Publications

Spring 2012
Article

The Roadmap for Private Equity, Venture Capital and Hedge Funds in Mexico: Alternative Assets as an Accelerator of Credit to Firms in Emerging Markets

By: Roberto Charvel

This article shows how alternative assets could be a good way for banks to start providing more loans to firms in emerging markets and finance growth, while giving local institutional investors access to new asset types. View Details

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October 2014
Case

CreditEase: Providing Credit and Financial Services for China's Underclass

By: Lena G. Goldberg, Paul Healy and Nancy Hua Dai

In 2013 Ning Tang, who in 2006 founded CreditEase as a broker of P2P loans to unbanked individuals and small businesses in China, confronts the challenges of rapid growth and expansion in a changing regulatory environment. CreditEase needs to develop technology to... View Details

Keywords: P2P Lending; HNW Products And Services; Business Growth; Business Start-ups; Government Regulation; Change Management; Credit; Microcredit; Banking; Innovation And Management; Developing Countries And Economies; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Law; Financing and Loans; Change; China

2008
Working Paper

Fixing Market Failures or Fixing Elections? Agricultural Credit in India

By: Shawn A. Cole

This paper integrates theories of political budget cycles with theories of tactical electoral redistribution to test for political capture in a novel way. Studying banks in India, I find that government-owned bank lending tracks the electoral cycle, with agricultural... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Political Elections; State Ownership; Banking Industry; India

June 2018 (Revised February 2019)
Teaching Note

Rose Electronics Distributing Company

By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld

Itamar Frankenthal (HBS ’13) wanted a $4.5 million bank loan to partially finance his planned acquisition of a small company, Rose Electronics. He received nine proposals which varied widely in term, interest rate, amortization schedule, and covenants. Frankenthal had... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Acquisition; Decision Making; Electronics Industry

October 2022 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Founders First Capital Partners: An Approach to Capital Access Equity

By: Brian Trelstad, Mel Martin and Amy Klopfenstein

In June 2021, Kim T. Folsom, the founder and CEO of revenue-based financing firm Founders First Capital Partners (FFCP), must decide whether to issue another loan to OnShore Technology Group, an up-and-coming software validation company. FFCP provided revenue-based... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Financial Instruments; Financing and Loans; Interest Rates; Investment Return; Revenue; Capital; Financial Services Industry; North and Central America; United States

August 2012
Article

A Darker Side to Decentralized Banks: Market Power and Credit Rationing in SME Lending

By: Rodrigo Canales and Ramana Nanda

We use loan-level data to study how the organizational structure of banks impacts small business lending. We find that decentralized banks-where branch managers have greater autonomy over lending decisions-give larger loans to small firms and those with "soft... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Customers; Financing and Loans; Credit; Organizational Structure; Banks and Banking; Governance Compliance; Competitive Strategy

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21 Dec 2009
Research & Ideas

Good Banks, Bad Banks, and Government’s Role as Fixer

assets seems to be based on the assumption that banks are the primary originator of new loans. In fact, banks accounted for only 22 percent of the credit extended in the United States. The main cause of... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson; Banking; Banking

February 1994
Case

Fremont Financial Corporation

Fremont Financial is an asset-based lender to middle-market companies. The firm has three options to raise capital to finance its loan portfolio. Fremont can (1) extend its existing bank line of credit, (2) issue commercial paper through a special purpose-conduit, or... View Details

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

November 2019 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Marcus by Goldman Sachs

By: Rory McDonald, Samir Junnarkar and David Lane

Five years on from the 2008 financial crisis, Goldman Sachs remained wounded. Revenues at the global investment bank had stagnated below pre-crisis levels, and the firm had yet to rebound from a substantial decline in securities-trading revenues. Marcus by Goldman... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Banks and Banking; Innovation Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Organizational Culture; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom

December 1961 (Revised January 1994)
Case

Plowman Poultry Farm

By: Samuel L. Hayes III

A poultry farmer wanted to expand production greatly and sought a large extension of his line of credit from his bank in addition to his existing loan on which he had not made payment. The Board of Directors must review a detailed account of events leading to this... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Expansion; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financing and Loans; Commercial Banking; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

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29 Apr 2015
News

Recession not over yet for retailers, other small businesses

January 2021 (Revised March 2021)
Case

Juno (A): Leveraging Student Power

By: Joshua Schwartzstein, Kathleen L. McGinn and Amy Klopfenstein

In March 2020, Chris Abkarians and Nikhil Agarwal were in the midst of preparing the annual auction for their student loan assistance startup, Juno. Both current MBA students at Harvard Business School, the duo founded Juno in 2018 to leverage student bargaining power... View Details

2023
Working Paper

Applications or Approvals: What Drives Racial Disparities in the Paycheck Protection Program?

By: Sergey Chernenko, Nathan Kaplan, Asani Sarkar and David S. Scharfstein

We use the 2020 Small Business Credit Survey to study the sources of racial disparities in use of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Black-owned firms are 8.9 percentage points less likely than observably similar white-owned firms to receive PPP loans. About 55% of... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Small Business; Race; Financing and Loans

SSRN

16 Sep 2014
News

Use Data to Fix the Small Business Lending Gap

13 Aug 2012
News

When Good Incentives Lead to Bad Decisions

01 Mar 2011
News

Turning a Profit by Helping the Poor

June 2023
Article

Why Is Dollar Debt Cheaper? Evidence from Peru

By: Bryan Gutiérrez, Victoria Ivashina and Juliana Salomao

In emerging markets, a significant share of corporate loans are denominated in dollars. Using novel data that enables us to see currency and the cost of credit, in addition to several other transaction-level characteristics, we re-examine the reasons behind dollar... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Market Corporate Debt; Currency Mismatch; Liability Dollarization; Carry Trade; Currency; Emerging Markets; Borrowing and Debt; Interest Rates; Peru

SSRN

January 2008 (Revised September 2009)
Case

Financing American Housing Construction in the Aftermath of War

By: David Moss and Cole Bolton

At the start of WWI, the United States faced a significant housing shortage. Public officials feared the spread of disease—and even communism—in the nation's cramped urban centers where vacancy rates held near zero and families often "doubled up" in single-housing... View Details

Keywords: Central Banking; Bonds; Mortgages; Government Legislation; Business History; Housing; Banking Industry; United States