Publications

2024
Working Paper

How Do Global Portfolio Investors Hedge Currency Risk?

By: Robin Greenwood and Alex Cheema-Fox

We use monthly portfolio data from one of the world’s largest custodian banks, with over $40 trillion assets under custody, to study how global portfolio investors hedge foreign exchange risk in their equity and fixed income portfolios over the past 25 years. The data... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Investment Funds; Currency; Risk and Uncertainty

06 May 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Introductory Reading For Being a Leader and The Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological Model

Keywords: by Werner Erhard, Michael C. Jensen, Steve Zaffron & Kari L. Granger; Education

Research Summary

Strategic participation of social movement organizations

Social movements and related social movement organizations (SMOs) play an important role in the formation of new industries and market niches, as well as the emergence of new organizational forms. I argue that as SMOs become more sophisticated and... View Details

November 2017 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Summa Equity: Building Purpose-Driven Organizations

By: George Serafeim and David Freiberg

In 2015, Reynir Indahl left top Nordic private equity firm Altor Equity Partners to found Summa Equity (Summa). After long contemplation following the financial crisis, Indahl was convinced the financial system was producing negative externalities and that the current... View Details

Educators

15 Jul 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Policy Bundling to Overcome Loss Aversion: A Method for Improving Legislative Outcomes

Keywords: by Katherine L. Milkman, Mary Carol Mazza, Lisa L. Shu, Chia-Jung Tsay & Max H. Bazerman

October 2016
Supplement

24 Hour Fitness (B): Ownership Changes, 2005–2016

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

In 2016, 24 Hour Fitness was the number-two fitness chain in the United States, generating revenues of $1.4 billion from 441 clubs serving 3.8 million members. Based in San Ramon, California, 24 Hour Fitness operated clubs in 13 states. Having grown rapidly to become... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Advertising Campaigns; Buildings and Facilities; Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Organization; For-Profit Firms; Customers; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customer Satisfaction; Age; Training; Private Equity; Financing and Loans; Price; Profit; Revenue; Geographic Location; Geographic Scope; Health; Nutrition; Business History; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Journals and Magazines; Human Capital; Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Teams; Marketing; Brands and Branding; Marketing Channels; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Demand and Consumers; Market Entry and Exit; Media; Organizational Design; Private Ownership; Problems and Challenges; Groups and Teams; Sales; Salesforce Management; Situation or Environment; Welfare or Wellbeing; Sports; Strategy; Business Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Segmentation; Information Technology; Internet; Mobile Technology; Online Technology; Software; Web Sites; Value; Valuation; Health Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States; California; San Francisco

November 2006
Article

The Flattening Firm: Evidence from Panel Data on the Changing Nature of Corporate Hierarchies

By: Raghuram G. Rajan and Julie Wulf

Using a detailed database of managerial job descriptions, reporting relationships, and compensation structures in over 300 large U.S. firms, we find that firm hierarchies are becoming flatter. The number of positions reporting directly to the CEO has gone up... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Change; Business Ventures; Compensation and Benefits; Rank and Position; Wages; Motivation and Incentives; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Jobs and Positions; United States

Web

MBA/DMD Harvard School of Dental Medicine - MBA

an MBA/DMD program in 2009. The program's mission is to develop outstanding dentist leaders, skilled in both dentistry and management, to take positions of influence through which they will contribute substantially to the health and... View Details

22 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Master the One-on-One Meeting

the agenda. Ask if there’s anything else to add before you dig in. Always leave a door open—sometimes an employee is holding back on something. If there are hard things to discuss (maybe some tough performance feedback), try to bookend it with two View Details

Keywords: by Julia B. Austin

September 2013
Case

United Rentals (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch, Kathleen Durante and Emily McTague

In December 1997 United Rentals (URI) went public on the NYSE. Ten years later, during the peak of the economic meltdown, the company's performance was in decline. United Rentals had experienced its share of problems in the prior years and was still struggling to... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Board Dynamics; Accounting Fraud; Governance; Board Committees; Merger; Corporate Governance; Construction Industry; United States

Educators

Research Summary

Institutions and Firm Strategy at the Bottom of the Pyramid: The Case of Business Formalization in Vietnam

In this paper, written together with Edmund Malesky (UCSD), we test a series of hypotheses about how institutions shape a strategic decision of significant importance to the evolution of inclusive markets: registration as companies by previously informal businesses at... View Details

Research Summary

Inheriting Losers (with Li Jin)

New managers who take over mutual fund portfolios, typically proceed to sell off inherited momentum losers. Relative to continuing fund managers holding the same stocks, new managers tend to reduce their holdings of losers at a higher rate than of winners or stocks in... View Details

November 1992 (Revised November 1993)
Case

Anheuser-Busch and Campbell Taggart (Abridged)

In 1984, the SEC accused Paul Thayer and eight others of insider trading. Some of Thayer's inside information came from his position on the board of Anheuser-Busch, where he had learned about Busch's 1982 merger with Campbell Taggart before the merger was publicly... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Ethics; Capital Markets; United States

December 1988 (Revised March 1989)
Case

Pabst Brewing Co.

At the end of 1984 the Pabst Brewing Co. was the object of a takeover contest for the second time in three years. Nearly two years after a reorganization in early 1983 Pabst still suffered from low margins and high debt service costs. This case describes the takeover... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Restructuring; Bids and Bidding; Acquisition; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

Educators

April 2023
Article

The Preference Survey Module: A Validated Instrument for Measuring Risk, Time, and Social Preferences

By: Armin Falk, Anke Becker, Thomas Dohmen, David B. Huffman and Uwe Sunde

Incentivized choice experiments are a key approach to measuring preferences in economics but are also costly. Survey measures are a low-cost alternative but can suffer from additional forms of measurement error due to their hypothetical nature. This paper seeks to... View Details

Keywords: Survey Validation; Experiment; Preference Measurement; Surveys; Economics; Behavior; Measurement and Metrics

October 2020
Article

Peer Influence on Trade Credit

By: Daniel Gyimah, Michael Machokoto and Anywhere (Siko) Sikochi

We examine the influence of peer firms on trade credit policies of listed firms in the United States. We posit and find evidence that firms mimic their peers in formulating trade credit policies. The findings are more pronounced for firms in highly competitive product... View Details

Keywords: Trade Credit; Peer Effects; Product Market Competition; Trade; Credit; Policy; Competition

May 2023
Article

A Public Health Approach to Negative News Media: The 3-to-1 Solution

By: Tyler VanderWeele and Arthur C. Brooks

There is clear evidence that the prevalence of negative media reporting has increased substantially over the past years. There is evidence also that this negative reporting adversely affects social interactions, as well as health and well-being outcomes. Given the wide... View Details

Keywords: News; Social Networks; Contagion; Population Health; Media; Health; Welfare; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Journalism and News Industry

2018
Chapter

Time, Money, and Subjective Wellbeing

By: Cassie Mogilner, A.V. Whillans and Michael I. Norton

Time and money are scarce and precious resources: people experience stress about having insufficient time and worry about having insufficient money. This chapter reviews research showing that the ways in which people spend their time and money, the tradeoffs that... View Details

Keywords: Money; Time Management; Happiness; Satisfaction