Publications

March 1994
Case

Fremont Financial Corporation (A)

Fremont Financial is an asset-based lender to middle-market companies. This case considers two options for Fremont to raise capital to finance its loan portfolio. Fremont can: 1) extend its existing bank line of credit, or 2) issue commercial paper through a special... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Capital; Corporate Finance; Financial Services Industry

February 1995 (Revised April 1996)
Case

MW Petroleum Corporation (B)

By: Timothy A. Luehrman, Peter Tufano and Barbara Wall

Amoco Corp. is negotiating to sell a wholly-owned subsidiary, MW Petroleum, to Apache Corp. MW owns large reserves of oil and gas comprising many properties at different stages of engineering, development, and production. The proposed acquisition is a large one for... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Mergers and Acquisitions; Risk Management; Financing and Loans; Mining Industry; Energy Industry

January 2002 (Revised September 2002)
Case

Corporate Renewal in America

By: Bruce R. Scott and Thomas S. Mondschean

Discusses various macroeconomic, regulatory, technological, and financial forces that led to increased corporate restructuring in the United States beginning in the mid-1980s. The U.S. financial system is often viewed as the most developed in the world and a model for... View Details

Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Corporate Governance; Macroeconomics; Economic Systems; Restructuring; Markets; Private Sector; Corporate Finance; Germany; Japan; United States

Web

Finance Faculty - Faculty & Research

Senior Lecturer of Business Administration Richard S. Ruback Baker Foundation Professor Willard Prescott Smith Professor of Corporate Finance, Emeritus Marco Sammon Assistant Professor of Business Administration David S. Scharfstein... View Details

January 2005 (Revised February 2006)
Background Note

Note on Corporate Strategy

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Introduces students to the study of corporate strategy. Focuses on questions of scope and ownership. Examines both horizontal and vertical integration. Underscores the point that economies of scope, or the existence of relationship-specific investments, are... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Contracts; Ownership; Corporate Strategy; Horizontal Integration; Vertical Integration

15 Apr 2010
News

European Corporate Governance Institute Fellow

2010
Chapter

The Financing of R&D and Innovation

By: Bronwyn H. Hall and Josh Lerner

Evidence on the “funding gap” for investment innovation is surveyed. The focus is on financial market reasons for underinvestment that exist even when externality-induced underinvestment is absent. We conclude that while small and new innovative firms experience high... View Details

Keywords: Research and Development; Innovation and Invention; Venture Capital; Corporate Finance

Find at Harvard

In this chapter, we survey the theory and evidence of behavioral corporate finance, which generally takes one of two approaches. The market timing and catering approach views managerial financing and investment decisions as rational managerial responses to... View Details

July 2012 (Revised November 2012)
Case

Dragonfly Corporation

By: Howard H. Stevenson and Jim Sharpe

After 3 years of losses and under legal threats from their landlord, a husband and wife team are faced with shutting the company down, buying time with the landlord or turning to their parents for additional funds. Despite opening a new location and seeing that sales... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurs; Entrepreneurial Management; Turnarounds; Bankruptcy; Bank Loan; Crisis Management; Family Business; Retail Trade; Financial Crisis; Financial Analysis; Entrepreneurship; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Retail Industry; United States

January 2001 (Revised May 2010)
Case

BP Amoco (A): Policy Statement on the Use of Project Finance

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane

Following the BP/Amoco merger in December 1998, CFO David Watson asked Bill Young to recommend when and under what circumstances the firm should use external project finance instead of internal corporate funds to finance new capital investments. As part of this... View Details

Keywords: Project Finance; Mergers and Acquisitions; Policy; Capital Budgeting

September 1996 (Revised April 1997)
Case

GO Corporation

By: Josh Lerner, Thomas J. Kosnik, Tarek AbuZayyad and Paul C. Yang

GO faces a crisis in March 1991 when Microsoft announces the introduction of a competing operating system for pen-based computers. GO's managers must work with its venture financers, Kleiner Perkins, to redesign its financing, alliance, and product development... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Digital Platforms; Competition; Private Equity; Adaptation; Crisis Management; Information Technology Industry; Computer Industry

November 2020
Article

The Role of Taxes in the Disconnect Between Corporate Performance and Economic Growth

By: Urooj Khan, Suresh Nallareddy and Ethan Rouen

We investigate the relation between the growth in corporate profits and the overall U.S. economy, focusing on the impact of the U.S. corporate tax regime on this relation. We document that the growth of corporate profits, on average, has outpaced the growth of the... View Details

Keywords: Taxes; Gdp; Corporate Profits; American Jobs Creation Act Of 2004; Taxation; Economic Growth; Profit; United States

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March 1994
Case

Fremont Financial Corporation (B)

Fremont has a third option to finance its loan portfolio, which involves securitizing and selling the small-business loans into the capital markets. Emphasizes asymmetric information and moral hazard problems involved in designing an asset securitization. When used in... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Financial Markets; Corporate Finance; Financial Services Industry

June 2013
Article

Issuer Quality and Corporate Bond Returns

By: Robin Greenwood and Samuel G. Hanson

We show that the credit quality of corporate debt issuers deteriorates during credit booms, and that this deterioration forecasts low excess returns to corporate bondholders. The key insight is that changes in the pricing of credit risk disproportionately affect the... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Bonds; Forecasting and Prediction; Credit

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2019
Chapter

The Consequences of Mandatory Corporate Sustainability Reporting

By: Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

A key aspect of the governance process inside organizations and markets is the measurement and disclosure of important metrics and information. In this chapter, we examine the effect of sustainability disclosure regulations on firms’ disclosure practices and... View Details