Publications

19 Nov 2019
Op-Ed

Gender Bias Complaints against Apple Card Signal a Dark Side to Fintech

public engagement has been strong and immediate. Clearly, this is a new frontier for the financial services sector—and the industry’s regulators are also operating without a roadmap. We need to stop arguing... View Details

Keywords: by Karen G. Mills; Financial Services

March 2020 (Revised May 2020)
Case

Generation Investment Management

By: Vikram S. Gandhi and Sarah Mehta

By January 2020, sustainable investment firm Generation Investment Management (Generation), founded in London in 2004, had grown from a shared vision among seven founders to a 90-person firm managing $27 billion in public and private equity. Throughout its history,... View Details

2021
Working Paper

The Business of K-12 Education in China

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yuhai Wu

This working paper examines the evolution of K-12 education in China, especially between 1985 and the present day, drawing extensive interviews with participants in the educational sector. China has been hugely successful in reaching almost 100 percent literacy,... View Details

Keywords: K-12 Education; China; Real Estate; Early Childhood Education; Performance Evaluation; Teaching; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Personal Development and Career; Social Issues; Nonprofit Organizations; Private Sector; Education Industry; Real Estate Industry; China

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17 Jan 2007
Op-Ed

Learning from Private-Equity Boards

If Enron had been owned and controlled by a small group of private-equity investors, could the monitoring and control practices of a professionally run buyout shop have protected Enron's shareholders and employees from the problems that destroyed the company and... View Details

Keywords: by Malcolm Salter; Financial Services

02 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 2

public purpose and thus merit tax-exempt status. Amid this clamor for accountability, it is tempting to accept the popular view that more accountability is better. But is it feasible, or even desirable, for nonprofit organizations to be... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

August 2024
Case

Ashesi University: The Journey from Vision to Reality

By: Ranjay Gulati and Caroline de Lacvivier

In 1997, Patrick Awuah had a dream: to bring liberal arts education to Ghana. Amid the country’s declining economy and pervasive corruption problems, Awuah saw education as an opportunity to reverse its fortunes by investing in the next generation of African leaders.... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Higher Education; Entrepreneurship; Leadership Development; Growth Management; Mission and Purpose; Private Ownership; Education Industry; Ghana

January 2007 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Austin, Blakeley, & Cambridge, LLC

The founding partners of ABC, LLC, one of the leading private equity firms in the world, are trying to understand why some of the other top firms in the business, such as KKR and Apollo, have been tapping the public equity markets for their own funds, and whether they... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Public Equity; Investment Funds; Going Public; Financial Services Industry

September 1999 (Revised July 2022)
Case

The Goldman Sachs IPO

By: Ashish Nanda, Malcolm S. Salter, Boris Groysberg and Sarah Matthews

Addresses the proposed IPO and raises questions regarding how agency costs may rise or fall as Goldman converts from a private partnership to a public limited corporation. View Details

Keywords: Initial Public Offering; Going Public; Corporate Governance; Agency Theory; Transformation; Financial Services Industry

2011
Teaching Note

Juner New Materials: On the Road to IPO (TN)

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Donglin Xia, Ning Jia and Ziqian Zhao

Juner New Materials (Juner) is a private China-based company that develops, produces, and distributes modified plastic compounds. Founded in 1995 by female serial entrepreneur Xiaomin Chen, Juner has exhibited strong performance and growth potential in the past fifteen... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Financial Statements; IPO; Valuation; Women Executives; China; Plastics; China

January 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Mercado Libre: The Best Is Yet to Come

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Fernando Fragueiro, Carla Larangeira and Mariana Cal

In 2024, Marcos Galperín, CEO and co-founder of Mercado Libre, reflected on its 25-year rise as Latin America’s largest marketplace, fintech leader, and most valuable public company. With operations spanning 18 countries and a robust ecosystem combining e-commerce,... View Details

March 2009 (Revised October 2009)
Case

CalPERS' Emerging Equity Markets Principles

By: Robert G. Eccles and Aldo Sesia

The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CaIPERS)—the largest public pension fund in the U.S.—had adopted a new principles-based approach to investing in emerging market equities in November 2007. Previously, CalPERS internal and external money managers were... View Details

Keywords: Values and Beliefs; Investment Return; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Emerging Markets; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Value; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; China; California

20 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

The Acquirers

When it comes to mergers and acquisitions, private equity firms are in high-stakes competition with public companies to identify takeover targets. During some M&A waves, public companies dominate while... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Financial Services

February 2022 (Revised March 2022)
Case

National Electric Vehicles Sweden (NEVS): Materializing a Vision

By: Shane Greenstein and Elena Corsi

In 2021, the car manufacturer National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) faced the challenge of securing funding from its investor to launch an innovative mobility solution based on fleets of shared autonomous driving (AD) cars. The system was complex as it required the... View Details

Keywords: Autonomous Vehicles; Product Design; Sustainable Cities; Transportation Networks; Auto Industry; Sweden; Europe

June 2024
Article

Real Growth in Space Manufacturing Output Substantially Exceeds Growth in the Overall Space Economy

By: Tina Highfill and Matthew Weinzierl

Accurately measuring real economic output in the space economy is made difficult by the rapid increase in capabilities and decrease in prices of launch and satellite technologies achieved over the past two decades. Nominal measures of output in space will tend to... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Economic Growth; Price; Production; Aerospace Industry

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Spring 2016
Article

Net Neutrality: A Fast Lane to Understanding the Tradeoffs

By: Shane Greenstein, Martin Peitz and Tommaso Valletti

The last decade has seen a strident public debate about the principle of "net neutrality." The economic literature has focused on two definitions of net neutrality. The most basic definition of net neutrality is to prohibit payments from content providers to internet... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Policy

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July 2022
Case

boAt Lifestyle

By: Rajiv Lal and Kairavi Dey

boAt began as a lifestyle brand in the consumer electronics category in 2016 with the aim of bringing affordable, durable, and fashionable audio products and accessories to millennials and Gen-Z customers in India. Born in 2016 with Amazon India as its only sales... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Brands and Branding; Initial Public Offering; Digital Marketing; Product Development; Product Marketing; Business or Company Management; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry; Web Services Industry; Asia; India

February 2018 (Revised August 2018)
Case

OpenInvest

By: Shawn Cole, Boris Vallée and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded by a team of hedge fund and NGO alumni, OpenInvest launched its platform in 2015 to enable retail investors to tailor their portfolios to their personal values in an automated way, for instance by screening out weapons manufacturers stocks or overweighting... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Impact Investing; Investment Portfolio; Customization and Personalization; Technological Innovation; Social Issues; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Financial Services Industry