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- All HBS Web
(1,747)
- People (1)
- News (316)
- Research (1,119)
- Events (7)
- Multimedia (22)
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- June 2023
- Case
Accounting for Loan Losses at JPMorgan Chase: Predicting Credit Costs
By: Jonas Heese, Jung Koo Kang and James Weber
The case examines the accounting for loan losses at a large bank, how a bank sets its Allowance for Loan and Lease Losses (ALLL) on its financial statements. ALLL, and the rules that set them, determine when banks would and would not extend loans, which significantly... View Details
Keywords: Accounting Standards; Accrual Accounting; Financial Statements; Financial Reporting; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Banking Industry; United States
Heese, Jonas, Jung Koo Kang, and James Weber. "Accounting for Loan Losses at JPMorgan Chase: Predicting Credit Costs." Harvard Business School Case 123-042, June 2023.
- Article
Accounting for Climate Change
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna
Corporations are facing growing pressure—from investors, advocacy groups, politicians, and even business leaders themselves—to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their operations and their supply and distribution chains. About 90% of the companies in the S&P... View Details
Keywords: Greenhouse Gas Mitigation; Social Accounting; E-liabilities; Business And The Environment; Climate Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability
Kaplan, Robert S., and Karthik Ramanna. "Accounting for Climate Change." Harvard Business Review 99, no. 6 (November–December 2021): 120–131.
- 2019
- White Paper
Impact-Weighted Financial Accounts: The Missing Piece for an Impact Economy
By: George Serafeim, T. Robert Zochowski and Jennifer Downing
Reimagining capitalism is an imperative. We need to create a more inclusive and sustainable form of capitalism that works for every person and the planet. Massive environmental damage, growing income and wealth disparity, stress, and depression within developed... View Details
Keywords: Impact-Weighted Accounts; IWAI; Background; Economic Systems; Economy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Measurement and Metrics; Financial Statements
Serafeim, George, T. Robert Zochowski, and Jennifer Downing. "Impact-Weighted Financial Accounts: The Missing Piece for an Impact Economy." White Paper, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, September 2019.
- 2020
- Working Paper
A Preliminary Framework for Product Impact-Weighted Accounts
By: George Serafeim and Katie Trinh
While there has been significant progress in the measurement of an organization’s environmental and social impacts from its operations, metrics to evaluate the impact of products once they come to market lag far behind. In this paper, we provide a framework for... View Details
Keywords: Social Impact; Product Life Cycle; Environment; Sustainability; Measurement; Metrics; Impact Investing; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Reporting; Product; Environmental Sustainability; Measurement and Metrics; Framework; Financial Statements
Serafeim, George, and Katie Trinh. "A Framework for Product Impact-Weighted Accounts." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-076, January 2020. (Revised October 2020.)
- February 1, 2001
- Article
Read 2000 Annual Report Securitization Disclosures: New Information and New Accounting Impact Explained
By: David F. Hawkins
Hawkins, David F. "Read 2000 Annual Report Securitization Disclosures: New Information and New Accounting Impact Explained." Accounting Bulletin, no. 94 (February 1, 2001).
- February 2025 (Revised March 2025)
- Case
Accounting for Bitcoin at Block
By: Charles C.Y. Wang, Seil Kim and Sa-Pyung Sean Shin
Abstract: This case explores Block Inc.'s accounting practices for Bitcoin transactions and their impact on financial reporting. Following a 10% stock price drop after missing revenue estimates in Q3 2024, Block faced scrutiny over its Bitcoin-driven revenue model.... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
A Conceptualization of Sub-Living Wages: Liabilities, Leverage, and Risk
By: Drew Keller, Katie Panella and George Serafeim
Currently the accounting system records employee wages as an expense in the income statement. However, paying below living wages can expose an organization to reputational and operational risks. In this paper, we offer an alternative conceptualization of the issue of... View Details
Keywords: Accounting; Impact Accounting; Leverage; Wages; Compensation and Benefits; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Government Relations; Social Issues; Human Capital
Keller, Drew, Katie Panella, and George Serafeim. "A Conceptualization of Sub-Living Wages: Liabilities, Leverage, and Risk." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 22-076, June 2022.
- 2015
- Working Paper
Auditor Lobbying on Accounting Standards
By: Abigail Allen, Karthik Ramanna and Sugata Roychowdhury
We examine how Big N auditors' changing incentives impact their comment-letter lobbying on U.S. GAAP over the first thirty-four years of the FASB (1973–2006). We examine the influence of auditors' lobbying incentives arising from three basic factors: managing expected... View Details
Allen, Abigail, Karthik Ramanna, and Sugata Roychowdhury. "Auditor Lobbying on Accounting Standards." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 15-055, December 2014. (Winner of the American Accounting Association Western Conference Best Paper Award.)
- September 2014
- Article
Accounting Standards and International Portfolio Holdings
By: Gwen Yu and Aida Sijamic Wahid
Do differences in countries' accounting standards affect global investment decisions? We explore this question by examining how accounting distance, the difference in the accounting standards used in the investor's and the investee's countries, affects the asset... View Details
Keywords: IFRS; Home Bias; Cross-cultural/cross-border; Information Asymmetry; Mutual Funds; International Relations
Yu, Gwen, and Aida Sijamic Wahid. "Accounting Standards and International Portfolio Holdings." Accounting Review 89, no. 5 (September 2014): 1895–1930. (Winner of American Accounting Association. International Accounting Section. Outstanding Dissertation Award presented by American Accounting Association.)
- March 2024
- Module Note
Accounting Standards for the 21st Century
By: Jonas Heese
Over the past two decades, accounting standards have evolved to meet the demands of a rapidly changing business environment. This module note focuses on understanding the impact of these standards on measuring firm performance and financial position in the context of a... View Details
Heese, Jonas. "Accounting Standards for the 21st Century." Harvard Business School Module Note 124-056, March 2024.
- May 2025
- Case
'Net Zero in Action': Impact Investing at the McKnight Foundation
By: Lauren Cohen, Christina R. Wing and Sophia Pan
Elizabeth McGeveran, Vice President of Investments at the McKnight Foundation, reflected on how to effectively advance the organization’s net-zero strategy. The foundation had committed 10% of its endowment to building a portfolio of impact investments and was among... View Details
Keywords: Investment Fund; Philanthropy; Charitable Donations; Sustainability; Foundation; Impact Investing; ESG; Family Business; Forecasting and Prediction; Private Sector; Renewable Energy; Social Entrepreneurship; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Institutional Investing; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Private Ownership; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Social Issues; Sustainable Cities; Financial Services Industry; Minnesota; United States
- 14 Nov 2012
- Research & Ideas
New Agenda for Corporate Accountability Reporting
not clear what exactly corporate accountability reporting is, or how to evaluate its usefulness to different constituencies such as customers, bondholders, shareholders, employees, and communities. It's not clear how it affects managers'... View Details
- 16 Apr 2013
- Working Paper Summaries
The Auditing Oligopoly and Lobbying on Accounting Standards
- August 2018 (Revised April 2019)
- Case
Fair Value Accounting at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (A)
By: Jonas Heese, Suraj Srinivasan, Francois Brochet and Christine Johnson
In May 2018, Berkshire Hathaway announced an unprecedented loss of more than $1 billion for the first quarter of 2018. Warren Buffett blamed this loss on the new accounting rules for equity securities which he criticized. In the case ‘Fair Value Accounting at Berkshire... View Details
Keywords: Equity Securities; FASB; Fair Value Accounting; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Financial Services Industry
Heese, Jonas, Suraj Srinivasan, Francois Brochet, and Christine Johnson. "Fair Value Accounting at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (A)." Harvard Business School Case 119-030, August 2018. (Revised April 2019.)
- November 2014
- Article
The Impact of Corporate Sustainability on Organizational Processes and Performance
By: Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim
We investigate the effect of corporate sustainability on organizational processes and performance. Using a matched sample of 180 U.S. companies, we find that corporations that voluntarily adopted sustainability policies by 1993—termed as High Sustainability... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Management; Sustainability Research; Sustainability Reporting; Sustainability Targets; Corporate Social Responsibility; Corporate Accountability; Reporting; Corporate Governance; Investor Clientele; Investor Communication; Stock Market; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Performance; United States
Eccles, Robert G., Ioannis Ioannou, and George Serafeim. "The Impact of Corporate Sustainability on Organizational Processes and Performance." Management Science 60, no. 11 (November 2014): 2835–2857.
- 28 Sep 2009
- Research & Ideas
Improving Accountability at the World Bank
supporters note a number of reforms over the past two decades, including a current review of the Bank's information disclosure policy, and a series of "safeguards" on sensitive issues such as environmental impacts and effects on... View Details
Keywords: by Alnoor Ebrahim
- 2022
- Working Paper
The Gender Gap in Confidence: Expected But Not Accounted For
By: Christine L. Exley and Kirby Nielsen
We investigate how the gender gap in confidence affects the views that evaluators (e.g., employers) hold about men and women. If evaluators fail to account for the confidence gap, it may cause overly pessimistic views about women. Alternatively, if evaluators expect... View Details
Keywords: Confidence; Experiments; Gender; Perception; Values and Beliefs; Performance Evaluation; Analysis
Exley, Christine L., and Kirby Nielsen. "The Gender Gap in Confidence: Expected But Not Accounted For." Working Paper, October 2022.
- 2012
- Working Paper
A Framework for Research on Corporate Accountability Reporting
By: Karthik Ramanna
This paper provides an accounting-based conceptual framing of the phenomenon of corporate accountability reporting. Such reporting is seen as arising from a delegator's (e.g., a citizenry) demand to hold a delegate (e.g., shareholders) to account. When effective,... View Details
Keywords: Integrated Corporate Reporting; For-Profit Firms; Framework; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Research; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues
Ramanna, Karthik. "A Framework for Research on Corporate Accountability Reporting." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-021, September 2011. (Revised July 2012, October 2012.)
- October 2023
- Case
Prime Coalition: Estimating Climate Impact
A case on CRANE, a tool to help investors and green technology companies estimate the future climate impact of new technologies and products, called emissions reduction potential (ERP). The case includes material on CRANE’s methodology for estimating future carbon... View Details
Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Environmental Accounting; Analysis; Climate Change; Green Technology; Innovation and Invention; Measurement and Metrics; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Risk and Uncertainty; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Enterprise
Rigol, Natalia, Benjamin N. Roth, Brian Trelstad, and Amram Migdal. "Prime Coalition: Estimating Climate Impact." Harvard Business School Case 824-119, October 2023.