Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,599)
- Faculty Publications (252)
- Article
Debt Maturity: Is Long-Term Debt Optimal?
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
We model and calibrate the arguments in favor and against short-term and long-term debt. These arguments broadly include: maturity premium, sustainability, and service smoothing. We use a dynamic equilibrium model with tax distortions and government... View Details
- 2008
- Chapter
A New Generation of Pension Fund Management
By: Robert C. Merton
In talking about pension plans at this point in American economic and corporate history, we need to discuss three linked issues: the defined-benefit (DB) corporate plans that worked for our parents; the defined-contribution (DC) plans we're getting today because... View Details
- Article
MIT Roundtable on Corporate Risk Management
By: Robert C. Merton
Against the backdrop of financial crisis, a distinguished group of academics and practitioners discusses the contribution of financial management and innovation to corporate growth and value, along with the pitfalls and unintended consequences of such innovation.... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
New Framework for Measuring and Managing Macrofinancial Risk and Financial Stability
By: Dale F. Gray, Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie
This paper proposes a new approach to improve the way central banks can analyze and manage the financial risks of a national economy. It is based on the modern theory and practice of contingent claims analysis (CCA), which is successfully used today at the level of... View Details
- June 2008 (Revised October 2008)
- Case
International Carbon Finance and EcoSecurities
By: Andre F. Perold, Forest L. Reinhardt and Mikell Hyman
In late 2007, EcoSecurities had to decide whether to undertake a new Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project in China. EcoSecurities was an aggregator of carbon credits and also invested directly in projects that produced carbon credits. Governments and firms... View Details
- March 2008 (Revised March 2010)
- Module Note
Global Capital and National Institutions: Crisis and Choice in the International Financial Architecture
By: Laura Alfaro
This module note presents a series of case studies taught in the Harvard Business School course Institutions, Macroeconomics, and the Global Economy (IMaGE). The course addresses the opportunities created by the emergence of a global economy and proposes strategies for... View Details
- March 8, 2008
- Comment
Marketing Your Way Through a Recession
By: John A. Quelch
The signs of an imminent recession are all around us. The spillover from the subprime mortgage crisis is weakening both consumer confidence and the consumer spending—much of it on credit—that has been buoying the U.S. economy. View Details
Keywords: Marketing; Recession; Products And Sales; Core Values; Fluctuation; Volatility; Economic Growth; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Growth and Development; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Risk and Uncertainty; Salesforce Management; Asia; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America
- January 2008 (Revised August 2008)
- Case
The Time Warner Center: Mixed-Use Development
By: A. Eugene Kohn, Arthur I Segel and David Lane
Despite the failure of other attempts to bring mixed use development in New York City, Related Companies in 2004 opened Time Warner Center, a huge complex incorporating offices, shops, restaurants, music auditoriums, a hotel, and luxury apartments on Columbus Circle in... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
New Framework for Measuring and Managing Macrofinancial Risk and Financial Stability
By: Dale F. Gray, Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie
This paper proposes a new approach to improve the way central banks can analyze and manage the financial risks of a national economy. It is based on the modern theory and practice of contingent claims analysis (CCA), which is successfully used today at the level of... View Details
- March 2006 (Revised November 2010)
- Background Note
Protecting Foreign Investors
Describes the emergence of several kinds of efforts to assure the safety of foreign investment in emerging markets: international arbitration, expanded official political risk insurance, credit from government agencies, and intervention by investors' home governments.... View Details
- March 2006 (Revised June 2010)
- Case
Eldeco: Playing in the Big League
By: Arthur I Segel, Nicolas P. Retsinas and Siddarth Yog
In 2001, Pankaj Bajaj is considering whether to go forward with a residential development outside New Delhi. Facing an uncooperative local authority, he must determine how to evaluate the risks of proceeding against the potential loss of a golden opportunity to bring... View Details
- January 2006 (Revised February 2006)
- Case
E.ON Corporate Strategy
By: Forest L. Reinhardt and Sebastian Frankenberger
Examines the corporate strategy of German energy giant E.ON. The firm is vertically integrated, horizontally diversified across electricity and natural gas, and active in numerous countries in Europe as well as in the United States. Explores the costs and benefits of... View Details
- January 2006 (Revised July 2006)
- Case
Drug Testing in Nigeria (A)
By: Debora L. Spar
In 1996, a meningitis epidemic swept across Nigeria. Thousands of children were struck and, lacking appropriate medicine, were liable to die from the disease. Doctors at Pfizer had an antibiotic that could probably save most of these children's lives. The drug was new,... View Details
- July 2005 (Revised September 2020)
- Case
The U.S. Current Account Deficit
By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael Di Tella, Ingrid Vogel, Renee Kim, Sarah Jeong, Matthew Johnson and Jonathan Schlefer
Investors and policymakers throughout the world were confronted with the risk of painful economic consequences arising from the large U.S. current account deficit. In 2007, the U.S. current account deficit was $731 billion, equivalent to 5.3% of GDP. The implications... View Details
- 2005
- Working Paper
Nominal versus Indexed Debt: A Quantitative Horse Race
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
The main arguments in favor of and against nominal and indexed debt are the incentive to default through inflation versus hedging against unforeseen shocks. We model and calibrate these arguments to assess their quantitative importance. We use a dynamic equilibrium... View Details
- August 2004
- Article
Capital Controls, Risk and Liberalization Cycles
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
The paper presents an overlapping-generations model where agents vote on whether to open or close the economy to international capital flows. Political decisions are shaped by the risk over capital and labor returns. In an open economy, the capitalists (old) completely... View Details
Keywords: Business Cycles; Development Economics; Voting; Risk and Uncertainty; Cash Flow; Saving; Investment; Economy; Wages
- May 2004 (Revised April 2006)
- Case
Ultra: The Quest for Leadership (A)
By: Dwight B. Crane and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho
Ultra is one of a small group of competing Brazilian petrochemical companies, each of which buys raw material and is a minority owner of Copene, a "cracking" company that provides ethylene and other materials. Because of an industry restructuring, an auction of shares... View Details
- January 2004 (Revised June 2004)
- Case
Innovation at the Treasury: Treasury Inflation-Protection Securities (A)
By: Kenneth A. Froot, Peter A. Hecht and Christopher Edward James Payton
In 1997, the U.S. Treasury was deciding whether to proceed with a proposal to issue inflation-indexed bonds. This case explores the challenges facing innovation in the financial markets as the Treasury tries to determine whether to introduce Treasury... View Details
- November 2003 (Revised March 2004)
- Case
Drilling South: Petrobras Evaluates Pecom
By: Mihir A. Desai and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho
The Brazilian oil company, Petrobras, is evaluating the acquisition of an Argentine oil company, the Perez Companc Group (Pecom). The acquisition would increase Petrobras' oil reserves and expand its interests outside Brazil, a significant step for the largest company... View Details
Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Forecasting and Prediction; Financial Crisis; Non-Renewable Energy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Corporate Governance; Risk Management; Emerging Markets; State Ownership; Performance Evaluation; Risk and Uncertainty; Valuation; Energy Industry; Argentina; Brazil
- November 2003 (Revised May 2016)
- Case
Weetman Pearson and the Mexican Oil Industry (A)
By: Geoffrey Jones and Lisa Bud-Freirman
Taught in the MBA Evolution of Global Business course, a business history course on the growth of multinationals. Explores the role of the British entrepreneur Weetman Pearson in developing the Mexican oil industry before 1914. Shows this entrepreneur's evolution from... View Details