Publications

2022
Working Paper

The Fed and the Secular Decline in Interest Rates

By: Sebastian Hillenbrand

In this paper I document a striking fact: a narrow window around Fed meetings fully captures the secular decline in U.S. Treasury yields since 1980. By contrast, yield movements outside this window are transitory and wash out over time. This is surprising because the... View Details

Keywords: United States Treasury; Monetary Policy; Yield Curve; Central Banking; Interest Rates; Valuation

SSRN

14 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

When a Vacation Isn’t Enough, a Sabbatical Can Recharge Your Life—and Your Career

A few years ago, DJ DiDonna seemed to have everything going for him. He had started a successful venture called the Entrepreneurial Finance Lab, which used psychometric factors to help banks issuing microloans in the developing world... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

01 Dec 2023
News

Thinking Ahead

As we wind down 2023, there’s talk everywhere of generative AI and how it will fundamentally alter the world as we know it; but how does that translate for your corner of the business world? Is TikTok something you need to take seriously? (Is it time to dance?) We... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Illustrations by Chris Gash; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

2016
Working Paper

The Attenuating Effect of Banking Relationships on Credit Market Disruption

By: Stefan Dimitriadis and Mike Horia Teodorescu

This article examines how the relationship between banks and corporations moderates the effect of credit market disruptions. The 2008-09 financial crisis led to a dramatic restriction in the supply of credit to corporations via the syndicated loan market... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Relationships; Financial Markets; System Shocks; Banking Industry; United States

December 2019
Article

The Impact of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Donald Ngwe, Kris J. Ferreira and Thales Teixeira

Many online stores are designed such that shoppers can easily access any available discounted products. We propose that deliberately increasing search frictions by placing small obstacles to locating discounted items can improve online retailers’ margins and even... View Details

Keywords: Online Retailing; Friction; Effor; Search Costs; Price Discrimination; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Strategy; Price; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry

May 2011
Background Note

Scale Effects, Network Effects, and Investment Strategy

By: Willy Shih

This technical note discusses scale economies, and direct and indirect network effects in the context of building better business models. Some of the great business disasters of the dot.com bubble were companies that scaled their infrastructure without working through... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Investment; Price; Crisis Management; Network Effects; Multi-Sided Platforms; Strategy

November 2021
Article

Venture Capitalists and COVID-19

By: Paul A. Gompers, Will Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan and Ilya A. Strebulaev

We survey over 1,000 institutional and corporate venture capitalists (VCs) at more than 900 different firms to learn how their decisions and investments have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We compare their survey answers to those provided by a large sample of... View Details

Keywords: Investment Decisions; COVID-19 Pandemic; Impact; Health Pandemics; Venture Capital; Investment; Decision Making; Surveys

August 2003 (Revised August 2024)
Case

Fighting the Battle of the Bulge—Evaluating Do Good/Do Well Innovations in Morbid Obesity Treatment

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and John McDonough

Many health care innovations appear successful; but fail. This is the first case in the Innovating Health Care course that investigates how to create successful health care innovations. It is part of the first module in the course. This module focuses on how to... View Details

Keywords: Three Pillars; Industry Analysis; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Management; Medical Specialties; Health Industry

August 2019 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Systems Design West

By: Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Jenn Braus (HBS 2013) was halfway through the 90-day exclusivity period for her proposed acquisition of Systems Design West (SDW). She had completed her business and accounting due diligence. Just as she was about to ask her lawyer to begin drafting the purchase... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Price; Negotiation Offer; Decision Making

September 2000 (Revised November 2002)
Case

Amazon.com: 1994-2000

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Meredith Collura

Enables a thorough analysis of Amazon.com and the company's value proposition, in terms of its business concept, digital business capabilities, and community and shareholder value. Examines the company's complex set of business models and web of business relationships,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Asset Pricing; Capital; Financial Strategy; Technological Innovation; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology Industry; Web Services Industry

Profile

Evelyne White

that our business works very well in a particular kind of medium-sized city. And in those cities, we can invest in the market to bring it to saturation. But many would argue that we should tackle the biggest cities immediately,... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Services

24 Jun 2010
Working Paper Summaries

“An Unfair Advantage”? Combining Banking with Private Equity Investing

Keywords: by Lily Fang, Victoria Ivashina & Josh Lerner; Banking

2009
Other Unpublished Work

The Pecora Hearings

By: David Moss, Cole Bolton and Eugene Kintgen

In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, the Senate Banking Committee began a much-publicized investigation of the nation's financial sector. The hearings, which came to be known as the Pecora hearings after the Banking Committee's lead counsel Ferdinand... View Details

Keywords: Financial History; Financial Crisis; Financial Markets; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government Legislation; Laws and Statutes; Business and Government Relations; Financial Services Industry

14 Feb 2023
HBS Case

Is Sweden Still 'Sweden'? A Liberal Utopia Grapples with an Identity Crisis

Swedish capitalism is like.” Could this lead to the end of the high-tax “Swedish model” that like-minded nations have come to admire? Harvard Business School Professor Debora Spar, who has analyzed Sweden extensively, says no, the Swedish... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

Research Summary

International Financial Integration and Entrepreneurship (joint with Andrew Charlton)

By: Laura Alfaro

We explore the relation between international financial integration and the level of entrepreneurial activity in a country. Researchers have stressed the role of new firm activity and economic dynamism on growth. Yet, the empirical effects of international capital... View Details

Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time

One of the leading business thinkers in the world offers a bold, new theory of advanced leadership for tackling the world's complex, messy, and recalcitrant social and environmental problems.

Over a decade ago, renowned innovation... View Details

August 2006 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Medco Energi Internasional

In late 2004, Hilmi Panigoro, CEO of the publicly traded Indonesian oil company Medco Energi Internasional, is striving to regain majority control of the company his brother Arifin founded in 1980. The Asian financial crisis of 1999 led to a major restructuring that... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Family Business; Restructuring; Financing and Loans; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations; Indonesia; Singapore