Publications

March 2017
Case

Mindspark: Improving Educational Outcomes in India

By: Shawn Cole and Tony L. He

March 2017
Case

SKS Microfinance (Abridged)

By: Shawn Cole and Theresa Chen

Vikram Akula, CEO of SKS Microfinance, seeks a venture capital investment to fund his firm. SKS, one of the largest and fastest growing microfinance institutions in India, is a profitable, for-profit institution with a social mission. In what is one of the first... View Details

Keywords: For-Profit Firms; Venture Capital; Microfinance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Valuation; Financial Services Industry; India

15 Oct 2019
News

Advancing China’s Impact Investing Ecosystem

hoped to advance an impact investing ecosystem in China. The course was taught by Shawn Cole, the John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration, and Senior Lecturer Vikram S. Gandhi. In just weeks, she... View Details

December 2019
Supplement

The Rise Fund: TPG Bets Big on Impact

By: Vikram S Gandhi and Shawn A. Cole

October 2018
Teaching Plan

Root Capital and the Efficient Impact Frontier

By: Shawn A. Cole and Caitlin Reimers Brumme

Article

Targeting Weather Insurance Markets

By: Anita Mukherjee, Shawn Cole and Jeremy Tobacman

The suitability of insurance products often depends greatly on individual circumstances. This paper examines the challenges of heterogeneity in a relatively new product, weather‐indexed insurance. This index insurance product has been launched in over a dozen... View Details

Keywords: Index Insurance; Labor Markets; Self-insurance; Self-protection; Weather; Insurance; Markets; Household; Risk Management

Find at Harvard

01 Sep 2013
News

Pens Down

Illustration by Dan Page In May, on the eve of the HBS application season, MBA Admissions director Dee Leopold (MBA 1980) announced a change for Class of 2016 hopefuls. There would be only one essay question: In addition to your résumé,... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

08 Jun 2010
First Look

First Look: June 8

Epstein, and Kristi Yuthas Publication:In Scaling Social Impact: New Thinking, edited by Paul Bloom and Edward Skloot. Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming An abstract is unavailable at this time. Order this Book:... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Web

Sustainable Investing - Course Catalog

HBS Course Catalog Sustainable Investing Course Number 1495 Senior Lecturer Vikram Gandhi Professor Shawn Cole Spring; Q4; 1.5 credits Paper/project The course won the 2021 Teaching Recognition Award for... View Details

21 Nov 2024
News

Mother Nurture

Julia Cole, Tina Keshani, and Sophia Richter (Illustration by Gisela Goppel) When Tina Keshani (MBA 2020), Julia Cole (MBA 2020), and Sophia Richter (MBA 2020) met at Startup Boot Camp in their first year at HBS, they quickly discovered they shared a vision to create a... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley

November 2018 (Revised January 2019)
Case

Investing in Nature: The Nature Conservancy and NatureVest 2018

By: Shawn A. Cole and Caitlin Reimers Brumme

2020
Working Paper

Anchors Aweigh: Analysis of Anchor Limited Partner Investors in Impact Investment Funds

By: Shawn A. Cole, T. Robert Zochowski, Fanele Mashwama and Heather McPherson

This note describes results from a survey of “anchor investors” in impact funds. Anchor investors are described as “generally the first investor to make a substantial capital commitment to a fund,” (according to the Global Impact Investing Network, “GIIN”) and their... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investment Funds; Anchor Investors; Investment; Surveys; Analysis

2012
Chapter

Evidence from the Firm: A New Approach to Understanding Corruption

By: Shawn A. Cole and Anh Tran

Due to its clandestine nature, most of what we understand about corruption comes from survey evidence and self-reported perceptions of corruption: this limits both the range of questions that can be asked and the precision of answers that can be provided. This chapter... View Details

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Crime and Corruption; Organizations; Ownership; Asia

13 Nov 2020
News

Student Startups Help Fight COVID-19

startup, which is led by Sophia Richter, Tina Beilinson, and Julia Cole (all MBA 2020), quickly adapted its affordable online offerings to include classes geared to birth and postpartum challenges associated... View Details

2014
Chapter

Comparative Regulation of Market Intermediaries: Insights from the Indian Life Insurance Market

By: Santosh Anagol, Shawn A. Cole and Shayak Sarkar

28 Aug 2012
First Look

First Look: August 28

attributable to comparability. Together, the findings are consistent with mandatory IFRS adoption improving comparability and thus leading to capital market benefits by reducing insiders' ability to exploit private information. Epistemic... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2019
Supplement

Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF Partners)

By: Shawn A. Cole and Vikram S Gandhi

March 2017
Case

Acumen Fund: Lean Data in 2017

By: Shawn A. Cole and Tony L He

2010
Other Unpublished Work

Is High School the Right Time to Teach Self-control? The Effect of Financial Education and Mathematics Courses on Savings Behavior

By: Shawn A. Cole and Gauri Kartini Shastry

Household financial behavior affects household welfare and the economy at large. Yet our understanding of how to improve financial decisions is limited. Recent literature and policy attention have focused on financial education, for example, in high school. We use... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Financial Management; Secondary Education; Behavior; Decision Choices and Conditions; Personal Finance; Household