Publications

November 2010 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Australian Vintage Ltd.

By: David F. Hawkins

Following International Financial Reporting Standards guidance company records a number of significant losses and a related deferred tax asset. View Details

Keywords: Accounting; International Accounting; Financial Statements; Financial Reporting; Taxation; Business or Company Management; Asset Management; Assets; Financial Management; Standards; Australia

Educators

August 2022
Article

Contract Duration and the Costs of Market Transactions

By: Alexander MacKay

The optimal duration of a supply contract balances the costs of reselecting a supplier against the costs of being matched to an inefficient supplier when the contract lasts too long. I develop a structural model of contract duration that captures this tradeoff and... View Details

Keywords: Supply Contracts; Intermediate Goods; Switching Costs; Vertical Relationships; Transaction Costs; Contract Duration; Identification; Supply Chain; Cost; Contracts; Auctions; Mathematical Methods

October 2019
Article

Limited Investment Capital and Credit Spreads

By: Emil N. Siriwardane

Using proprietary credit default swap (CDS) data, I investigate how capital shocks at protection sellers impact pricing in the CDS market. Seller capital shocks—measured as CDS portfolio margin payments—account for 12% of the time-series variation in weekly spread... View Details

Keywords: Credit Risk; Derivatives; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Capital Markets; Credit; Financial Institutions

2018
Chapter

Behavioral Household Finance

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

This chapter provides an overview of household finance. The first part summarizes key facts regarding household financial behavior, emphasizing empirical regularities that are inconsistent with the standard classical economic model and discussing extensions of the... View Details

Keywords: Personal Finance; Global Range; Household; Behavior; Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Product Design; Welfare

16 Aug 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The International Politics of IFRS Harmonization

Keywords: by Karthik Ramanna; Accounting

Article

Decreases In Readmissions Credited to Medicare's Program to Reduce Hospital Readmissions Have Been Overstated

By: Christopher Ody, Lucy Msall, Leemore S. Dafny, David Grabowski and David Cutler

Medicare’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) has been credited with lowering risk-adjusted readmission rates for targeted conditions at general acute care hospitals. However, these reductions appear to be illusory or overstated. This is because a... View Details

Keywords: Readmission Rates; Hospitals; Acute Care Hospitals; Medicare; Myocardial Infarction; Heart Failure; Health Care and Treatment

July 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Supplement

Kim Park (B): Liabilities

By: David F. Hawkins, Gregory Miller and V.G. Narayanan

A series of caselets exploring the accounting for liabilities. View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Financial Reporting; International Accounting; Standards; United States

Other Article

Sustainable Strategies and Net-Zero Goals

By: Mark L. Frigo, Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Kaplan and Ramanna describe a rigorous approach, the E-liability method, for companies’ ESG reporting, especially as it pertains to GHG emissions measurements. They argue that the current standards for measuring... View Details

Keywords: Measurement; Sustainability; Net-zero Emissions; Environmental Sustainability; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Measurement and Metrics; Strategy

January 2003 (Revised February 2011)
Tool

Business Analysis and Valuation Model (Version 5)

By: Paul M. Healy, Krishna G. Palepu and Jonathan Barnett

Once you enter company financial statements, this software enables you to standardize them to a common format, make any needed adjustments to the company's accounting, and make assumptions about the company's future performance. The model then provides financial ratios... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Standards; Mathematical Methods; Valuation

February 2011 (Revised July 2011)
Supplement

Caterpillar, Inc. (C)

By: David F. Hawkins

IASB proposes new defined benefit plan accounting standard. View Details

Keywords: International Accounting; Governance; Compensation and Benefits; Standards; Manufacturing Industry; Mining Industry; Consumer Products Industry

07 Jan 2019
News

Decreases In Readmissions Credited To Medicare’s Program To Reduce Hospital Readmissions Have Been Overstated

23 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

Financial Reporting Goes Global

As business goes global, pressure is increasing for adoption of a single set of accounting standards worldwide. In this e-mail interview, Harvard Business School professor Gregory S. Miller discusses this... View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia Churchwell; Accounting; Accounting

Article

Meaning and Momentum in the Integrated Reporting Movement

By: Robert G. Eccles, Michael P. Krzus and Sydney Ribot

In this summary of their recently published book, the authors provide an update of the state of the integrated reporting (or ) movement, whose aim is to persuade companies to provide fuller disclosure of material nonfinancial (or "ESG") factors and how they are... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Reporting; Integrated Corporate Reporting

May 2002 (Revised July 2002)
Background Note

U.S. Educational System:The, Key Issues and the Role of Business Leadership

Explores the area of education and ways in which corporations have played a role in its improvement. Not intended to cover all examples of corporate involvement but, instead, to provide a sense of the range of ways that corporations have become involved, either... View Details

Keywords: Education; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Education Industry

Research Summary

Overview

Professor Sherman's research has long focused on financial reporting, performance measurement/management, and financial literacy issues facing corporate management and Boards of Directors in global businesses. He also actively studies methods to improve productivity in... View Details

10 Jun 2015
Research & Ideas

The Transparency Revolution in Corporate Reporting

decipher what kind of company they are buying into. The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) is an NGO established in 2011 with designs on cutting through that noise. Much the way the Financial... View Details

Keywords: Re: George Serafeim

10 Sep 2014
News

“An Economy Doing Half Its Job”

2024
Working Paper

Scaling Core Earnings Measurement with Large Language Models

By: Matthew Shaffer and Charles CY Wang

We study the application of large language models (LLMs) to the estimation of core earnings, i.e., a firm's persistent profitability from its core business activities. This construct is central to investors' assessments of economic performance and valuations. However,... View Details