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July 2012
Case

New Century Financial Corporation (Abridged)

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Suraj Srinivasan and Ian Cornell

After years of rapid growth and stock price appreciation, New Century Financial Corporation, one of the largest subprime loan originators in the U.S., reported accounting problems in early 2007. The resulting liquidity crisis forced the company to file for Chapter 11... View Details

Keywords: Audit Committees; Financial Management; Control Systems; Securities; Loan Evaluation; Accounting; Value; Financial Services Industry; United States

Article

Is ‘Not Guilty’ the Same as ‘Innocent’? Evidence from SEC Financial Fraud Investigations

By: Eugene F. Soltes and David H. Solomon

When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigates firms for financial fraud, investors learn about the investigation only if managers disclose it, or regulators sanction the firm. We investigate the effects of such disclosures using confidential records on... View Details

Keywords: Financial Fraud; Corporate Disclosure; Performance; Outcome or Result

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2017
Working Paper

Does Financial Misconduct Affect the Future Compensation of Alumni Managers?

By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin and Georgios Serafeim

We explore how an organization’s financial misconduct may affect pay for former employees not implicated in wrongdoing. Drawing on stigma theory we hypothesize that although such alumni did not participate in the financial misconduct and they had left the organization... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Restatements; Stigma; Financial Misconduct; Compensation and Benefits; Crime and Corruption; Employees

SSRN

June 2014
Supplement

Financial Policy at Apple, 2013 (B)

By: Mihir Desai and Elizabeth A. Meyer

This case is meant to accompany Financial Policy at Apple, 2013 (A) and details the results of Apple's Q2 2013 earnings call. View Details

Keywords: Apple; Steve Jobs; Forecast; Forecasting; Forecasting And Prediction; Shareholder Activism; Share Repurchase; Dividends; Financial Ratios; Preferred Shares; Cash Distribution; Corporate Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Technology Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States; Republic of Ireland

01 Mar 2009
News

HBS Posts Strong Results in 2008

The business of business education produced another year of strong results for HBS during fiscal 2008, which ended last June. Applications for the core MBA Program reached a five-year high of 8,661, and the percentage of admitted students... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

May 2010 (Revised January 2012)
Case

Lincoln Financial Meets the Financial Crisis

By: Robert C. Pozen and Peter Goodspeed Spring

In March of 2009, Lincoln Financial Group's CEO Dennis Glass was facing a difficult decision as to how he would replenish his company's capital, which could quickly fall to dangerously low levels as a result of the financial crisis. Though the cost of raising capital... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Financial Crisis; Capital; Private Equity; Crisis Management; Business and Government Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Insurance Industry

September 2011
Article

Political Instability: Effects on Financial Development, Roots in the Severity of Economic Inequality

By: Mark J. Roe and Jordan I. Siegel

We here bring forward strong evidence that political instability impedes financial development, with its variation a primary determinant of differences in financial development around the world. As such, it needs to be added to the short list of major determinants of... View Details

Keywords: Financial Development; Political Instability; Government and Politics; Finance; Growth and Development; Economics; Equality and Inequality

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Roe, Mark J., and Jordan I. Siegel. "Political Instability: Effects on Financial Development, Roots in the Severity of Economic Inequality." Journal of Comparative Economics 39, no. 3 (September 2011): 279–309. (We here bring forward strong evidence that political instability impedes financial development, with its variation a primary determinant of differences in financial development around the world. As such, it needs to be added to the short list of major determinants of financial development. First, structural conditions first postulated by Engerman and Sokoloff (2002) as generating long-term inequality are shown here empirically to be exogenous determinants of political instability. Second, that exogenously-determined political instability in turn holds back financial development, even when we control for factors prominent in the last decade's cross-country studies of financial development. The findings indicate that inequality-perpetuating conditions that result in political instability are fundamental roadblocks for international organizations like the World Bank that seek to promote financial development. The evidence here includes country fixed effect regressions and an instrumental model inspired by Engerman and Sokoloff's (2002) work, which to our knowledge has not yet been used in finance and which is consistent with current tests as valid instruments. Four conventional measures of national political instability — Alesina and Perotti's (1996) well-known index of instability, a subsequent index derived from Banks' (2005) work, and two indices of managerial perceptions of nation-by-nation political instability — persistently predict a wide range of national financial development outcomes for recent decades. Political instability's significance is time consistent in cross-sectional regressions back to the 1960's, the period when the key data becomes available, robust in both country fixed-effects and instrumental variable regressions, and consistent across multiple measures of instability and of financial development. Overall, the results indicate the existence of an important channel running from structural inequality to political instability, principally in nondemocratic settings, and then to financial backwardness. The robust significance of that channel extends existing work demonstrating the importance of political economy explanations for financial development and financial backwardness. It should help to better understand which policies will work for financial development, because political instability has causes, cures, and effects quite distinct from those of many of the key institutions most studied in the past decade as explaining financial backwardness.)

15 Jul 2020
News

Predictable financial crises

31 Oct 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Do Measures of Financial Constraints Measure Financial Constraints?

Keywords: by Joan Farre-Mensa & Alexander Ljungqvist

2020
Working Paper

Determinants of Early-Stage Startup Performance: Survey Results

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

To explore determinants of new venture performance, the CEOs of 470 early-stage startups were surveyed regarding a broad range of factors related to their venture’s customer value proposition, product management, marketing, technology and operations, financial... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Survey Research; Performance Analysis; Entrepreneurship; Performance; Analysis; Business Startups; Failure; Surveys

SSRN

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Research Summary

Anti-Competitive Financial Contracting

Joint work with Giacinta Cestone, Institut d'Analisi Economica, Barcelona

This paper presents the first model where entry deterrence takes place through financial rather than product-market channels. In standard models of the interaction between product and... View Details

January 2002 (Revised August 2004)
Case

Massachusetts Financial Services

By: Brian J. Hall and Jonathan Lim

This case describes the compensation and performance evaluations at an investment management company. The senior management team of Massachusetts Financial Services (MFS) Investment Management was contemplating an introduction of hedge funds at the firm, but many... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Management Teams; Compensation and Benefits; Financial Services Industry; Massachusetts

2017
Article

A Brief Money Management Scale and Its Associations with Personality, Financial Health, and Hypothetical Debt Repayment

By: Masha Ksendzova, Grant Edward Donnelly and Ryan Howell

Money management is essential for financial health, and more research is needed to better assess people’s money management practices. Therefore, we factor-analyzed 205 scaled questions from previous money management measures to select the best items and examined their... View Details

Keywords: Budgeting; Debt; Money Management; Financial Health; Scale Development; Budgets and Budgeting; Personal Finance; Behavior; Decision Making

August 2002 (Revised September 2002)
Background Note

Financial Analysis of Microsoft

By: William A. Sahlman

Contains a detailed analysis of Microsoft's financial performance from 1985 to 2001. During this time, Microsoft improved its profitability and cash flow generation--changes that led to a dramatic rise in valuation. Also addresses the issue of determining how much... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Analysis; Financial Condition

October 2008 (Revised October 2009)
Case

New Century Financial Corporation

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Suraj Srinivasan and Aldo Sesia

After years of rapid growth and stock price appreciation, New Century Financial Corporation, one of the largest subprime loan originators in the U.S., reported accounting problems in early 2007. The resulting liquidity crisis forced the company to file for Chapter 11... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Audits; Financial Reporting; Business Model; Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Mortgages; Financial Services Industry; United States

Web

HBS - Financials | Supplemental Financial Information

2022 Annual Report From The Dean Key Metrics Financials PDF Downloads Financials From the CFO Financial Highlights Statement of Activity & Cash Flows Consolidated Balance Sheet... View Details

Web

HBS - Financials | Supplemental Financial Information

2023 Annual Report From The Dean Key Metrics Financials PDF Downloads Financials From the CFO Financial Highlights Statement of Activity & Cash Flows Consolidated Balance Sheet... View Details

November 2010 (Revised May 2012)
Background Note

Assessing a Company's Future Financial Health

By: Thomas R. Piper

The case provides students with (1) an understanding of the essence of long-term financial health; (2) familiarity with the calculation and meaning of various financial ratios; and (3) an understanding of the influence of a company's operating and competitive... View Details

Keywords: Financial Condition; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment Return; Operations; Competitive Strategy