Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,968)
- Faculty Publications (336)
- July 2007 (Revised May 2008)
- Case
Central Bank: The ChexSystemsSM QualiFile® Decision
By: Dennis Campbell, Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, Peter Tufano and Emily McClintock
The "Central Bank" series analyzes the use of information and product design for managing the counterparty risk of newly acquired customers. Central Bank, a mid-sized regional U.S. bank, was attempting to grow its customer base by increasing the number of new checking... View Details
- April 2007
- Case
ABN AMRO Bank N.V.: Global Change Agents
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Lance P. Pierce and Ryan Leo Raffaelli
ABN AMRO Global Banking Group developed its risk management function in response to expansion, and increasingly focused on environmental and social risks. The head of the function needed to influence policies and business decisions in a highly decentralized context in... View Details
- February 2007 (Revised October 2007)
- Case
BASIX
By: Shawn A. Cole and Peter Tufano
BASIX, an Indian microfinance corporation, must decide whether to continue to sell weather insurance to its clients. A brand-new financial product, weather insurance pays if measured rainfall during the growing season falls below a pre-specified limit. Mr. Sattaiah,... View Details
- January 2007 (Revised March 2011)
- Case
Yale University Investments Office: August 2006
By: Josh Lerner
The Yale Investments Office must decide whether to continue to allocate the bulk of the university's endowment to illiquid investments--hedge funds, private equity, real estate, and so forth. Considers the risks and benefits of a different asset allocation strategy.... View Details
- October 2006 (Revised March 2008)
- Case
2006 Hurricane Risk
By: Andre F. Perold and Erik Stafford
In May 2006, a resident of Key West, Florida had to decide whether to renew his policy to insure against hurricane damage. The policy would cost $13,000 for one year, $5,000 more than what he paid in 2005. At the same time, a wealthy California resident was... View Details
- June 2006 (Revised April 2007)
- Case
Nephila: Innovation in Catastrophe Risk Insurance
By: Kenneth A. Froot and Michael Heinrich
At the cross-section of capital markets and the catastrophe insurance space stands the hedge fund Nephila. Nephila must decide how best to take advantage of the newly presented market opportunities post hurricanes Katrina, Wilma, and Rita. Nephila has a plethora of... View Details
- March 2006
- Course Overview Note
International Finance: A Course Overview Note
By: Mihir A. Desai
Describes the International Finance course at Harvard Business School, which argues that the forces of globalization have fundamentally changed the scope and activities of firms, thereby altering the practice of finance within these firms. As a consequence of an... View Details
- March 2006
- Case
Wells Fargo Convertible Bonds
By: Malcolm P. Baker and Elizabeth Kind
Howard Atkins, the chief financial officer of Wells Fargo, is considering issuing $3 billion in convertible debt. With an investment-grade credit rating, Wells Fargo is not the typical issuer of convertible securities, but the market conditions in 2003 are unusual.... View Details
- March 2006 (Revised December 2013)
- Case
Hexcel Turnaround — 2001 (A)
By: Paul W. Marshall, James Quinn and Reed Martin
Hexcel's new CEO is faced with deciding how to "take out" $60 million in cash costs in fiscal 2002, as two of the company's end markets—electronics and commercial aerospace—are expected to decline precipitously. Options include closing plants, exiting a business, or... View Details
- June 2005 (Revised January 2007)
- Case
Equator Principles, The: An Industry Approach to Managing Environmental and Social Risks
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Aldo Sesia
In June 2003, 10 leading international banks adopted new voluntary guidelines, called the Equator Principles, to promote sustainable development in project finance. In recent years, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) had raised issues about the lenders'... View Details
- April 2005 (Revised January 2007)
- Case
Furman Selz LLC (A): A Tale of Two Acquisitions
By: Nancy D. Beaulieu, Boris Groysberg and Kyle Doherty
Profiles a firm that was reacquired by two companies with different degrees of success. Highlights integration challenges present in acquisition deals when the primary assets of the target are human capital. Focuses on Furman Selz's acquisition by Xerox in 1987; its... View Details
- April 2005 (Revised March 2007)
- Case
eAccess, Ltd.
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Masako Egawa and Ariko Ota
The managers of eAccess, Japan's third largest provider of digital subscriber line (DSL) service, must decide whether to enter the mobile communications business. Japan's mobile services are among the world's most expensive, and incumbent carriers' profits are high. To... View Details
- March 2005 (Revised July 2007)
- Case
Capital Controls in Chile in the 1990s (A)
By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel
In 1991, Chile adopted a framework of capital controls focused on reducing the massive flows of foreign investment coming into the country as international interest rates remained low. Capital inflows threatened the Central Bank's ability to manage the exchange rate... View Details
- March 2005
- Article
Sovereign Debt As a Contingent Claim: A Quantitative Approach
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
We construct a dynamic equilibrium model with contingent service and adverse selection to quantitatively study sovereign debt. In the model, benefits of defaulting are tempered by higher future interest rates. For a wide set of parameters, the only equilibrium is one... View Details
- January 2005 (Revised August 2006)
- Case
Lean Forward Media
By: Teresa M. Amabile and Victoria Winston
Jeff Norton and Michelle Crames, the co-founders of Lean Forward Media, face several options for producing the world's first interactive DVD film for children. Their vision is to build a company whose products simultaneously entertain children, engage them actively in... View Details
- September 2004
- Case
Valhalla Partners Due Diligence
By: William A. Sahlman and Dan Heath
The Valhalla Partners venture capitial firm introduced a new approach to the due-diligence process. An internal due-diligence report analyzes Telco Exchange, a startup company in the IT software space. An extended excerpt examines the trade-offs involved in the new... View Details
- May 2004 (Revised April 2006)
- Case
Ultra: The Quest for Leadership (A)
By: Dwight B. Crane and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho
Ultra is one of a small group of competing Brazilian petrochemical companies, each of which buys raw material and is a minority owner of Copene, a "cracking" company that provides ethylene and other materials. Because of an industry restructuring, an auction of shares... View Details
- January 2004 (Revised June 2004)
- Case
Innovation at the Treasury: Treasury Inflation-Protection Securities (A)
By: Kenneth A. Froot, Peter A. Hecht and Christopher Edward James Payton
In 1997, the U.S. Treasury was deciding whether to proceed with a proposal to issue inflation-indexed bonds. This case explores the challenges facing innovation in the financial markets as the Treasury tries to determine whether to introduce Treasury... View Details
- December 2003 (Revised October 2006)
- Case
Globalizing the Cost of Capital and Capital Budgeting at AES
By: Mihir A. Desai and Douglas Kurt Schillinger
With electricity generating businesses around the world, AES Corp. is seeking a methodology for calculating the cost of capital for its various businesses and potential projects. In the past, AES used the same cost of capital for all of its capital budgeting, but the... View Details