Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,550)
- Faculty Publications (241)
- October 7, 2021
- Article
Carbon Might Be Your Company’s Biggest Financial Liability
By: Robert G. Eccles and John Mulliken
The price of carbon may be zero in many places today, but it’s unlikely to remain zero for long. That means that many companies have hidden liabilities on their books. To cover their carbon short position, executives can take several steps: Measure the position in... View Details
- 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... View Details
- Article
The Economic Consequences of Bankruptcy Reform
By: Tal Gross, Raymond Kluender, Feng Liu, Matthew J. Notowidigdo and Jialan Wang
A more generous consumer bankruptcy system provides greater insurance against financial risks but may also raise the cost of credit. We study this trade-off using the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), which increased the costs of... View Details
- May 2021
- Article
Preparing for a Pandemic: Accelerating Vaccine Availability
By: Amrita Ahuja, Susan Athey, Arthur Baker, Eric Budish, Juan Camilo Castillo, Rachel Glennerster, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Kremer, Jean Lee, Canice Prendergast, Christopher M. Snyder, Alex Tabarrok, Brandon Joel Tan and Witold Wiecek
Vaccinating the world’s population quickly in a pandemic has enormous health and economic benefits. We analyze the problem faced by governments in determining the scale and structure of procurement for vaccines. We analyze alternative approaches to procurement, arguing... View Details
- March 2021
- Supplement
Making Impact Investing Markets: IFC (B)
By: Shawn A. Cole, John Masko and T. Robert Zochowski
In 2018, Thailand’s Bank of Ayudhya (known as Krungsri), was considering whether to participate in the first issue of a new financial instrument from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), known as a gender bond. Building on the success of the Green Bond program... View Details
Keywords: Impact Investment; Development Economics; Developing Countries and Economies; Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Equity; Bonds; Financing and Loans; Growth and Development; Emerging Markets; Non-Governmental Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Financial Instruments; Gender; Financial Services Industry; Thailand
- March 2021
- Case
Yale Investments Office: November 2020
By: Josh Lerner, Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
David Swensen and the Investments Office staff must decide whether to continue to allocate the bulk of the university's endowment to illiquid investments—hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, real estate, natural resources—given the impact of the COVID-19... View Details
Keywords: University Endowment; Asset Allocation; Real Estate; Equities; Fixed Income; COVID-19; Asset Management; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Natural Resources; Resource Allocation; Investment; Investment Portfolio; Health Pandemics; Financial Crisis; Financial Services Industry; Real Estate Industry; Energy Industry; Connecticut
- March 2021 (Revised January 2023)
- Case
The Trouble with TCE
By: Vincent Pons, Rafael Di Tella and Galit Goldstein
Trichloroethylene, or TCE, was a chemical used by tens of thousands of businesses in the United States. It was an affordable tool for many. Yet, TCE had been associated with important health risks, including cancer and autoimmune disease. TCE potentially posed other... View Details
- March 2021 (Revised August 2021)
- Case
Nayana Mawilmada: Transforming Urban Development in Sri Lanka
By: Joshua D. Margolis and Mahima Rao-Kachroo
In February 2018, Nayana Mawilmada (Nayana), investment head for the Sri Lankan government’s ambitious $40 billion Megapolis project, must weigh an attractive job offer to move from the public sector to the private sector. A massive government project aimed at... View Details
Keywords: Change Management; Transformation; Decision Making; Public Sector; Experience and Expertise; Strategic Planning; Work-Life Balance; Transportation; Risk and Uncertainty; Power and Influence; Personal Development and Career; Real Estate Industry; Rail Industry; Transportation Industry; South Asia; Sri Lanka; Boston; Virginia; United States
- February 2021
- Article
Do Household Wealth Shocks Affect Productivity? Evidence from Innovative Workers During the Great Recession
By: S. Bernstein, T. McQuade and R. Townsend
We investigate how the deterioration of household balance sheets affects worker productivity, and, in turn, economic downturns. Specifically, we compare the output of innovative workers who experienced differential declines in housing wealth during the financial crisis... View Details
- January 2021 (Revised June 2021)
- Case
Hester Pharmaceuticals (A): A Pricing Dilemma
By: Dante Roscini and John Masko
In August 2019, the leadership of Hester Pharmaceuticals (Hester) had a problem. Italy promised to be a key market for their new breakthrough oncology drug Akrozumab, but for almost two years, its single-payer healthcare system had been unable to agree with Hester on a... View Details
Keywords: Macroeconomics; Trade; Price; Global Range; Global Strategy; Globalized Markets and Industries; Health Care and Treatment; Patents; Monopoly; Negotiation; Business and Government Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Human Needs; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Pharmaceutical Industry; Italy
- January–February 2021
- Article
Compensation Packages That Actually Drive Performance
By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah Abbott, Michael R. Marino and Metin Aksoy
By aligning executives’ financial incentives with company strategy, a firm can inspire its management to deliver superior results. But it can be hard to get pay packages right. In this article four experts break down the key elements of compensation and explain how to... View Details
- June 2021
- Article
From Predictions to Prescriptions: A Data-driven Response to COVID-19
By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Léonard Boussioux, Ryan Cory-Wright, Arthur Delarue, Vassilis Digalakis Jr, Alexander Jacquillat, Driss Lahlou Kitane, Galit Lukin, Michael Lingzhi Li, Luca Mingardi, Omid Nohadani, Agni Orfanoudaki, Theodore Papalexopoulos, Ivan Paskov, Jean Pauphilet, Omar Skali Lami, Bartolomeo Stellato, Hamza Tazi Bouardi, Kimberly Villalobos Carballo, Holly Wiberg and Cynthia Zeng
The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges worldwide. Strained healthcare providers make difficult decisions on patient triage, treatment and care management on a daily basis. Policy makers have imposed social distancing measures to slow the disease, at... View Details
- October 2020
- Case
HOPE and Transformational Lending: Netflix Invests in Black Led Banks
By: John D. Macomber and Janice Broome Brooks
Following the killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day in 2020, the large US corporation Netflix elected to make a "transformational deposit" of $10 million into Hope Credit Union (HCU), a small Black led community development finance institution (CDFI) based in... View Details
- September–October 2020
- Article
Global Supply Chains in a Post-Pandemic World: Companies Need to Make Their Networks More Resilient. Here's How.
By: Willy C. Shih
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities in the production strategies and supply chains of firms everywhere. Coupled with a rise in economic nationalism, manufacturers everywhere are going to be under pressure to rethink their sourcing and logistics... View Details
- August 2020
- Article
Macroeconomic Drivers of Bond and Equity Risks
By: John Y. Campbell, Carolin E. Pflueger and Luis M. Viceira
Our new model of consumption-based habit generates time-varying risk premia on bonds and stocks from loglinear, homoskedastic macroeconomic dynamics. Consumers' first-order condition for the real risk-free bond generates an exactly loglinear consumption Euler equation,... View Details
- July 28, 2020
- Article
Economic Vulnerability of Households with Essential Workers
By: Grace McCormack, Christopher Avery, Ariella Kahn-Lang Spitzer and Amitabh Chandra
The label of “essential worker” reflects society’s needs but does not mean that society has compensated those workers for additional risks incurred on the job during the current pandemic. When an essential worker contracts severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Older People Are Less Pessimistic About the Health Risks of COVID-19
By: Pedro Bordalo, Katherine B. Coffman, Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer
A central question for understanding behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic, at both the individual and collective levels, is how people perceive the health and economic risks they face. We conducted a survey of over 1,500 Americans from May 6–13, 2020, to understand... View Details
- 2020
- Book
Capitalism at Risk: How Business Can Lead
Who should take the lead in fixing market capitalism? Business—not government alone. The spread of capitalism worldwide has made people wealthier than ever before. But capitalism's future is far from assured. Pandemics, income inequality, resource depletion, mass... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
EMEs and COVID-19: Shutting Down in a World of Informal and Tiny Firms
By: Laura Alfaro, Oscar Becerra and Marcela Eslava
Emerging economies are characterized by an extremely high prevalence of informality, small-firm employment and jobs not fit for working from home. These features factor into how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the economy. We develop a framework that, based on... View Details
- May 2020 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic and the Global Economy (A)
By: Alberto Cavallo and Christian Godwin
In April 2020, the world struggled to contain the exponential escalation of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Dozens of countries had imposed restrictions on travel, work, and social gatherings. A large share of the global population was under lockdowns and... View Details
Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Demand and Consumers; Supply and Industry; Finance; Central Banking; Financial Markets; International Finance; Globalization; Government and Politics; Health Pandemics; Decision Making; Macroeconomics; Employment; Crisis Management; Supply Chain; Risk and Uncertainty; Air Transportation Industry; Banking Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Employment Industry; Financial Services Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Health Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Public Administration Industry; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Shipping Industry; Tourism Industry; Travel Industry; Asia; China; Europe; Latin America; Africa; United States