Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(7,282)
- Faculty Publications (2,275)
- March 2022 (Revised May 2022)
- Case
Reclaiming the Land of Purple: Purpl’s Mission to Unlock Finance in Lebanon
By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger
Karl Naim, Co-Founder and CEO of Purpl, embarked on a venture to lower remittance costs for his native Lebanon. Since October 2019, the Lebanese economy had entered a free fall as its banking sector collapsed and large swathes of its population were plunged into... View Details
Keywords: Business Startup; Fintech; Inflation; Deflation; Cross-border Frictions; Remittances; Business Startups; Diasporas; Financial Crisis; Money; Entrepreneurship; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Poverty; Financial Institutions; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Lebanon
- March 2022
- Background Note
Climate Challenges for Cities: Introduction to Issues and Actions in the United States
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Catarina Mia Martinez
This background Note introduces the implications of climate change (global warming) for American cities. In the U.S., partisan political divides and unaddressed economic and racial disparities in climate vulnerabilities can inhibit action. The two main fronts for... View Details
Keywords: Climate Change; Cities; Emission Reduction; Change; Change Leadership; Electric Power Generation; Transportation; Recycling; Green Business; Green Building; Ecosystem; Construction; Systems Change; Cross-sector Collaboration; Adaptation; Geographic Location; Resource Allocation; Infrastructure; Government and Politics; Social Issues; Urban Development; United States
- March 2022 (Revised February 2023)
- Case
Sunōmi Switchel: Time to Switch?
By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Shani Carter McKinney and Alexandra Horvitz
Nicole Blank has bootstrapped her functional beverage company, Sunōmi Switchel, to contracts with leading grocery retailers. She is now faced with a series of choices for if and how to continue to grow the business. View Details
- March 2022 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
Applied Intuition: Powering Autonomy
By: Andy Wu, Rocio Wu and Matt Higgins
Applied Intuition, a leader in autonomous vehicle simulation software, has just closed on a $175 million round of Series D financing that values the four-year-old firm at $3.6 billion. With the immediate future secure, CEO Qasar Younis must now chart a strategic course... View Details
- March 2022
- Case
In Data We Trust: Be Mobile Africa and Furthering Financial Inclusion Across the African Continent
By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Pierre Marchesseault
To Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020.... View Details
Keywords: Finance; Fintech; Emerging Market; Fundraising; Financial Inclusion; Strategy; Expansion; Management; Entrepreneurship; Personal Finance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Africa; Togo; Nigeria; Ghana
- March 2022 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
John F. Kennedy: Changing the World
By: Robert Simons and Max Saffer
This case traces the rise of John F. Kennedy from a wealthy family in Boston to president of the United States. The case describes how Kennedy, as a young man, lived a privileged life in the shadow of his older brother, Joe. When Joe was killed in World War II, Jack... View Details
- March 2022 (Revised April 2023)
- Case
Pittsburgh: A Successful City?
Pittsburgh, PA, was once the crown jewel of American heavy industry. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the city was an undisputed leader in steel production, boasting some of the largest companies and wealthiest individuals in the world. Its abundance of... View Details
Keywords: Economic And Social Disparities; Economic Development; Local Economic Development; Contextual Intelligence; Contextual Knowledge; Context; City Growth; City Innovation; City Leadership; Pittsburgh; Local Government; Local Stakeholders; Business And Community; Business And Community Relations; Community Engagement; Community Relations; Cross-sector Collaboration; Innovation; Innovation Economy; Innovation Clusters; Innovation Ecosystems; Shared Prosperity; Equality Of Opportunity; Equity; Inclusion; Business And Government; Business ＆ Government Relations; Business And Government Relations; Business And Society; Neighborhoods; Race And Ethnicity; Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Diversity; Ethnicity; Race; Household; Income; Economic Growth; Economic Sectors; Economics; Local Range; Urban Development; Urban Scope; City; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Government and Politics; Government Administration; Growth and Development; History; Leadership; Goals and Objectives; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Society; Civil Society or Community; Culture; Human Needs; Public Opinion; Public Sector; Social Issues; Poverty; Equality and Inequality; Manufacturing Industry; Steel Industry; Education Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Technology Industry; United States; Pittsburgh; Pennsylvania
- March 2022
- Case
Abu Issa Holding: Navigating the Qatar Blockade
By: Mark Egan and Youssef Abdel Aal
The case follows Ashraf Abu Issa, CEO and chairman of Abu Issa Holding (AIH), as he contemplated the fate of his company’s regional expansion. AIH was a Qatari diversified holding company, whose primary business was luxury retailing and distribution. Abu Issa had set... View Details
- March 2022
- Article
Contractual Restrictions and Debt Traps
By: Ernest Liu and Benjamin N. Roth
Microcredit and other forms of small-scale finance have failed to catalyze entrepreneurship in developing countries. In these credit markets, borrowers and lenders often bargain over not only the interest rate but also implicit restrictions on types of investment. We... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
High-Yield Debt Covenants and Their Real Effects
By: Falk Bräuning, Victoria Ivashina and Ali Ozdagli
High-yield debt including leveraged loans is characterized by incurrence financial covenants, or “cov-lite” provisions. A traditional loan agreement includes maintenance covenants, which require continuous compliance with the covenant threshold, and their violation... View Details
- March 2022
- Article
Loan Types and the Bank Lending Channel
By: Victoria Ivashina, Luc Laeven and Enrique Moral-Benito
Using credit-registry data for Spain and Peru, we document that four main types of commercial credit—asset-based loans, cash flow loans, trade finance and leasing—are easily identifiable and represent the bulk of corporate credit. We show that credit growth dynamics... View Details
- March 2022 (Revised December 2022)
- Case
Perch
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Stacy Straaberg and Julia Kelley
In May 2021, Perch CEO Chris Bell needed to decide whether his e-commerce aggregator company, which bought and scaled Amazon Marketplace brands, should acquire up to three acquisition targets. The prospective acquisitions, Web Deals Direct, HomeCo, and Future Brands,... View Details
Keywords: Business Ventures; Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Making; Cost vs Benefits; Decision Choices and Conditions; Decisions; Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Strategy; Business Strategy; Integration; E-commerce; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; North America; United States; Massachusetts; Boston; California; Asia; Philippines
- March 2022
- Teaching Note
Sawiris Foundation: Elevating Education in Egypt
By: Brian Trelstad and Alpana Thapar
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 322-023. Founded in 2001 by the Sawiris family, one of the wealthiest families in Egypt, the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD) invested in human capital and provision of basic social services for the most marginalized... View Details
- March 2022
- Article
Targeting High Ability Entrepreneurs Using Community Information: Mechanism Design in the Field
Identifying high-growth microentrepreneurs in low-income countries remains a challenge due to a scarcity of verifiable information. With a cash grant experiment in India we demonstrate that community knowledge can help target high-growth microentrepreneurs; while the... View Details
- February 2022 (Revised May 2022)
- Case
Jaypee Infratech and the Indian Bankruptcy Code
By: Kristin Mugford, William Vrattos and Radhika Kak
In 2016, India passed a new bankruptcy law (IBC) to counter a brewing bank crisis and increased corporate distress. Homebuilder Jaypee Infratech, one of India largest distressed companies (the “dirty dozen”) began restructuring under the IBC in 2017. Two years later,... View Details
Keywords: Restructuring; Decisions; Judgments; Voting; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Crisis; Public Sector; Asset Pricing; Borrowing and Debt; Corporate Finance; Credit; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Debt Securities; Bonds; Investment Return; Price; Government Legislation; Laws and Statutes; Bids and Bidding; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Valuation; Real Estate Industry; India; Delhi
- February 2022 (Revised April 2022)
- Case
BUA Group
By: John D. Macomber, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal
BUA Group must decide between investments in cement, road building, power generation, or sugar. Private businesses are important to economic development in Africa. Students must assess the competitive nature of each of these industries, the magnitude of capital... View Details
- February 2022 (Revised November 2022)
- Case
Fondeadora
By: Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui and Mitchell Weiss
Norman Müller and René Serrano, cofounders of Fondeadora, a Mexican “neobank,” had lined up a $12.5 million in Series A funding round in 2020 only to run into a major obstacle: The lead investor was Gradient Ventures, a venture firm launched by Alphabet, Inc., and... View Details
- February 2022
- Article
Borrowing to Save? The Impact of Automatic Enrollment on Debt
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian and William L. Skimmyhorn
Does automatic enrollment into a retirement plan increase financial distress due to increased borrowing outside the plan? We study a natural experiment created when the U.S. Army began automatically enrolling newly hired civilian employees into the Thrift Savings Plan.... View Details
- 2022
- Article
Missing Novelty in Drug Development
By: Joshua Krieger, Danielle Li and Dimitris Papanikolaou
We provide evidence that risk aversion leads pharmaceutical firms to underinvest in radical innovation. We introduce a new measure of drug novelty based on chemical similarity and show that firms face a risk-reward trade-off: novel drug candidates are less likely to... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Racial Disparities in the Paycheck Protection Program
By: Sergey Chernenko and David S. Scharfstein
Using a large sample of Florida restaurants, we document significant racial disparities in borrowing through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and investigate the causes of these disparities. Black-owned restaurants are 25% less likely to receive PPP loans.... View Details