Publications

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2010
Working Paper

A Brief Postwar History of U.S. Consumer Finance

By: Andrea Ryan, Gunnar Trumbull and Peter Tufano

This article describes the consumer finance sector in the US since World War II. We first define the sector in terms of the functions delivered by firms (payments, savings/investing, borrowing, managing risk, and providing advice.) We provide time series evidence on... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Borrowing and Debt; Mortgages; Personal Finance; Business History; Innovation and Invention; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry; United States

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April 2000 (Revised April 2004)
Case

TixToGo: Financing a Silicon Valley Start-up

Describes TixToGo, a Silicon Valley start-up company that offers online solutions to individuals and organizations that want to offer activities and/or collect registration fees for events over the Internet. A serial entrepreneur and his partner started the company in... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Information Technology; Financing and Loans; Business Startups; Information Technology Industry; San Francisco

03 Apr 2006
Research & Ideas

The Competitive Advantage of Global Finance

As waves of globalization wash across the business world, tremendous new opportunities for financing and investment present themselves to savvy enterprises. In a new casebook, HBS professor Mihir A. Desai discusses the numerous challenges... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

Article

Liability Structure in Small-Scale Finance

By: Fenella Carpena, Shawn Cole, Jeremy Shapiro and Bilal Zia

Microfinance, the provision of small individual and business loans, has experienced dramatic growth, reaching over 150 million borrowers worldwide. Much of the success of microfinance has been attributed to attempts to overcome the challenges of information asymmetries... View Details

Keywords: Microfinance; Emerging Markets; Financial Markets; Legal Liability; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; India

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March 2016 (Revised August 2016)
Case

CreditEase: Taking Inclusive Finance Online

By: Michael Chu, John S. Ji and Nancy Hua Dai

The world’s largest peer-to-peer (P2P) lender annually disbursing over a million loans totaling $10 billion, China’s CreditEase, must decide whether to IPO in the NYSE its online lending platform, Yirendai, before the year-end window closes in 2015. Yirendai sought to... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Internet and the Web; Financing and Loans; Credit; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; China

2004
Book

Modern Project Finance Teaching Notes

By: Benjamin C. Esty

Keywords: Projects; Finance; Teaching; Information

June 2007 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Zoots - Financing Growth (A)

By: Michael J. Roberts, William A. Sahlman and Todd Krasnow

Traces the genesis and founding of Zoots, the largest chain of dry cleaning establishments in the U.S. Founded by some of the founders of the very successful Staples chain, the company raises a very large amount of capital without fully proving its business model, and... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Venture Capital; Financial Strategy; Investment Return; Growth and Development Strategy; Valuation; United States

30 Jan 2008
Working Paper Summaries

Cost of External Finance and Selection into Entrepreneurship

Keywords: by Ramana Nanda

November 1997 (Revised August 1998)
Case

Palm Computing, Inc. 1995: Financing Challenges

By: Myra M. Hart and Stephanie Dodson

The president, Donna Dubinsky, and the chairman and founder, Jeff Hawkins, discuss an opportunity to sell their company to U.S. Robotics. They must weigh this option versus accepting venture capital funding, partnering with a large company that could provide... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Partners and Partnerships; Business Exit or Shutdown; Decision Choices and Conditions; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry

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

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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

July 2003
Teaching Note

Financing PPL Corporation's Growth Strategy (TN)

By: Benjamin C. Esty

Teaching Note for (5-202-045). View Details

Keywords: Utilities Industry; Energy Industry; Pennsylvania

September 1982
Case

Chemical Bank: Financing the World's Fair