Publications

18 May 2010
News

Brands and the Dark Side of Social Media

19 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

Inexperienced Investors and Market Bubbles

"Past performance is no guarantee of future results." —standard financial disclaimer Neophyte investors—it is believed—play a role in creating asset price bubbles such as the tech collapse a few years ago. Just think back to the seventeenth century Tulip... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

2025
Working Paper

Code-Washing: Evidence from Open-Source Blockchain Startups

By: Ofir Gefen, Daniel Rabetti, Yannan Sun and Che Zhang

This study examines startups' management of source code repositories, distinguishing authentic developers ("code-producers''), from those inflating activity to mislead investors ("code-washers''). Using global blockchain startup and GitHub data, we find that... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Open Source Distribution; Business Startups

SSRN

October 2011 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Kroll Bond Rating Agency

The established credit raters were criticized for inflating the mortgage credit bubble that imploded in 2008. A new rating agency, KBRA, is considering how to capitalize on the opportunity this presents and how to enter the industry. A small group of managers have to... View Details

Keywords: Financial Instruments; Financial Management; Financial Services Industry

13 Jul 2020
News

Inflation: baskets of plenty

June 2014
Case

Going Social: Durex in China

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski and Aaron Smith

When Reckitt Benckiser (RB), a leading consumer goods company, first entered China, it encountered significant challenges. RB's strategy relied on selling high margin products supported by cost-effective advertising and distribution, but the highly competitive Chinese... View Details

Keywords: Distribution; Multinational Firms and Management; Internet and the Web; Marketing Communications; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; China

December 2020
Article

Sovereign Debt Portfolios, Bond Risks, and the Credibility of Monetary Policy

By: Wenxin Du, Carolin Pflueger and Jesse Schreger

We document that governments whose local currency debt provides them with greater hedging benefits actually borrow more in foreign currency. We introduce two features into a government's debt portfolio choice problem to explain this finding: risk-averse lenders and... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Currency; Policy; Risk and Uncertainty

Working Paper

Rebates in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Evidence from Medicines Sold in Retail Pharmacies in the U.S.

By: Pragya Kakani, Michael Chernew and Amitabh Chandra

Rising list prices are often used to illustrate the burden of prescription drug spending, but payers routinely negotiate rebates from manufacturers that generate differences between list and net prices. List prices are easily available and affect patient cost-sharing,... View Details

Keywords: Pharmaceuticals; Rebates; Health Care and Treatment; Markets; Price; Analysis; Pharmaceutical Industry

Read Now

September 2019 (Revised December 2023)
Case

Accounting Fraud at Tesco Stores (A)

By: Jonas Heese, Suraj Srinivasan and Julia Kelley

This case describes the accounting fraud at Tesco Stores Limited (TSL), which was discovered by a senior accountant in TSL’s finance department. The accountant was concerned about TSL’s handling of commercial income, which, according to the accountant, overstated... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Crime and Corruption; Organizational Culture; Corporate Accountability

08 May 2013
News

Hospital Prices No Longer Secret As New Data Reveals Bewildering System, Staggering Cost Differences

01 Apr 2022
News

Can Supply Chain Disruptions Lead To a Recession?

June 2018
Case

Japan: Deficits, Deflation and Debt

By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Haviland Sheldahl-Thomason

In April 2018, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was again in Washington to petition Donald Trump. After years of rapid, export-led growth, Japan had slumped into recession in 1991 and never really recovered. For the past 27 years, its economy has grown at 1.1% annually,... View Details

Keywords: Deflation; Debt; Country Analysis; Monetary Expansion; Population Growth; Inflation and Deflation; Borrowing and Debt; Economy; Energy; National Security; Japan

Article

Gross National Happiness As an Answer to the Easterlin Paradox?

By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch

The Easterlin Paradox refers to the fact that happiness data are typically stationary in spite of considerable increases in income. This amounts to a rejection of the hypothesis that current income is the only argument in the utility function. We find that the... View Details

Keywords: Wealth and Poverty; Happiness; Employment; Income; Mathematical Methods; Welfare

Read Now

October 2022
Article

Sovereign Risk, Currency Risk, and Corporate Balance Sheets

By: Wenxin Du and Jesse Schreger

We provide a comprehensive account of the evolution of the currency composition of sovereign and corporate external borrowing by emerging markets from 2003 to 2017. We show that a higher reliance on foreign currency debt by the corporate sector is associated with... View Details

Keywords: Currency; International Finance

Working Paper

Benchmarking Against the Performance of High Profile 'Scandal' Firms

By: Emre Karaoglu, Tatiana Sandino and Randy Beatty

In recent years, several high profile firms engaged in accounting fraud that resulted in severe investor losses and erosion of trust in the capital markets. We examine high profile accounting "scandals" prosecuted by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Unlike most... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Ethics; Executive Compensation; Performance Evaluation; Financial Services Industry; United States