Publications

August 2024
Case

Circle: Reinventing the Future of Money

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

In early 2024, Circle Internet Financial's leadership team gathered to discuss the company's strategic path as it prepared for an IPO. Founded in 2013 by Jeremy Allaire, Circle had emerged as a pioneer in digital finance through its USD Coin (USDC), a regulated... View Details

Keywords: Currency; Governance Compliance; Initial Public Offering; Competition; Financial Services Industry

Educators

December 7, 2022
Article

Why Decentralized Crypto Platforms Are Weathering the Crash

By: Shai Bernstein and Scott Duke Kominers

In the past year, crypto markets dropped from $2.9 trillion in value to around $800 billion. In the wake of the collapse, crypto lenders and exchanges have been accused of fraud and other wrongdoing. What went wrong? One factor is competition. In theory, competition... View Details

Keywords: Crypto Economy; Cryptocurrency; Financial Complexity; Financial Crisis; Decentralization; Decentralized Markets; Decentralized Autonomous Organizations; Finance; Market Design; Financial Services Industry

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Article

The Scandal Effect

By: Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin, George Serafeim and Robin Abrahams

Executives with scandal-tainted companies on their résumés pay a penalty on the job market, even if they clearly had nothing to do with the trouble. Because the scandal effect is lasting, a company you left long ago could have an impact on your current and future job... View Details

Keywords: Misconduct; Career; Career Management; Career Changes; Executive Leadership; Executive Development; Crime and Corruption; Executive Compensation; Personal Development and Career; Management Skills; Management Teams

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25 Sep 2008
Working Paper Summaries

The Cost of Property Rights: Establishing Institutions on the Philippine Frontier Under American Rule, 1898-1918

Keywords: by Lakshmi Iyer & Noel Maurer

September 2024
Case

Leadership for Stretch Goals: Inspiring Employees to Achieve the Impossible at Charter Next Generation

By: Ethan Rouen and Elisabeth Powell

In 2023, Kathy Bolhous, CEO of Charter Next Generation (CNG), set out to achieve an ambitious "Moonshot"—increasing profits by $100 million within three years, purely through internal innovations and efficiency gains, without layoffs or new revenue streams. After years... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Leadership; Growth Management; Mission and Purpose; Employee Ownership; Motivation and Incentives

Educators

February 2018
Case

Infrastructure in Nigeria: Unlocking Pension Fund Investments

By: John Macomber and Pippa Tubman Armerding

The so-called “infrastructure finance gap” was a problem in Nigeria as in many parts of the world. Infrastructure projects like power plants and dams were very large capital investments that could generate long-term consistent cash flows, but their financing and... View Details

Keywords: Pension Fund Investing; Infrastucture; Power/Energy; Credit Enhancement; Infrastructure; Project Finance; Investment Funds; Emerging Markets; Nigeria; Africa

Educators

31 Oct 2023
HBS Case

Checking Your Ethics: Would You Speak Up in These 3 Sticky Situations?

underlying model until after the meeting.’” The point of the anecdote, Fubini says, is that transparency and disclosure is necessary. “The longer you wait on something, the worse it is going to be in terms of gaining absolution,” he says.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Consulting

December 2018
Article

Reserve Design: Unintended Consequences and the Demise of Boston's Walk Zones

By: Umut Dur, Scott Duke Kominers, Parag A. Pathak and Tayfun Sönmez

Admissions policies often use reserves to grant certain applicants higher priority for some (but not all) available seats. Boston’s school choice system, for example, reserved half of each school’s seats for local neighborhood applicants while leaving the other half... View Details

Keywords: Neighborhoods; Equal Access; School Choice; Affirmative Action; Desegregation; Marketplace Matching; Fairness; Local Range; Education; Policy

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September 2016 (Revised March 2020)
Teaching Note

Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model

By: Feng Zhu

Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride, as opposed to the 20%–30%... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Transportation; Business Startups; Business Model; Transportation Industry; Boston

2022
Working Paper

Why Do Index Funds Have Market Power? Quantifying Frictions in the Index Fund Market

By: Zach Y. Brown, Mark Egan, Jihye Jeon, Chuqing Jin and Alex A. Wu

Index funds are one of the most common ways investors access financial markets and are perceived to be a transparent and low-cost alternative to active investment management. Despite these purported virtues of index fund investing and the introduction of new products... View Details

Keywords: Mutual Funds; Passive Investing; Asset Management; Financial Markets; Investment Funds; Financial Management; Financial Services Industry; United States

17 Jul 2023
Research & Ideas

Money Isn’t Everything: The Dos and Don’ts of Motivating Employees

systems Be as transparent as possible about the process for determining pay and earning rewards. Nothing is more demotivating than feeling like someone in a similar position is being treated better, Hall says. “When people feel that the... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

May 2011
Article

Consequences and Institutional Determinants of Unregulated Corporate Financial Statements: Evidence from Embedded Value Reporting

By: George Serafeim

I analyze Embedded Value (EV) reporting by firms with life insurance operations to assess the impact of unregulated financial reporting on transparency and to examine the institutional characteristics that promote unregulated reporting. Under EV accounting the present... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Reporting; Cash Flow; Contracts; Equity; Profit; Value; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business Earnings

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22 Aug 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 23

transparency in its company practices. Buffer openly shared its business strategies and fundraising decks, among lots of other information. Even when they were hacked, the company live-blogged updates to keep their users informed as the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2015
Working Paper

Competitiveness and Clusters: Implications for a New European Growth Strategy

By: Christian H.M. Ketels

This paper develops policy recommendations on the use of cluster-based economic policies and the adoption of a new concept of competitiveness in the context of the new growth path that WWWforEurope aims to outline.
A first section discusses and derives an... View Details

Keywords: Competitiveness; Clusters; Economic Policy; European Union; Competition; Industry Clusters; Policy; Economic Growth; European Union

03 Apr 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 3, 2018

working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53681 Surfacing the Submerged State: Operational Transparency Increases Trust in and Engagement with Government By: Buell, Ryan W., Ethan Porter, and Michael I. Norton... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2024
Working Paper

Do Information Frictions and Corruption Perceptions Kill Competition? A Field Experiment on Public Procurement in Uganda

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Francesco Loiacono, Edwin Muhumuza and Edoardo Teso

We study whether information frictions and corruption perceptions deter firms from doing business with the government. We conduct two nationwide randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in collaboration with the national public procurement supervisory and anti-corruption... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Use and Leverage; Government and Politics; Crime and Corruption; Trust; Perception; Business and Government Relations