Publications

January 2014
Article

The Consequences of Entrepreneurial Finance: Evidence from Angel Financings

By: William R. Kerr, Josh Lerner and Antoinette Schoar

This paper documents that ventures that are funded by two successful angel groups experience superior outcomes to rejected ventures: they have improved survival, exits, employment, patenting, web traffic, and financing. We use strong discontinuities in angel funding... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Financing and Loans; Interests; Employment; Patents; Internet and the Web; Operations; Entrepreneurship; Business Exit or Shutdown

Read Now

June 2017 (Revised January 2019)
Case

Signet Jewelers: Assessing Customer Financing Risk

By: Gerardo Pérez Cavazos, Suraj Srinivasan and Monica Baraldi

Marc Cohodes, a renowned short seller, has identified weaknesses in Signet's business strategy, which he argues is heavily reliant on providing loans to customers with subprime credit scores. He believes that the company accounts for its receivables portfolio using... View Details

Keywords: Short Selling; Bad Debt Expense; Accounting; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Finance; Financing and Loans; Valuation; Retail Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States

Web

Finance Doctoral Students - Faculty & Research

Finance Overview Faculty Curriculum Seminars & Conferences Awards & Honors Doctoral Students Maxim Alekseev Sage Belz Jorge Colmenares Songyuan Ding Jacob Furst Jeffrey Gortmaker Shlok Goyal Helene Hall Catherine Huang Baiyun Jing Nathan... View Details

October 1999 (Revised April 2003)
Case

International Investor, The: Islamic Finance and the Equate Project

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Mathew M Millett

Equate Petrochemical Co. (Equate) is a joint venture between Union Carbide Corp. and Petrochemical Industries Co. (PIC) for the construction of a $2 billion petrochemical plant in Kuwait. The sponsors began construction in August 1994, using a bridge loan, and are in... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Project Finance; Religion; Investment; Finance; Mining Industry; Energy Industry; Kuwait

01 Sep 2009
News

Consumer Finance Makes HBS Debut

TUFANO: His new consumer finance elective is part of a broader effort to legitimize the field as an important area for research and teaching. Last spring HBS became the first top-ranked U.S. business school to offer a course in consumer... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Finance; Finance; Finance

01 Oct 1999
News

Finance Conference Explores Research Methodologies

While HBS scholars have long appreciated the value of field-based research, the broader academic community in the field of finance has been slower to accept this method of inquiry. Field-based research, which closely studies the actions... View Details

June 2010 (Revised September 2011)
Background Note

An Overview of Project Finance and Infrastructure Finance--2009 Update

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Aldo Sesia

Provides an introduction to the fields of project finance and infrastructure finance and gives a statistical overview of project-financed investments over the years from 2005 to 2009. Examples of project-financed investments include the $1.4 billion Mozal aluminum... View Details

Keywords: Project Finance; Infrastructure; Investment; Projects; Trends

21 Aug 2006
Research & Ideas

How Europe Wrote the Rules of Global Finance

helping to finance that deficit. If those global imbalances are unraveled chaotically, the stirrings of a crisis of legitimacy for the free movement of capital would be strengthened. Hopefully these imbalances will not be resolved in a... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

1984
Book

The Modern Theory of Corporate Finance

By: Michael C. Jensen and Clifford H. Smith Jr.

Keywords: Corporate Finance

Find at Harvard

2024
Working Paper

Priors, Experiments, Learning and Persuasion in (Bayesian) Entrepreneurial Finance

By: Ramana Nanda

At the heart of entrepreneurial finance lies a persuasion challenge: regardless of the strength of an entrepreneur’s belief in the potential of their idea, they typically need to convince investors to provide the financial capital required for its... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Business Startups; Communication Intention and Meaning; Prejudice and Bias

SSRN

Read Now

February 1977 (Revised May 1993)
Case

WJAC (B): Financing a Growing Organization

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

Keywords: Organizations; Finance; Media and Broadcasting Industry

Find at Harvard

10 Apr 2001
Conference Presentation

Financing Entrepreneurship: Is Gender an Issue?

By: Candida Brush, Nancy Carter, Elizabeth Gatewood, Patricia Green and Myra M. Hart

Keywords: Gender; Finance; Entrepreneurship

January 1987 (Revised September 1991)
Case

Walt Disney Co.'s Yen Financing

By: W. Carl Kester and William B. Allen

Walt Disney is considering hedging future yen inflows from Disney Tokyo. It is evaluating techniques using FX Forwards, swaps, and Yen term borrowings. Goldman Sachs presents a rather unusual but potentially attractive solution: Disney could issue ECU Eurobonds and... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Currency; Bonds; Valuation; Tokyo

04 May 2020
Blog Post

Learning New Skills to Further Your Career In Any Industry: Finance

The demand for finance skills is growing in various industries, including marketing, sales, engineering, healthcare, and human resources. In this HBS Online blog post How Learning About Finance Can Jumpstart... View Details

12 Nov 2014
Op-Ed

A Challenge to the New Congress: Pass Housing Finance Reform

conservatorship, experts from public, private, and academic worlds concurred: housing finance in the United States was mortally flawed. The private sector reaped the gains while the public sector absorbed the risk. In the aftermath of the... View Details

Keywords: by Nicolas Retsinas & Rob Couch; Construction; Real Estate

22 Feb 2022
News

Finance and the Economic Recovery

Illustration by Michael Austin A pandemic that has caused public health and economic crises also has afforded business leaders the opportunity to better understand and lead through disruptions affecting countless lives, companies, and governments worldwide. For the... View Details

11 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Banking Deregulations, Financing Constraints and Firm Entry Size

Keywords: by William R. Kerr & Ramana Nanda; Banking

2010
Working Paper

Law and Finance c. 1900

By: Aldo Musacchio

How persistent are the effects of legal institutions adopted or inherited in the distant past? A substantial literature argues that legal origins have persistent effects that explain clear differences in investor protections and financial development around the world... View Details

Keywords: Law; Finance; Corporate Governance; Practice; Growth and Development