Publications

2011
Working Paper

Cyclicality of Credit Supply: Firm Level Evidence

By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

Theory predicts that there is a close link between bank credit supply and the evolution of the business cycle. Yet fluctuations in bank-loan supply have been hard to quantify in the time-series. While loan issuance falls in recessions, it is not clear if this is due to... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Banks and Banking; Bonds; Financial Markets; Financing and Loans; Banking Industry

SSRN

Read Now

11 Dec 2018
Research & Ideas

Free Trade Needs Nurturing—and Other Lessons from History

Question: What patterns emerge from history that can help us better understand where we are today? Sophus Reinert: To many people, globalization is teleological, something that necessarily becomes stronger over time and leads to an ever-more economically interconnected... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Auto; Aerospace; Chemical; Consumer Products; Electronics; Energy; Industrial Products; Manufacturing; Shipping; Transportation

19 Nov 2010
Research & Ideas

The Landscape of Integrated Reporting: An E-Book

where this trust has been badly damaged. We've reached a place that feels like a vicious cycle, where nothing progressive is going to happen. Somehow, we have to turn this cycle in the other direction, and restore business to a place... View Details

Keywords: by Nitin Nohria; Accounting

20 Jan 2003
Research & Ideas

Fixing Corporate Governance: A Roundtable Discussion at Harvard Business School

parts of the organization. With deficient information and knowledge, you can't put all the pieces together or understand when something might be going wrong. Jay Lorsch: There was a cycle of greed throughout the system, and boards, for... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons

11 Sep 2006
Research & Ideas

Negotiating When the Rules Suddenly Change

and acting. He concluded that tactical and strategic victory hinges on cycling through this loop faster than the enemy (or by disrupting the enemy's ability to connect those activities efficiently). The first two elements—observing and... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Wheeler; Sports

30 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 30, 2008

larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and robbery, as opposed to other kinds of crime like arson, assault, homicide, and rape. Temporal patterns in crime are observed in jurisdictions in which disbursements are focused at the beginning of monthly welfare payment View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

07 Jun 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Financial Distancing: How Venture Capital Follows the Economy Down and Curtails Innovation

Keywords: by Sabrina T. Howell, Josh Lerner, Ramana Nanda, and Richard Townsend; Financial Services

November 1999 (Revised July 2003)
Case

Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.

By: Paul M. Healy and Jacob Cohen

Pre-Paid Legal Services' business model reveals two key issues--managing the sales force and sales growth and managing claims. Students analyze the economics of the business and consider how to measure firm performance, how to evaluate and reward the sales force, and... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Salesforce Management; Marketing Strategy; Accrual Accounting; Business Cycles; Forecasting and Prediction; Insurance; Business Growth and Maturation; Insurance Industry

14 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Keeping Credit Flowing to Consumers in Need

credit crunch? Nicolas P. Retsinas: In 2007 the nonprime mortgage market crumbled. Many of these products were predicated on ever-rising home values, which would enable owners to sell, pay off, buy again-a cycle toward ever-bigger,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services; Construction; Real Estate

13 Feb 2006
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Market for Babies

telegraph, the radio, and so forth) that had been every bit as radical in their time as the Internet had become in ours. I argued that all of these technologies had gone through cycles of commercial expansion and political response and... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls; Biotechnology; Health; Technology

November 1981 (Revised June 1998)
Case

A Keynesian Cure for the Depression

Keynes, in excerpts from a 1933 pamphlet, outlines his recommendations for recovery from the Depression. He emphasizes the need for public works expenditures financed by government borrowing and discusses the "multiplier" effect of deficit spending on gross national... View Details

Keywords: History; Business Cycles; Theory; Microeconomics; Government Administration

August 2002 (Revised February 2003)
Case

Siebel Systems: Anatomy of a Sale, Part 2

By: John A. Deighton and Das Narayandas

How does a $2 million software sale happen? This case traces efforts by Siebel Systems to sell lead management software to discount broker Quick & Reilly. The buying process is mapped out over four years. Covers in detail the last six months--from Siebel's initial... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Leadership; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Organizational Structure; Behavior; Competition; Applications and Software; Technology Industry

02 Nov 2016
Op-Ed

Government and Financial Tech Can Fix Cash Woes for Small Businesses

cycle can mean the difference between a small business growing or just staying flat. And, the good news is that we’re seeing innovative ideas in both policy and products on this front—ideas that actually help small businesses manage their... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills

28 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 28

October 2014 Quarterly Journal of Economics Waves in Ship Prices and Investment By: Greenwood, Robin, and Samuel G. Hanson Abstract—We study the link between investment boom and bust cycles and returns on capital in the dry bulk shipping... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

16 Oct 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, October 16, 2018

methods, such as multiple-case inductive studies and traditional methods of causal inference. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55043 Quantile Forecasts of Product Life Cycles Using Exponential... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

12 Aug 2014
First Look

First Look: August 12

http://hbr.org/product/building-a-high-performance-culture-at-idfc/an/114077-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 514-076 Cycle for Survival (A) Katie Kotkins, director of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center's (MSKCC) View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2015
Teaching Note

International Macroeconomics — An Online Tutorial

By: Laura Alfaro and Elizabeth A. Meyer

This is the Teaching Note to accompany "International Macroeconomics", HBS Tutorial 715-702. View Details

Keywords: International Macroeconomics; International Economy; Current Account; Unemployment; Inflation; Monetary Policy; Fiscal Policy; Gdp; Macroeconomics; Money; Business Cycles; Inflation and Deflation; Trade

September 1992
Case

Star Cablevision Group (A): Harvesting in a Bull Market

By: William A. Sahlman

First case in a series of six cases that follow the experience of a cable television company as it adjusts to the rapid rise and precipitous decline of the stock market in the late 1980s. In this case Don Jones, the company's founder and owner, sees the rise in public... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Finance; Financial Markets; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Restructuring; Corporate Strategy; SWOT Analysis; Wealth; Business Cycles; Entertainment and Recreation Industry