Publications

Find at Harvard

Register to Read

06 Oct 2017
News

Making Patients and Doctors Happier — The Potential of Patient-Reported Outcomes

9 AM – 10 AM EDT, 19 Oct 2017
Webinars: Trending@HBS

Innovative Finance for the Common Good

Whether it's a vaccine or green bond, drought insurance, pay-as-you-go financing for solar electricity in Kenya, or discounted metro cards in New York, innovative finance is as much about incentives and sound decision making as it is about money; when it works,... View Details

Mihir A. Desai

Mihir A. Desai is the Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance at Harvard Business School and a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He received his Ph.D. in political economy from Harvard... View Details

November 2011 (Revised June 2013)
Case

Allied Electronics Corporation Ltd: Linking Compensation to Sustainability Metrics

Robert Venter, second-generation Chief Executive (CE) of family-owned Allied Electronics Corporation Ltd (Altron), considered the pros and cons of more clearly linking the firm's compensation system to sustainability performance. In June 2011, Altron, a conglomerate... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Environmental Sustainability

November 2007
Case

AXA MONY

By: Lucy White and Andre F. Perold

AXA's friendly bid for MONY is contested by activist hedge funds suspicious of management's generous change in control contracts. Votes trade after the record date. AXA financed the bid using an unusual conditionally convertible bond which may have affected incentives... View Details

Keywords: Bonds; Ethics; Bids and Bidding

2000
Other Unpublished Work

Do Executive Stock Options Encourage Risk-Taking?

By: Randolph B. Cohen, Brian J. Hall and Luis M. Viceira

Executive stock options create incentives for executives to manage firms in ways that maximize firm market value. Since options increase in value with the volatility of the underlying stock, executive stock options provide managers with incentives to take actions that... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Motivation and Incentives; Stock Options; Executive Compensation

Read Now

26 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 26, 2008

similar behavior following periods of poor financial performance. In addition to offering promotions more frequently, we find that firms offer deeper price discounts to manage earnings during these periods. Furthermore, our results... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

26 Feb 2019
Blog Post

Forget Cash. Here Are Better Ways to Motivate Employees

incentives for future work. Decades of research does confirm that financial incentives can boost effort and performance. But there’s a downside; when an employee’s pay is... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

January 2017
Article

Innovation Under Regulatory Uncertainty: Evidence from Medical Technology

By: Ariel Dora Stern

This paper explores how the regulatory approval process affects innovation incentives in medical technologies. Prior studies have found early mover regulatory advantages for drugs. I find the opposite for medical devices, where pioneer entrants spend 34% (7.2 months)... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Find at Harvard

Read Now

2011
Working Paper

Fiduciary Duties and Equity-Debtholder Conflicts

By: Bo Becker and Per Stromberg

We use an important legal event as a natural experiment to examine the effect of management fiduciary duties on equity-debt conflicts. A 1991 Delaware bankruptcy ruling changed the nature of corporate directors' fiduciary duties in firms incorporated in that state.... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Capital Structure; Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Laws and Statutes; Conflict and Resolution; Welfare or Wellbeing; Delaware

Read Now

20 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 20, 2008

financial gain, and (b) inducing them to act as agents of the stockholders by devising incentives that minimize the difference between the financial returns to stockholders and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

July 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Supplement

Executive Pay and the Credit Crisis of 2008 (B)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

As the recession lingered on into 2009, the U.S. government sought to limit executive pay and excessive risk. The debate raged over what constituted excessive risk and how best to mitigate it. This case describes the government restrictions on executive pay for TARP... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government Legislation; Executive Compensation; Risk Management; Business and Government Relations; Motivation and Incentives; United States

2013
Chapter

The Most Successful CEOs Come from Within

By: Joseph L. Bower

The financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession caused a crisis of public confidence in business and American-style capitalism, with its focus on maximizing shareholder value. Corporate leaders understood that reform was needed and that they needed to commit... View Details

Keywords: Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Succession; Business and Community Relations; Management Teams

October 2012 (Revised July 2014)
Background Note

The Role of the Government in the Early Development of American Venture Capital

By: Josh Lerner and Tom Nicholas

Whether the government or markets, or a mixture of both, can provide efficient and effective incentives for encouraging entrepreneurial activity and new venture financing is an age-old question. Public promotion efforts are controversial and in most cases they tend to... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business and Government Relations; United States

Susanna View Details

Keywords: health care

October 2013 (Revised November 2018)
Background Note

Note on the Leveraged Loan Market

By: Victoria Ivashina

This note provides an introduction to the process of loan syndication and the evolution of the leveraged loan market. The note emphasizes the role of banks as loan originators and the evolution of the institutional investors' entry into the leveraged loan market. In... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Banks and Banking

January 2025 (Revised April 2025)
Case

Blue Frontier: Disrupting Air Conditioning

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jacob A. Small

Serial entrepreneur Daniel Betts founded Blue Frontier in South Florida to offer a climate-friendly solution to increase air conditioning efficiency and dehumidify using new technology he developed. Backed by significant venture capital, Blue Frontier had to choose... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Technological Innovation; Market Entry and Exit; Performance Efficiency; Business Strategy; Florida

2014
Chapter

Payout Policy

By: Joan Farre-Mensa, Roni Michaely and Martin Schmalz

We survey the literature on payout policy, with a particular emphasis on developments in the last two decades. Of the traditional motives of why firms pay out (agency, signaling, and taxes), the cross-sectional empirical evidence is most persuasive in favor of agency... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Investment; Financial Services Industry