Mobility, Immobility, and Geographic Flexibility—A Review and Agenda for Research on the Changing Geography of Work

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury

I review and integrate a wide range of literature that has examined how geographic mobility of high-skilled workers creates value for organizations and individuals. Drawing on this interdisciplinary literature, I document that geographic mobility creates value by... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Mobility; Frictions; Work-from-anywhere; Employees; Geographic Location; Organizational Change and Adaptation

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2021
Working Paper

The Effects of Temporal Distance on Intra-Firm Communication: Evidence from Daylight Savings Time

By: Jasmina Chauvin, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tommy Pan Fang

Cross-border communication costs have plummeted and enabled the global distribution of work, but frictions attributable to distance persist. We estimate the causal effects of temporal distance, i.e., time zone separation between employees, on intra-firm communication,... View Details

Keywords: Communication Patterns; Time Zones; Geographic Frictions; Knowledge Workers; Multinational Companies; Communication; Multinational Firms and Management; Geographic Location

2025
Working Paper

Pulp Friction: The Value of Quantity Contracts in Decentralized Markets

By: Olivier Darmouni, Simon Essig Aberg and Juha Tolvanen

Firms in decentralized markets often trade using quantity contracts, agreements that specify quantity prior to the point of sale. These contracts are valuable because they provide quantity assurance, as trading frictions could prevent a buyer and seller from matching... View Details

Keywords: Decentralized Markets; Trading Frictions; Market Structure; Transaction Costs; Contracts; Market Transactions; Pulp and Paper Industry

April 2024
Article

Fee Variation in Private Equity

By: Juliane Begenau and Emil N. Siriwardane

We study how investment fees vary within private-capital funds. Net-of-fee return clustering suggests that most funds have two tiers of fees, and we decompose differences across tiers into both management and performance-based fees. Managers of venture capital funds... View Details

Keywords: Pension Funds; Fee Dispersion; Search And Negotiation Frictions; Private Equity; Investment Funds

2022
Article

Alleviating Time Poverty Among the Working Poor: A Pre-Registered Longitudinal Field Experiment

By: A.V. Whillans and Colin West

Poverty entails more than a scarcity of material resources—it also involves a shortage of time. To examine the causal benefits of reducing time poverty, we conducted a longitudinal feld experiment over six consecutive weeks in an urban slum in Kenya with a sample of... View Details

Keywords: Time; Subjective Well Being; Administrative Costs; Friction; Poverty; Well-being; Money; Perception; Kenya

March 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Reclaiming the Land of Purple: Purpl’s Mission to Unlock Finance in Lebanon

By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger

Karl Naim, Co-Founder and CEO of Purpl, embarked on a venture to lower remittance costs for his native Lebanon. Since October 2019, the Lebanese economy had entered a free fall as its banking sector collapsed and large swathes of its population were plunged into... View Details

Keywords: Business Startup; Fintech; Inflation; Deflation; Cross-border Frictions; Remittances; Business Startups; Diasporas; Financial Crisis; Money; Entrepreneurship; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Poverty; Financial Institutions; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Lebanon

Educators

Purchase

2020
Working Paper

How Do Private Equity Fees Vary Across Public Pensions?

By: Juliane Begenau and Emil Siriwardane

We study how investment fees vary within private-capital funds. Net-of-fee return clustering suggests that most funds have two tiers of fees, and we decompose differences across tiers into both management and performance-based fees. Managers of venture capital funds... View Details

Keywords: Pension Funds; Fee Dispersion; Search And Negotiation Frictions; Private Equity; Investment Funds

Jonathan Wallen is an Assistant Professor of Finance in the Finance Unit and teaches Finance 1 to MBA students.

Professor Wallen’s research centers on financial intermediation and its intersection with asset pricing, currency markets,... View Details

09 Dec 2013
Research & Ideas

Cultural Disharmony Undermines Workplace Creativity

in different environments, or by encouraging them to work side by side to observe how cultural differences can influence work habits. Managing cultural friction in this way might not only help create a more harmonious workplace overall,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Livia Alfonsi

Livia is a development economist whose research focuses on labor market frictions and determinants of labor market participation in low-income settings, with a particular emphasis on barriers to youth employment and female labor market participation. In a separate line... View Details

04 Jan 2021
News

Chasing Friction: The Paradox of High Performing Teams

26 Feb 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Infringing Use as a Path to Legal Consumption: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Keywords: by Hong Luo and Julie Holland Mortimer

Yifei Wu

Yifei Wu is a doctoral student in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School with primary research interests in innovation and entrepreneurship in emerging markets. She works with impact-driven ventures to understand challenges and frictions to successful value... View Details

28 Sep 2020
Working Paper Summaries

What Can Economics Say About Alzheimer's Disease?

Keywords: by Amitabh Chandra, Courtney Coile, and Corina Mommaerts; Health; Pharmaceutical

Article

The Effect of Institutional Factors on the Value of Corporate Diversification

By: Venkat Kuppuswamy, George Serafeim and Belen Villalonga

Using a large sample of diversified firms from 38 countries we investigate the influence of several national-level institutional factors or 'institutional voids' on the value of corporate diversification. Specifically, we explore whether the presence of frictions in a... View Details

Keywords: Diversification Discount; Institutions; Labor Market; Competition; Human Capital; Diversification; Value; Capital Markets