Publications

Article

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Corporate Compliance Programs: Establishing a Model for Prosecutors, Courts, and Firms

By: Eugene F. Soltes

When prosecutors, courts, and regulators make charging and sentencing decisions, they must evaluate whether firms have effective compliance programs. Such evaluations are difficult because of the challenges associated with measuring effectiveness. Notably, these... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Governance Compliance; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Evaluation

Ria is a JD/PhD student at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. At HLS, she was a John M. Olin Fellow and the winner of the 2021 Victor Brudney Writing Prize. She previously studied Economics and Mathematics at Columbia University, where she was nominated... View Details

17 Mar 2021
News

Shoshana Zuboff on why Big Tech is the biggest threat to democracy

2025
Working Paper

Blockchain-Induced Supply Chain Transparency and Firm Performance: The Role of Capacity Utilization

By: ShinWoo Lee Lee, Jedson Pinto, Daniel Rabetti and Gil Sadka

This study empirically investigates how blockchain adoption affects firm profitability. Employing a quasi-experimental design triggered by regulatory changes across the United States, we provide novel empirical evidence to recent theory, proposing that blockchain... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Supply Chain; Technology Adoption; Profit; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States

SSRN

Article

Asset Accumulation and Labor Force Participation of Disability Insurance Applicants

By: Pian Shu

This paper provides empirical evidence of the existence of forward-looking asset-accumulation behavior among disability-insurance applicants, previously examined only in the theoretical literature. Using panel data from the RAND Health and Retirement Study, I show that... View Details

Keywords: Disability Insurance; Asset Accumulation; Labor Force Participation; Assets; Behavior; Employment; Insurance; Insurance Industry; United States

Yuan Zou is an assistant professor in the Accounting and Management unit. She teaches Financial Reporting and Control (FRC) in the MBA required curriculum.

Professor Zou conducts theoretically-motivated empirical studies aimed at furthering the understanding... View Details

December 2014
Article

The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization

By: Nicholas Bloom, Luis Garicano, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

Empirical studies on information communication technologies (ICT) typically aggregate the "information" and "communication" components together. We show theoretically and empirically that this is problematic. Information and communication technologies have very... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Information Technology; Organizational Structure

Research Summary

Convergence of Media & Technology: Long-tail vs. Large body

What is the empirical relationship between preferences and technology adoption? Focus on information search & technology. Joint work with Bharat Anand View Details

Research Summary

Overview

My research uses a combination of lab experiments and empirical methods to understand how organizations can design their operations in order to inspire trust. View Details

2015
Chapter

Agglomeration and Innovation

By: Gerald Carlino and William R. Kerr

This chapter reviews academic research on the connections between agglomeration and innovation. We first describe the conceptual distinctions between invention and innovation. We then describe how these factors are frequently measured in the data and some resulting... View Details

Keywords: Industry Clusters; City; Innovation and Invention

2013
Chapter

Behavioral Corporate Finance: A Current Survey

By: Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler

We survey the theory and evidence of behavioral corporate finance, which generally takes one of two approaches. The market timing and catering approach views managerial financing and investment decisions as rational managerial responses to securities mispricing. The... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Theory; Corporate Finance; Financial Management; Investment; Market Timing; Behavioral Finance; Prejudice and Bias; Economics; Forecasting and Prediction

Adi Sunderam is the Willard Prescott Smith Professor of Corporate Finance at Harvard Business School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Faculty Affiliate of the Harvard Economics department. He teaches Finance 2 in... View Details

Keywords: asset management; banking; brokerage; federal government; financial services; investment banking industry

Behavioral Corporate Finance: A Survey

In this chapter, we survey the theory and evidence of behavioral corporate finance, which generally takes one of two approaches. The market timing and catering approach views managerial financing and investment decisions as rational managerial responses to... View Details

May 2010
Article

Does Product Market Competition Lead Firms to Decentralize?

By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

There is a widespread sense that over the last two decades firms have been decentralizing decisions to employees further down the managerial hierarchy. Economists have developed a range of theories to account for delegation, but there is less empirical evidence,... View Details

Keywords: Product; Markets; Competition; Business Ventures; Geographic Location; Employees; Research; Programs; Decisions

Philippe van der Beck is an Assistant Professor in the Finance Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches the Finance I course in the MBA required curriculum. Philippe’s research interests are in empirical asset pricing, sustainable finance, and structural estimation.... View Details

March 2017 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Ant Financial (A)

By: Feng Zhu, Ying Zhang, Krishna G. Palepu, Anthony K. Woo and Nancy Hua Dai

Headquartered in Hangzhou (China), Ant Financial has grown into a fintech “Unicorn.” The fintech empire that the company established spanned verticals such as mobile and online payment (Alipay), money market fund (Yu’e Bao), wealth management (Ant Fortune),... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Global Strategy; Finance; Opportunities; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry

Educators

Purchase

2013
Working Paper

Applying Random Coefficient Models to Strategy Research: Testing for Firm Heterogeneity, Predicting Firm-Specific Coefficients, and Estimating Strategy Trade-Offs

By: Juan Alcacer, Wilbur Chung, Ashton Hawk and Goncalo Pacheco-de-Almeida

Although Strategy research aims to understand how firm actions have differential effects on performance, most empirical research estimates the average effects of these actions across firms. This paper promotes Random Coefficients Models (RCMs) as an ideal empirical... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Mathematical Methods

SSRN

October 2009
Journal Article

Testing the Commitment Hypothesis in Contractual Settings: Evidence from Soccer

By: Oriol Carbonell and Diego A. Comin

This paper designs and implements an empirical test to discern whether the parties to a contract are able to commit not to renegotiate their agreement. We study optimal contracts with and without commitment and derive an exclusion restriction that is useful to identify... View Details

Keywords: Contracts; Agreements and Arrangements; Research; Sports Industry; Spain