Publications

2024
Working Paper

How Do Global Portfolio Investors Hedge Currency Risk?

By: Robin Greenwood and Alex Cheema-Fox

We use monthly portfolio data from one of the world’s largest custodian banks, with over $40 trillion assets under custody, to study how global portfolio investors hedge foreign exchange risk in their equity and fixed income portfolios over the past 25 years. The data... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Investment Funds; Currency; Risk and Uncertainty

January 2001 (Revised June 2004)
Case

PetroChina

By: Alexander Dyck, Yasheng Huang and David Lane

In March 2000, plans for the initial public offering of shares in PetroChina were proceeding on schedule, and institutional investors were evaluating the deal. PetroChina was China's largest oil and gas company and an attractive play on China's continued economic... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Corporate Governance; Energy Sources; Energy Industry; China

17 Oct 2016
HBS Seminar

Nicholas Bloom, Stanford University

2020
Working Paper

Social Interactions in Pandemics: Fear, Altruism, and Reciprocity

By: Laura Alfaro, Ester Faia, Nora Lamersdorf and Farzad Saidi

In SIR models, homogeneous or with a network structure, infection rates are assumed to be exogenous. However, individuals adjust their behavior. Using daily data for 89 cities worldwide, we document that mobility falls in response to fear, as approximated by Google... View Details

Keywords: Social Interactions; Pandemics; Mobility; Cities; SIR Networks; Social Preferences; Social Planner; Targeted Policies; Health Pandemics; Interpersonal Communication; Behavior; Policy

2020
Working Paper

Paying It Backward and Forward: Expanding Access to Convalescent Plasma Therapy Through Market Design

By: Scott Duke Kominers, Parag A. Pathak, Tayfun Sönmez and M. Utku Ünver

COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) therapy is currently a leading treatment for COVID-19. At present, there is a shortage of CCP relative to demand. We develop and analyze a model of centralized CCP allocation that incorporates both donation and distribution. In order... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Convalescent Plasma; Vouchers; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Resource Allocation; Market Design

September 2008
Case

Samoa Tala

By: Joshua D. Coval, Bhagwan Chowdhry and Konark Saxena

This case examines currency risks faced by Microfinance Institutions, and evaluates strategies to hedge them in countries with pegged currency regimes and no derivatives markets. An MFI based in Western Samoa borrows in different currencies like the US dollar and the... View Details

Keywords: Cash Flow; Currency Exchange Rate; Microfinance; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry; Samoa

11 Dec 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 11, 2018

Betfair was an underfunded second mover in the betting exchange space, it was able to attract punters at a much faster rate than the better-funded first mover, Flutter. Moreover, while Betfair and... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

09 Mar 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Causes and Consequences of Firm Disclosures of Anticorruption Efforts

Keywords: by Paul Healy & George Serafeim

2023
Working Paper

Insufficiently Justified Disparate Impact: A New Criterion for Subgroup Fairness

By: Neil Menghani, Edward McFowland III and Daniel B. Neill

In this paper, we develop a new criterion, "insufficiently justified disparate impact" (IJDI), for assessing whether recommendations (binarized predictions) made by an algorithmic decision support tool are fair. Our novel, utility-based IJDI criterion evaluates false... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Forecasting and Prediction; Prejudice and Bias

2011
Working Paper

Fractionalization and the Municipal Bond Market

We study the impact of ethnic and religious fractionalization on the U.S. municipal debt market and find that issuers from more ethnically and religiously fractionalized counties pay higher yields on their municipal debt. A two standard deviation increase in religious... View Details

Keywords: Ethnicity Characteristics; Bonds; Financial Markets; Investment Return; Geographic Location; City; Religion; United States

March 2006
Module Note

Valuing Cross-Border Investments

By: Mihir A. Desai and Kathleen Luchs

Describes a core module in the International Finance course at Harvard Business School. The module explores how valuation differs in an international context and introduces students to the major issues in cross-border valuations: how to value investments in currencies... View Details

Keywords: International Accounting; Currency Exchange Rate; Investment; Framework; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Body of Literature; Risk Management; Projects; Valuation

Research Summary

Choice Amnesia: Motivated Forgetting of Difficult Choices

Imagine having to choose between your two favorite flavors of ice cream, chocolate and mint chip. Previous work suggests that whichever option you pick (say, chocolate) will become even more appealing after your decision, and the rejected option (mint chip) will get... View Details

March 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Allianz Türkiye: Adapting to Climate Change

By: John D. Macomber and Fares Khrais

Allianz Turkey is a property casualty insurance company operating in a region experiencing increasing losses from natural catastrophe events related to climate change, for example hail, wildfire, and flooding. There are also substantial other natural catastrophe... View Details

Keywords: Insurance And Reinsurance; Natural Disasters; Turkey; Insurance; Climate Change; Analytics and Data Science; Insurance Industry; Financial Services Industry; Turkey

2010
Working Paper

Crashes and Collateralized Lending

By: Jakub W. Jurek and Erik Stafford

This paper develops a parsimonious static model for characterizing financing terms in collateralized lending markets. We characterize the systematic risk exposures for a variety of securities and develop a simple indifference-pricing framework to value the systematic... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Cost of Capital; Credit; Financing and Loans; Interest Rates; Investment; Framework; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry

March 2008 (Revised April 2009)
Case

Eliot Spitzer: Pushing Wall Street to Reform

By: Rawi Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer faced a decision about how to stop wrongdoing committed by major Wall Street firms during the Internet boom. The equities analysts of Merrill Lynch and other Wall Street firms were charged with objectively advising retail... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Decisions; Financial Institutions; Stocks; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Laws and Statutes; Lawsuits and Litigation; Conflict of Interests; Internet; Financial Services Industry; United States

06 Dec 2011
Working Paper Summaries

What Impedes Oil and Gas Companies’ Transparency?

Keywords: by Paul Healy, Venkat Kuppuswamy & George Serafeim; Energy; Utilities

09 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 9, 2008

Working PapersHow Firms Respond to Being Rated Authors:Aaron K. Chatterji, Michael W. Toffel Abstract While many independent rating systems are designed primarily to help buyers overcome information... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2010 (Revised December 2011)
Supplement

Oriflame S.A. (C)

By: David F. Hawkins and Karol Misztal

Notes from Oriflame's 2009 annual report relevant to the assessment of the monetary impact of Oriflame's FX risk management actions. View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; International Accounting; Currency Exchange Rate; Annual Reports; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Risk Management; Standards; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry