Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(700)
- Faculty Publications (136)
- June 2020
- Article
Understanding Different Approaches to Benefit-Based Taxation
By: Robert Scherf and Matthew C. Weinzierl
The normative principle of benefit-based taxation has exerted substantial influence on many areas of public finance, but it has been largely set aside in the modern theoretical approach to optimal income taxation, where welfarist objectives dominate. A prerequisite for... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Sticky Capital Controls
By: Miguel Acosta-Henao, Laura Alfaro and Andres Fernandez
There is much ongoing debate on the merits of capital controls as effective policy instruments. The differing perspectives are due in part to a lack of empirical studies that look at the intensive margin of controls, which in turn has prevented a quantitative... View Details
- February 2020 (Revised August 2021)
- Case
Australia: Commodities, Competitiveness, Climate and China
By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Laura Alfaro
For the past few decades, Australia has dealt with the benefits and costs of repeated mining booms—inflation, a housing bubble, a current account deficit, and growing dependence on China. Between 1996 and 2007, however, Australia had most of these issues under control... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Thinking Outside the Box (12): The Benefits of Increased Transparency in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance for the 180 Million Insured
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Barak D. Richman
Economists have long noted that the tax exclusion of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) caused workers to purchase health plans that differ in price and other characteristics from those they would otherwise choose for themselves. We explore the short-term and long-term... View Details
- October 2019 (Revised August 2020)
- Case
The Predictive Index
By: Lynda M. Applegate and James Weber
Mike Zani and Daniel Muzquiz needed to decide next steps to create a new category in the human resources consulting industry and scale their company.
Zani and Muzquiz, serial entrepreneurs, acquired Predictive Index in 2014. Previously, as clients of the... View Details
Zani and Muzquiz, serial entrepreneurs, acquired Predictive Index in 2014. Previously, as clients of the... View Details
- July 2019
- Article
Optimal Capital Structure and Bankruptcy Choice: Dynamic Bargaining vs Liquidation
By: Samuel Antill and Steven R. Grenadier
We model a firm’s optimal capital structure decision in a framework in which it may later choose to enter either Chapter 11 reorganization or Chapter 7 liquidation. Creditors anticipate equityholders’ ex-post reorganization incentives and price them into the ex-ante... View Details
- March 2019
- Supplement
KITEA (F): Expanding in Africa
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Gamze Yucaoglu
he case opens in 2018 after KITEA has recorded two years of double-digit sales growth following IKEA’s entry into the Moroccan market. It then traces the factors that contributed to KITEA’s success and that led Tana Africa Capital Limited to acquire a minority stake in... View Details
Keywords: Retail; KITEA; IKEA; Furniture; Furniture Industry; Entry Strategy; Responding To Entry; Localization; Competitive Interaction; Private Sector; For-Profit Firms; Business Strategy; Strategic Planning; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Adaptation; Corporate Strategy; Success; Expansion; Strategy; Retail Industry; Africa; North Africa; Morocco
- 2019
- Working Paper
Understanding Different Approaches to Benefit-Based Taxation
By: Robert Scherf and Matthew C. Weinzierl
The normative principle of benefit-based taxation has exerted substantial influence on many areas of public finance, but it has been largely set aside in the modern theoretical approach to optimal income taxation, where welfarist objectives dominate. A prerequisite for... View Details
- November 2018 (Revised August 2020)
- Case
The Reinvention of Kodak
By: Ryan Raffaelli and Christine Snively
The Eastman Kodak Company (Kodak) was a name familiar to most Americans. The company had dominated the film and photography industry through most of the 20th Century and was known for making affordable cameras (and the “Kodak Moment”) and supplying the movie industry... View Details
- November 2018
- Teaching Note
The Tax Man: Taxes in Private Equity Real Estate
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Sayiddah Fatima McCree
Teaching Note for HBS No. 218-077. This teaching note provides the back up analysis for the various alternatives to be considered in choosing the optimal investment structure for the real estate acquisition. It contrasts the interests of the tax exempt investors... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Detecting Anomalies: The Relevance and Power of Standard Asset Pricing Tests
By: Malcolm Baker, Patrick Luo and Ryan Taliaferro
The two standard approaches for identifying capital market anomalies are cross-sectional coefficient tests, in the spirit of Fama and MacBeth (1973), and time-series intercept tests, in the spirit of Jensen (1968). A new signal can pass the first test, which we label a... View Details
- July 2018
- Teaching Note
Cumplo.com
Teaching Note for HBS No. 818-039. Teaching Note for HBS No. 818-039. Cumplo is a Chilean-based fin-tech startup that provides investors and small businesses with opportunities to access loans and investments in ways distinct from traditional financial institutions in... View Details
- July 2018
- Article
Revisiting the Classical View of Benefit-Based Taxation
This article incorporates into modern optimal tax theory the classical logic of benefit‐based taxation in which an individual's benefit from the activities of the state is tied to his or her income‐earning ability. First‐best optimal policy is characterized... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Corporate Tax Cuts Increase Income Inequality
By: Suresh Nallareddy, Ethan Rouen and Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato
This paper studies the effects of corporate tax changes on income inequality. Using state corporate tax rate changes as a setting, we show that cutting state corporate tax rates leads to increases in income inequality. This result is robust to using regression and... View Details
- February 2018
- Case
Root Capital and the Efficient Impact Frontier
By: Shawn Cole and Caitlin Reimers Brumme
In 2015 Root Capital, a pioneer in the impact investing space, began to explore how to more systematically integrate impact and financial management. After much deliberation, Root Capital landed on ex-ante rating system for any potential investment that produced a... View Details
- Fourth Quarter 2017
- Article
Optimal Tilts: Combining Persistent Characteristic Portfolios
By: Malcolm Baker, Ryan Taliaferro and Terry Burnham
We examine the optimal weighting of four tilts in U.S. equity markets from 1968 through 2014. We define a “tilt” as a characteristic-based portfolio strategy that requires relatively low annual turnover. This is a continuum, with small size (a very persistent... View Details
- Article
Popular Acceptance of Inequality Due to Innate Brute Luck and Support for Classical Benefit-based Taxation
U.S. survey respondents' views on distributive justice differ in two specific, related ways from what is conventionally assumed in modern optimal tax research. When expressing their preferences over allocations in stylized, hypothetical scenarios meant to isolate key... View Details
- September 2017
- Article
The Real Effects of Capital Controls: Firm-Level Evidence from a Policy Experiment
By: Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari and Fabio Kanczuk
Emerging-market governments adopted capital control taxes to manage the massive surge in foreign capital inflows in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Theory suggests that the imposition of capital controls can drive up the cost of capital and curb... View Details
- July 2017
- Case
Centerbridge Partners and Great Wolf Resorts: Buying from a Highly Regarded Competitor
By: Josh Lerner, John D. Dionne and Amram Migdal
The case examines the March 2015 Centerbridge Partners investment decision regarding whether to acquire Great Wolf Resorts, a North American family-oriented indoor water parks and hotel operator, from a private equity (PE) competitor, Apollo Global Management. The case... View Details
Keywords: Private Equity Financing; Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities; CMBS; Secondary Buyouts; Business Ventures; Acquisition; Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Cost; Cost of Capital; Equity; Private Equity; Financial Instruments; Debt Securities; Accommodations Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Financial Services Industry; North and Central America; United States
- Article
What Do Private Equity Firms Say They Do?
By: Paul A. Gompers, Steven N. Kaplan and Vladimir Mukharlyamov
We survey 79 private equity investors with combined assets under management (AUM) of over $750 billion about their practices in firm valuation, capital structure, governance, and value creation. Investors rely primarily on internal rate of return (IRR) and multiples to... View Details