Publications

December 2020 (Revised September 2023)
Case

PG&E and the First Climate Change Bankruptcy

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott

In early 2020, the California-based utility PG&E filed a second amended plan of reorganization. PG&E had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the face of more than $30 billion of legal claims brought against it for its alleged role in causing California wildfires. The... View Details

Keywords: Chapter 11; Utilities; Liabilities; Restructuring; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Debt Securities; Legal Liability; Climate Change; Utilities Industry; United States

01 Jul 2014
First Look

First Look: July 1

Fútbol By: Elberse, Anita Abstract—Markets for soccer players are winner-take-all markets in which a select few top players earn extremely high rewards. The search for effective talent strategies in these conditions has led clubs to... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

Article

Early Withdrawal of Pandemic Unemployment Insurance: Effects on Earnings, Employment and Consumption

By: Kyle Coombs, Arindrajit Dube, Calvin Jahnke, Raymond Kluender, Suresh Naidu and Michael Stepner

In June 2021, 22 states ended all supplemental pandemic unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, eliminating benefits entirely for over 2 million workers and reducing benefits by $300 per week for over 1 million workers. Using anonymous bank transaction data and a... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Unemployment Insurance; Health Pandemics; Insurance; Employment; Financial Condition; Spending; Government Administration

April 2023
Case

Burning the Sails to Save the Ship: The Pilati Family Dilemma

By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao, Jiawei Ye and Grace Headinger

Octavian Graf Pilati, rising generation member of an Austrian princely family, prepared to sell the palace his family had held for over three hundred years. In recent years, the Pilati family lands had been leveraged as loan collateral for an international venture that... View Details

Keywords: Family Office; Family; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Agribusiness; Family Business; Property; Identity; Culture; Ethics; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governance; Crisis Management; Family and Family Relationships; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Real Estate Industry; Austria

November 2017 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Royal Philips: Designing Toward Profound Change

By: Srikant M. Datar, Rajiv Lal and Caitlin N. Bowler

This case explores Royal Philips CEO Frans van Houten's bold use of design research to inform a critical strategic decision: Should Philips leave its storied lighting business behind in favor of complete focus on health technology and consumer lifestyle products?... View Details

Keywords: Design Research; Health Technology; Innovation; Design; Research; Decision Choices and Conditions; Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Transformation

15 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

GM: What Went Wrong and What’s Next

reluctance to take environmental issues seriously. But these were not overnight developments. Beyond that, did GM's financial controls become too powerful a force for the product engineers to overcome? Did the marketers not see what... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto

Article

Nudging: Progress to Date and Future Directions

By: John Beshears and Harry Kosowsky

Nudges influence behavior by changing the environment in which decisions are made, without restricting the menu of options and without altering financial incentives. This paper assesses past empirical research on nudging and provides recommendations for future work in... View Details

Keywords: Nudge; Choice Architecture; Behavioral Economics; Behavioral Science; Behavior; Change; Situation or Environment; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decision Making

Read Now

March 2020
Article

Do Fire Sales Create Externalities?

By: Sergey Chernenko and Adi Sunderam

We develop three novel measures of how much of the price impact of their trading different mutual funds internalize. We show that mutual funds that internalize more of their price impact hold larger cash buffers and use these buffers more aggressively to accommodate... View Details

Keywords: Fire Sales; Externalities; Investment Funds; Price; Financial Liquidity; Management

Read Now

20 Jun 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, June 20

background stories of organizations, Win-Win Corporations is an inspiring read into what makes companies great. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=52757 forthcoming Journal of Financial Economics... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2006 (Revised March 2009)
Case

Clifford Chance: Repotting the Tree

By: Arthur I Segel, A. Eugene Kohn and Nhat Minh Nguyen

Clifford Chance, LLP, a global law firm headquartered in London, needs to make a decision whether to stay in the central business district of London or move to a redeveloped business park at Canary Wharf, three miles outside of central London. Peter Charleton, head of... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Headquarters; Decision Choices and Conditions; Geographic Location; Logistics; London

October 2009 (Revised January 2010)
Case

The University of Notre Dame Endowment

By: Andre F. Perold and Paul Michael Buser

The Endowment Model of Investing, which was based on creating high risk-adjusted performance through diversification, a long time horizon, top-notch outside managers, and illiquid investments, had served Notre Dame and other large universities well over the past... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Higher Education; Asset Management; Private Equity; Financial Liquidity; Investment; Risk Management; Performance Evaluation; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

14 Apr 2009
First Look

First Look: April 14, 2009

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), is the Global Engagement Partner (GEP) for a large U.S. financial institution and about to take over this role for a much larger global financial institution. The GEP role is a... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

30 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 30

conditions suffered and some local Emirati felt like they lost aspects of their cultural identity. Growth was rapid, infrastructure was weak, and the real estate bubble grew as the financial crisis loomed.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 2018 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Argentina Power—Don't Cry for Me Argentina

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Sayiddah Fatima McCree

In 2016, Bruce Wayne, Managing Director of Energy Finance Corporation (“EFC”), was refining the Investment/Credit Committee materials for the development of up to 10 power generating plants in Argentina. As a subsidiary of the much larger International Conglomerate... View Details

Keywords: Cross Border; Energy Markets; Infrastructure Finance; Infrastructure Development; Business Subsidiaries; Business Cycles; Macroeconomics; Energy Generation; International Finance; Project Finance; Government and Politics; Demand and Consumers; Infrastructure; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Argentina; Latin America

18 Feb 2009
First Look

First Look: February 18, 2009

and probabilistic delayed observation of agents' types. I derive conditions in which an advertising principal can set its payment delay to deter rogue agents and to attract solely or primarily good-type agents. Through the savings from... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

17 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

Blue Skies, Distractions Arise: How Weather Affects Productivity

spreadsheet, with the incentivizing knowledge that they would be compensated financially according to how quickly they completed the task. The researchers deliberately used questionnaire responses written in Italian to increase the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

2010
Book

Creating Value through Corporate Restructuring: Case Studies in Bankruptcies, Buyouts, and Breakups

By: Stuart C. Gilson

A collection of case studies illustrates real-world techniques, implementation, and strategies on corporate restructuring. Over the period 1981-1998, public companies with combined assets of over half a trillion dollars filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Over the same... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Public Ownership; Value Creation

February 2013
Case

LEGO (A): The Crisis

By: Jan W. Rivkin, Stefan H. Thomke and Daniela Beyersdorfer

As this case opens, iconic toymaker LEGO stands on the brink of bankruptcy. Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, LEGO's young and newly appointed CEO, must size up changes in the toy industry, learn from the company's recent moves, and craft a strategy that will put LEGO back on... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Competitive Strategy; Crisis Management; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Consumer Products Industry