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- Faculty Publications (135)
- 2024
- Working Paper
Hidden Alpha
By: Manuel Amman, Alexander Cochardt, Lauren Cohen and Stephan Heller
This paper documents the central role of hidden connections between fund managers and firm officers in financial markets, drawing on an extensive dataset of over 100 thousand manually identified Facebook profiles and their 35 million Facebook friends. Our findings...
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Amman, Manuel, Alexander Cochardt, Lauren Cohen, and Stephan Heller. "Hidden Alpha." Working Paper, 2024. (Winner of the 2022 Chicago Quantitative Alliance Academic Paper Competition. First Prize presented by Chicago Quantitative Alliance. Winner of the Institute for Quantitative Investment Research (INQUIRE) Grant, 2023.)
- May 2022
- Case
Byte
By: Boris Groysberg, Katherine Connolly Baden and Julia Kelley
In January 2021, Byte co-founders Scott Cohen and Blake Johnson reflected on how far their Los Angeles-based direct-to-consumer (DTC) orthodontics company had come since launching its clear aligners just a little over two years earlier. Cohen and Johnson were both...
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- May 2022
- Case
Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?
By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger
Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank’s launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank’s mobile money app, Illico Cash...
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Keywords:
Fintech;
Inflation;
Deflation;
Rural;
Urban;
Emerging Market;
Mobile Technology;
Finance;
Money;
Inflation and Deflation;
Business Growth and Maturation;
Decision Choices and Conditions;
Demographics;
Developing Countries and Economies;
Corporate Entrepreneurship;
Behavioral Finance;
Currency;
Banks and Banking;
Commercial Banking;
Financial Strategy;
Rural Scope;
Urban Scope;
Innovation Strategy;
Emerging Markets;
Network Effects;
Consumer Behavior;
Mobile and Wireless Technology;
Technology Adoption;
Banking Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
Technology Industry;
Congo, Democratic Republic of the
Cohen, Lauren, and Grace Headinger. "Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?" Harvard Business School Case 222-084, May 2022.
- May 2022
- Case
From GOP to NFT: Anthony Scaramucci and the Launch of Flatter NFT
By: Lauren Cohen, Richard Ryffel and Grace Headinger
Anthony Scaramucci, Managing Director of SkyBridge Capital, considered whether he should officially greenlight the launch of SkyBridge’s own NFT platform — Flatter NFT. He had led the investment firm to push first into Bitcoin and then Ethereum to make SkyBridge a...
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Keywords:
Business Startup;
Fintech;
Technology;
Cryptocurrency;
Web3;
Business Startups;
Volatility;
Decision Making;
Entertainment;
Entrepreneurship;
Investment;
Strategic Planning;
Adoption;
Competitive Advantage;
Technology Adoption;
Finance;
Currency;
Banking Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
Technology Industry;
New York (city, NY)
Cohen, Lauren, Richard Ryffel, and Grace Headinger. "From GOP to NFT: Anthony Scaramucci and the Launch of Flatter NFT." Harvard Business School Case 222-085, May 2022.
- 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...
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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
Cohen, Lauren, and Grace Headinger. "Reclaiming the Land of Purple: Purpl’s Mission to Unlock Finance in Lebanon." Harvard Business School Case 222-078, March 2022. (Revised May 2022.)
- March 2022
- Case
In Data We Trust: Be Mobile Africa and Furthering Financial Inclusion Across the African Continent
By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Pierre Marchesseault
To Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020....
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Keywords:
Finance;
Fintech;
Emerging Market;
Fundraising;
Financial Inclusion;
Strategy;
Expansion;
Management;
Entrepreneurship;
Personal Finance;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Financial Services Industry;
Banking Industry;
Africa;
Togo;
Nigeria;
Ghana
Cohen, Lauren, Grace Headinger, and Pierre Marchesseault. "In Data We Trust: Be Mobile Africa and Furthering Financial Inclusion Across the African Continent." Harvard Business School Case 222-073, March 2022.
- February 2022
- Case
Toraya
By: Lauren Cohen and Akiko Kanno
Mitsuharu Kurokawa was the 18th generation leader of a family firm that produced and sold premium Japanese sweets, Toraya Confectionery Co., Ltd. He had succeeded the business from his father, Mitsuhiro Kurokawa who had led the firm for thirty years. Mitsuharu was...
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- Article
Megastudies Improve the Impact of Applied Behavioural Science
By: Katherine L. Milkman, Dena Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Pepi Pandiloski, Yeji Park, Aneesh Rai, Max Bazerman, John Beshears, Lauri Bonacorsi, Colin Camerer, Edward Chang, Gretchen Chapman, Robert Cialdini, Hengchen Dai, Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, Ayelet Fishbach, James J. Gross, Samantha Horn, Alexa Hubbard, Steven J. Jones, Dean Karlan, Tim Kautz, Erika Kirgios, Joowon Klusowski, Ariella Kristal, Rahul Ladhania, Jens Ludwig, George Loewenstein, Barbara Mellers, Sendhil Mullainathan, Silvia Saccardo, Jann Spiess, Gaurav Suri, Joachim H. Talloen, Jamie Taxer, Yaacov Trope, Lyle Ungar, Kevin G. Volpp, Ashley V. Whillans, Jonathan Zinman and Angela L. Duckworth
Policy-makers are increasingly turning to behavioural science for insights about how to improve citizens’ decisions and outcomes. Typically, different scientists test different intervention ideas in different samples using different outcomes over different time...
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Milkman, Katherine L., Dena Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Pepi Pandiloski, Yeji Park, Aneesh Rai, Max Bazerman, John Beshears, Lauri Bonacorsi, Colin Camerer, Edward Chang, Gretchen Chapman, Robert Cialdini, Hengchen Dai, Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, Ayelet Fishbach, James J. Gross, Samantha Horn, Alexa Hubbard, Steven J. Jones, Dean Karlan, Tim Kautz, Erika Kirgios, Joowon Klusowski, Ariella Kristal, Rahul Ladhania, Jens Ludwig, George Loewenstein, Barbara Mellers, Sendhil Mullainathan, Silvia Saccardo, Jann Spiess, Gaurav Suri, Joachim H. Talloen, Jamie Taxer, Yaacov Trope, Lyle Ungar, Kevin G. Volpp, Ashley V. Whillans, Jonathan Zinman, and Angela L. Duckworth. "Megastudies Improve the Impact of Applied Behavioural Science." Nature 600, no. 7889 (December 16, 2021): 478–483.
- December 2021
- Case
The Instant Payment Mandate: The Central Bank of Brazil and Pix
By: Lauren Cohen and Spencer C. N. Hagist
João M. P. De Mello and his team at the Central Bank of Brazil are preparing a move that would seek to tilt the scales in favor of financial inclusion for the entire country. The innovation at hand is the unprecedented nation-wide instant payment scheme: Pix. The fruit...
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Cohen, Lauren, and Spencer C. N. Hagist. "The Instant Payment Mandate: The Central Bank of Brazil and Pix." Harvard Business School Case 222-053, December 2021.
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Political Economy of Anti-Bribery Enforcement
By: Lauren Cohen and Bo Li
This paper documents novel evidence on the influence of political incentives in the regulatory enforcement of foreign bribery. Using exogenous variation in the timing and geographic location of U.S. Congressional elections, we find that the probability of a Foreign...
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Keywords:
Bribery;
Regulatory Enforcement;
Crime and Corruption;
Governance Controls;
Political Elections
Cohen, Lauren, and Bo Li. "The Political Economy of Anti-Bribery Enforcement." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 29624, December 2021.
- August 2021
- Article
Don't Take Their Word for It: The Misclassification of Bond Mutual Funds
By: Huaizhi Chen, Lauren Cohen and Umit Gurun
We provide evidence that bond fund managers misclassify their holdings, and that these misclassifications have a real and significant impact on investor capital flows. In particular, many funds report more investment grade assets than are actually held in their...
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Keywords:
Mutual Funds;
Economics;
Finance;
Measurement and Metrics;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Financial Services Industry
Chen, Huaizhi, Lauren Cohen, and Umit Gurun. "Don't Take Their Word for It: The Misclassification of Bond Mutual Funds." Journal of Finance 76, no. 4 (August 2021): 1699–1730. (Winner of the Best Paper Prize at the University of Cambridge Consortium on Asset Management, 2020; Winner of the Financial Management Association Best Paper Prize in Quantitative Investments, 2020.)
- June 2021 (Revised November 2021)
- Case
Equity Bank: Charting the Future
By: Lauren Cohen, Michael Chitavi and Spencer C. N. Hagist
After climbing the ranks among Kenya's financial institutions from 66th to 1st, and toppling a quarter of the market share held by mobile money giant Safaricom, CEO James Mwangi must now guide Equity Bank into its next stage of development beyond "Equity 3.0." Should...
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Keywords:
Growth and Development Strategy;
Leadership;
Decision Making;
Market Entry and Exit;
Developing Countries and Economies;
Financial Institutions;
Economics;
Kenya
Cohen, Lauren, Michael Chitavi, and Spencer C. N. Hagist. "Equity Bank: Charting the Future." Harvard Business School Case 221-105, June 2021. (Revised November 2021.)
- April 2021
- Article
Today's Surgeon Compensation Models Fall Short: Aligning Incentives to Create More Equitable and Value-based Compensation Models
By: Susanna Gallani, Mary Witkowski, Lauren Haskins, Haley Jeffcoat, Vinita Mujumdar and Frank Opelka
Modern medicine is undergoing a transformation that involves innovative surgical approaches, increased medical treatment options, clinical care pathways that require collaboration beyond hospital walls, and health data captured by electronic health records and other...
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Keywords:
Physician Compensation;
Surgeons;
Health Care and Treatment;
Business Model;
Compensation and Benefits
Gallani, Susanna, Mary Witkowski, Lauren Haskins, Haley Jeffcoat, Vinita Mujumdar, and Frank Opelka. "Today's Surgeon Compensation Models Fall Short: Aligning Incentives to Create More Equitable and Value-based Compensation Models." Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons 106, no. 4 (April 2021): 33–39.
- March 2021
- Case
Litigation Finance 2.0: LexShares
By: Lauren Cohen, Spencer C. N. Hagist and Yago Zavalia Gahan
Litigation finance—also referred to as third party litigation funding—was in its relative infancy as an asset class when Jay Greenberg and Max Volsky made a platform-play in the space. Seven years later, the market was far from "mainstream," but nonetheless had grown...
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Cohen, Lauren, Spencer C. N. Hagist, and Yago Zavalia Gahan. "Litigation Finance 2.0: LexShares." Harvard Business School Case 221-092, March 2021.
- February 2021
- Case
Lidya: Bringing Nigerian FinTech Innovation to Global Small and Medium Enterprises
By: Lauren Cohen and Spencer C.N. Hagist
Lidya CEO Tunde Kehinde must size up options for the expansion of his novel lending practices that drastically reduce the credit cycle in his developing Nigeria, and determine if expansion into Eastern Europe will prove successful or disastrous.
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Cohen, Lauren, and Spencer C.N. Hagist. "Lidya: Bringing Nigerian FinTech Innovation to Global Small and Medium Enterprises." Harvard Business School Case 221-083, February 2021.
- February 2021 (Revised August 2021)
- Case
Equity Bank: Challenging a Giant
By: Lauren H. Cohen, Michael Chitavi and Spencer C. N. Hagist
Equity Bank and CEO Dr. James Mwangi must find a way to advance from their hard-fought ascension to second largest bank in Kenya by toppling financial giant Safaricom. Doing so means developing a new strategy and tackling technological frontiers no institution in the...
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Cohen, Lauren H., Michael Chitavi, and Spencer C. N. Hagist. "Equity Bank: Challenging a Giant." Harvard Business School Case 221-080, February 2021. (Revised August 2021.)
- November 2020
- Case
The 1,000-Year Plan: Lee Kum Kee and Sustaining a Family Culture
By: Lauren Cohen, Dawn H. Lau and Billy Chan
The Lee family, whose Hong Kong-based Lee Kum Kee company has established itself as a legend within the Chinese and Asian sauce world, sets out to create a daring new vision of what family legacy means. With the family business having been established in 1888, and by...
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Keywords:
Family Business;
Mission and Purpose;
Values and Beliefs;
Business and Community Relations;
Organizational Structure;
Strategic Planning
Cohen, Lauren, Dawn H. Lau, and Billy Chan. "The 1,000-Year Plan: Lee Kum Kee and Sustaining a Family Culture." Harvard Business School Case 221-047, November 2020.
- November 2020
- Article
Casting Conference Calls
By: Lauren Cohen, Dong Lou and Christopher J. Malloy
We explore a subtle but important mechanism through which firms can control information flow to the markets. We find that firms that “cast” their conference calls by disproportionately calling on bullish analysts tend to underperform in the future. Firms that call on...
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Cohen, Lauren, Dong Lou, and Christopher J. Malloy. "Casting Conference Calls." Management Science 66, no. 11 (November 2020): 5015–5039. (Winner of the First Prize, Crowell Memorial Award for Best Paper in Quantitative Investments, PanAgora Asset Management, 2014.)
- October 2020
- Article
IQ from IP: Simplifying Search in Portfolio Choice
By: Huaizhi Chen, Lauren Cohen, Umit Gurun, Dong Lou and Christopher J. Malloy
Using a novel database that tracks web traffic on the SEC’s EDGAR servers between 2004 and 2015, we show that mutual fund managers gather information on a very particular subset of firms and insiders, and their surveillance is very persistent over time. This tracking...
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Keywords:
Tracked Trades;
Return Predictability;
Institutional Trading;
Insider Trading;
Institutional Investing;
Information;
Investment Portfolio;
Decisions;
Management
Chen, Huaizhi, Lauren Cohen, Umit Gurun, Dong Lou, and Christopher J. Malloy. "IQ from IP: Simplifying Search in Portfolio Choice." Journal of Financial Economics 138, no. 1 (October 2020): 118–137. (Winner of the First Prize, Crowell Memorial Award for Best Paper in Quantitative Investments, PanAgora Asset Management, 2019.)
- 2020
- Working Paper
The ESG-Innovation Disconnect: Evidence from Green Patenting
By: Lauren Cohen, Umit G. Gurun and Quoc H. Nguyen
No firm or sector of the global economy is untouched by innovation. In equilibrium, innovators will flock to (and innovation will occur where) the returns to innovative capital are the highest. In this paper, we document a strong empirical pattern in green patent...
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Keywords:
ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance;
Investment;
Decision Making;
Policy;
Energy;
Green Technology;
Technological Innovation;
Patents
Cohen, Lauren, Umit G. Gurun, and Quoc H. Nguyen. "The ESG-Innovation Disconnect: Evidence from Green Patenting." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 27990, October 2020. (Winner of the Fordham University Gabelli School of Business – PVH Corp. Global Thought Leadership Grant on Corporate Social Responsibility, 2020.)