Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(3,361)
- Faculty Publications (419)
- August 2007 (Revised April 2012)
- Technical Note
Technical Note on Financial Leverage in Real Estate
By: Charles F. Wu and Arthur I Segel
Demonstrates the accelerating impact of leverage on returns under differing scenarios of property performance. The performance scenarios represent two points in time: the inception of the investment and the liquidation. View Details
- June 2007 (Revised September 2021)
- Case
Thomas J. Watson, IBM and Nazi Germany
By: Geoffrey Jones, Grace Ballor and Adrian Brown
Considers the strategy of U.S.-owned IBM, then a manufacturer of punch cards, in Nazi Germany before 1937. Opens with IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson meeting Adolf Hitler in his capacity as President of the International Chamber of Commerce. IBM had acquired a German company... View Details
- June 2007 (Revised December 2007)
- Case
AFL-CIO: Office of Investment and Home Depot
By: Rakesh Khurana and James Weber
Describes the AFL-CIO: Office of Investments activities in their campaign to improve governance at Home Depot by calling attention to Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli's compensation package and the company's poor performance. The AFL-CIO Office of Investments advocates... View Details
- April 2007 (Revised March 2008)
- Case
Dr. Iqbal Survé at Sekunjalo Investment Group (A)
By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Stecker
Dr. Iqbal Surve, a self-described "medical doctor, philanthropist, and social entrepreneur," was born in 1963 and grew up in poverty, like virtually all non-white South Africans during apartheid. During the 1970s and 1980s, he served in leadership positions in the ANC,... View Details
- March 2007 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
Rovna Dan: The Flat Tax in Slovakia
By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella, Ane Damgaard Jensen and Vincent Marie Dessain
Explores the tax policy choices made by Slovakia and the impact of reforms. Set in 2006, looks at the decision facing new Prime Minister Robert Fico as he faces the public's "reform fatigue." Traces the development of tax and fiscal policies since Slovakia's... View Details
Keywords: Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Taxation; Labor; Welfare; Slovakia
- March 2005 (Revised March 2006)
- Case
Foreign Exchange Hedging Strategies at General Motors: Competitive Exposures
By: Mihir A. Desai and Mark Veblen
How can a multinational firm analyze and manage currency risks that arise from competitive exposures? General Motors has a substantial competitive exposure to the Japanese yen. Although the risks GM faces from the depreciating yen are widely acknowledged, the company's... View Details
- March 2005 (Revised January 2006)
- Case
Foreign Exchange Hedging Strategies at General Motors: Transactional and Translational Exposures
By: Mihir A. Desai and Mark Veblen
How should a multinational firm manage foreign exchange exposures? Examines transactional and translational exposures and alternative responses to these exposures by analyzing two specific hedging decisions by General Motors. Describes General Motors' corporate hedging... View Details
- June 2004 (Revised July 2005)
- Case
Procter & Gamble: Global Business Services
By: Thomas J. DeLong, Warren Brackin, Alex Cabanas, Phil Shellhammer and David L. Ager
Dave Walker, vice-president of business service opportunities and chairman of the governance team at Procter & Gamble, must decide what to do with P&G's 5,700 employee Global Business Services (GBS) group. GBS brought together internal services such as finance,... View Details
- March 2004 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Shurgard Self-Storage: Expansion to Europe
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Indra Reinbergs
Shurgard, a U.S.-based firm that rents storage facilities to consumers and small businesses, is considering financing options for rapid expansion of its European operations. Five years after entering Europe, Shurgard Europe has opened 17 facilities in Belgium, France,... View Details
- March 2004 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Foreign Exchange Hedging Strategies at General Motors
By: Mihir A. Desai and Mark Veblen
How should a multinational firm manage foreign exchange exposures? Examines transactional, translational, and competitive exposures. Describes General Motors' corporate hedging policies, its risk management structure, and how accounting rules impact hedging decisions.... View Details
- February 2004
- Case
Bradman and Tendulkar, LLC
By: Ananth Raman and Vishal Gaur
An investment firm is trying to project inventory turns for Radio Shack, a chain of consumer electronics stores. The investment firm has access to public financial data but not to internal operational metrics. It needs to project inventory turns because inventory... View Details
- September 2003 (Revised January 2004)
- Case
Giant Cinema
The owner of Giant Cinema must decide whether to invest in a digital projector, a new technology for screening films, or purchase a traditional projector. The impact of the new technology is uncertain, and the case describes probabilities for different outcomes that... View Details
- August 2003
- Article
When Does the Market Matter? Stock Prices and the Investment of Equity-Dependent Firms
By: Malcolm Baker, Jeremy Stein and Jeffrey Wurgler
We use a simple model of corporate investment to determine when investment will be sensitive to non-fundamental movements in stock prices. The key cross-sectional prediction of the model is that stock prices will have a stronger impact on the investment of firms that... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised September 2007)
- Background Note
A Note on Racing to Acquire Customers
Examines factors that motivate a firm's race to acquire customers in newly emerging markets and explores conditions under which racing strategies are likely to yield attractive returns. Provides a definition of racing behavior, introduces the notion of an optimal level... View Details
- September 2002 (Revised August 2003)
- Case
Genzyme's Gaucher Initiative: Global Risk and Responsibility
By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Andrew N. McLean
In Egypt, Genzyme's humanitarian commitment to treat all sufferers of the rare Gaucher disease worldwide first confronts its commercial imperative to recoup the huge investment required to bring the drug Cerezyme to market. Here Tomye Tierney must decide how to balance... View Details
- April 2002 (Revised February 2003)
- Background Note
An Economic Framework for Assessing Development Impact
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Frank J. Lysy and Carrie Ferman
Discusses the differences between private and social returns and describes an economic framework for assessing a project's social return [known as the economic rate of return (ERR)]. The framework begins by analyzing the impact of a new project on private financiers... View Details
- 2002
- Other Unpublished Work
Market Liquidity as a Sentiment Indicator
By: Malcolm Baker and Jeremy Stein
We build a model that helps to explain why increases in liquidity—such as lower bid–ask spreads, a lower price impact of trade, or higher turnover—predict lower subsequent returns in both firm-level and aggregate data. The model features a class of irrational... View Details