Publications

November 2005 (Revised October 2012)
Case

The MCI Takeover Battle: Verizon versus Qwest

By: Malcolm P. Baker and James Quinn

MCI's board of directors is considering competing bids from Verizon and Qwest. Qwest, a smaller company with a weaker balance sheet, is offering almost a billion dollars more. But Verizon, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, has a history of... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Capital Markets; Financial Strategy; Governing and Advisory Boards; Valuation; Telecommunications Industry; United States

We show that business development companies (BDCs) — closed-end funds that provide a significant share of nonbank loans to middle market firms — are very well capitalized according to bank capital frameworks. They have median risk-based capital ratios of about 36% and,... View Details

30 Aug 2017
News

GE’s Global Growth Experiment

April 2009
Article

Sovereign Wealth in Abu Dhabi

By: Rawi Abdelal

By the turn of the century, oil had already made the tiny emirate of Abu Dhabi rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams. A sovereign wealth fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), has invested extra oil revenues abroad for more than thirty years and amassed a... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Financial Management; Investment Funds; Sovereign Finance; Wealth; Diversification; Abu Dhabi

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September 2023
Case

Breaking Barriers: How Brex is Shaping the Future of Financial Services for Startups

By: Marco Di Maggio, James Barnett and Susie L. Ma

In 2020, Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, co-founders and co-CEO’s of the fintech company Brex, needed to determine how to balance their vision with the desires of their investors. They intended to expand Brex’s offerings to include other products that served... View Details

Keywords: Business and Stakeholder Relations; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurial Finance; Financial Services Industry

March 2009 (Revised June 2012)
Case

Denmark: Globalization and the Welfare State

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich and Benjamin Kramarz

This case describes how Denmark has balanced the impacts of globalization, including outsourcing and movement of labor, with its social welfare offerings. Reforms implemented during the past two decades drove down unemployment, promoted new company formation, and put... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Trade; Globalized Economies and Regions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Employment; Welfare or Wellbeing; Denmark

Research Summary

Work/family

By: D. Quinn Mills

I have just published, in 2004, a book on how professionals might manage the challenge of balancing work and family demands. The book is oriented not at the problem, which is often dealt with in publications by others, but with six steps for dealing with it. View Details

13 Aug 2021
Blog Post

Exploring Racial Justice with the Scaling Minority Businesses Course

the issue are two different things. This class had the perfect balance of both and was a rare opportunity to have meaningful conversations and, for me, explore what allyship as a future business leader can look like. What else would you... View Details

June 2020
Case

Big Hit Entertainment and Blockbuster Band BTS: K-Pop Goes Global

By: Anita Elberse and Lizzy Woodham

Bang Si-Hyuk (‘Hitman Bang’) is the founder and co-chief executive officer of Big Hit Entertainment, the company behind BTS, a ‘K-pop’ band that has found unparalleled success around the globe—a remarkable feat given that most of their songs are in Korean. It is March... View Details

Keywords: Music; Entertainment; Superstars; Talent; Talent Development; Labor Economics; General Management; Music Entertainment; Media; Talent and Talent Management; Labor; Contracts; Marketing; Strategy; Music Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

March 2015
Article

Vulnerable Banks

By: Robin Greenwood, Augustin Landier and David Thesmar

We present a model in which fire sales propagate shocks across bank balance sheets. When a bank experiences a negative shock to its equity, a natural way to return to target leverage is to sell assets. If potential buyers are limited, then asset sales depress prices,... View Details

Keywords: Financial Liquidity; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Europe

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2024
Working Paper

Bank Capital and the Growth of Private Credit

By: Sergey Chernenko, Robert Ialenti and David Scharfstein

We show that business development companies (BDCs)—closed-end funds that provide a significant share of nonbank loans to middle market firms—are very well capitalized according to bank capital frameworks. They have median risk-based capital ratios of about 36%... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Capital; Credit; Financial Institutions

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September 2020 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Moderna (A)

By: Marco Iansiti, Karim R. Lakhani, Hannah Mayer and Kerry Herman

In summer 2020, Stephane Bancel, CEO of biotech firm Moderna, faces several challenges as his company races to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. The case explores how a company builds a digital organization, and leverages artificial intelligence and other digital... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Vaccine; Digital Organizations; Organizational Structure; Operations; Management; Health Pandemics; Research and Development; Goals and Objectives

2016
Working Paper

Saving More in Groups: Field Experimental Evidence from Chile

By: Felipe Kast, Stephan Meier and Dina Pomeranz

We test the impact of a peer group savings program on precautionary savings through two randomized field experiments among 2,687 microcredit clients. The first experiment finds that the Peer Group Treatment, which combines public goal setting, monitoring in the group,... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Decision Making; Interest Rates; Planning; Performance Effectiveness; Economics; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development; Social Enterprise; Global Range; Chile

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30 May 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Lessons Unlearned? Corporate Debt in Emerging Markets

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro, Gonzalo Asis, Anusha Chari, and Ugo Panizza; Banking

January 2022
Technical Note

BGIE Macro Data Repository

By: Alberto Cavallo

This technical note describes an up-to-date data repository containing balance of payment, exchange rate, and aggregate macroeconomic data in a standard format used by case studies written by members of the Business, Government & the International Economy (BGIE) group... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics

July 2013 (Revised November 2021)
Module Note

Exploration vs. Exploitation

By: Willy Shih

This module note introduces James March's concept of exploration and exploitation, and the management challenge of balancing the allocation of resources to the two activities in the firm. The note also touches on the O'Reilly and Tushman paper on the ambidextrous... View Details