Publications

March 1992 (Revised December 1992)
Case

Salomon and the Treasury Securities Auction

By: Dwight B. Crane

Set in June 1991, two months prior to Salomon Brothers' announcement that the firm had violated the Treasury Department's rules governing the auctions of new Treasury securities. Salomon Vice Chairman John Meriwether must decide how to address problems that continue to... View Details

Keywords: Debt Securities; Managerial Roles; Ethics; Market Transactions; Bonds; Investment Banking; Crisis Management; Auctions; Legal Liability; Banking Industry

June 2015 (Revised July 2016)
Case

Gilbert Lumber Company

By: Steven Rogers and Kenneth Cooper

The Gilbert Lumber Co. is faced with a need for increased bank financing due to its rapid sales growth and low profitability. Students must determine the reasons for the rising bank borrowing, estimate the amount of borrowing needed, and assess the attractiveness of... View Details

Keywords: Commercial Banking; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Strategy; Financing and Loans; Capital Structure; Forecasting and Prediction

02 Oct 2017
What Do You Think?

Do Bitcoin and Digital Currency Have a Future?

specific use of the asset class when he observed that a possible use of Bitcoin could be “hedge funds betting on sovereign debt defaults.” Charles Sabatier III added that Bitcoin is the most secure financial... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett; Financial Services

25 Jan 2010
Research & Ideas

A Macroeconomic View of the Current Economy

there's in fact no alternative to foreigners buying our assets, either debt or equity. As I said, if you're earning $100,000 and you're spending $106,000, you're going to have to borrow or draw down your assets to make up the difference.... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

December 2010 (Revised June 2018)
Case

The Pecora Hearings

By: David Moss, Cole Bolton and Eugene Kintgen

In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, the Senate Banking Committee began a much-publicized investigation of the nation's financial sector. The hearings, which came to be known as the Pecora hearings after the Banking Committee's lead counsel Ferdinand Pecora,... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Fairness; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Institutions; Debt Securities; Stocks; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government Legislation; History; Financial Services Industry; United States

12 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

Enron’s Lessons for Managers

Some events mark a generation. If a marker is a source of deep learning about ourselves, as Malcolm Salter believes it is, then the Enron crisis is exactly that for business people. Political scientists have the Bay of Pigs; engineers... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

17 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 17, 2007

http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=107060 International Capital Markets and Sovereign Debt: Crisis Avoidance and Resolution Harvard Business School Note 707-018 Successive... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

09 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 9

abstract is unavailable at this time. Download the paper: http://hbr.org/2010/03/bold-retreat/ar/1 Lawsuits and Empire: On the Enforcement of Sovereign Debt in Latin America Authors:Laura Alfaro, Noel... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2013
Article

Are There Too Many Safe Securities? Securitization and the Incentives for Information Production

By: Samuel G. Hanson and Adi Sunderam

We present a model that helps explain several past collapses of securitization markets. Originators issue too many informationally insensitive securities in good times, blunting investor incentives to become informed. The resulting endogenous scarcity of informed... View Details

Keywords: Information; Debt Securities; Financial Crisis

Find at Harvard

Read Now

20 Sep 2016
First Look

September 20, 2016

find that the effects are stronger among innovating Massachusetts firms, particularly those facing greater Wall Street scrutiny. The evidence is consistent with staggered boards improving managers' incentives to make long-term investments. View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

14 Jun 2016
First Look

June 14, 2016

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50814 Fiscal Rules and Sovereign Default By: Alfaro, Laura, and Fabio Kanczuk Abstract—We provide a quantitative analysis of fiscal rules in a standard model of View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Case

The TARP Bailouts: Saving the Banking and Automotive Industries

By: Kristin Mugford

Comparison of the U.S. Government response, using the $700 billion TARP fund, to downturns in the banking and auto industries during the global financial crisis. View Details

Keywords: Bailout; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Banks and Banking; Government and Politics; Debt Securities; Government Legislation; Public Opinion; Auto Industry; Banking Industry; United States

04 Feb 2014
First Look

First Look: February 4

government debt is financed by another sovereign and not by private lenders. Our results show that the failure to consider official flows as the main driver of uphill flows and global imbalances is an... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthlorne

2009
Other Unpublished Work

Danatbank

By: David Moss, Cole Bolton and Andrew Novo

In the summer of 1931, Germany was struggling with a deepening economic crisis. Production had fallen, unemployment was high, and bank deposits and gold were being withdrawn from the country at a rapid pace, threatening the value of the German mark. The country's third... View Details

Keywords: Financial History; Economy; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Banking Industry; Germany