Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(100)
- Faculty Publications (42)
- 2015
- Working Paper
Client Service, Compensation, and the Sell-Side Analyst Objective Function: An Empirical Analysis of Relational Incentives in the Investment-Research Industry
By: David A. Maber, Boris Groysberg and Paul M. Healy
This paper investigates how sell-side analysts build and sustain their client networks; the economic gains to successfully managing this challenge; and the metrics through which these incentives are delivered. In a typical semiannual period, the average analyst... View Details
- October 2014 (Revised September 2015)
- Case
Sanford C. Bernstein Goes to Asia
By: Linda A. Hill, Dana M. Teppert and Allison J. Wigen
Sanford C. Bernstein, a premier sell-side research firm, is expanding globally. Three years after launching Bernstein's Asian business, senior management has appointed Ghislain de Charentenay, a six-year sales veteran of the firm, as director of Asian research in Hong... View Details
- Article
The Use of Broker Votes to Reward Brokerage Firms' and Their Analysts' Research Activities
By: David A. Maber, Boris Groysberg and Paul M. Healy
In traditional markets, the price mechanism directs the flow of resources and governs the process through which supply and demand are brought into equilibrium. In the investment-research industry, broker votes perform these functions. Using detailed clinical data from... View Details
- March 2014
- Article
Private Interaction Between Firm Management and Sell-Side Analysts
By: Eugene F. Soltes
Although sell-side analysts often privately interact with managers of publicly traded firms, the private nature of this contact has historically obscured direction examination. By examining a set of proprietary records compiled by a large-cap NYSE traded firm, I offer... View Details
- May 2013
- Article
The Stock Selection and Performance of Buy-Side Analysts
Prior research on equity analysts focuses almost exclusively on those employed by sell-side investment banks and brokerage houses. Yet investment firms undertake their own buy-side research and their analysts face different stock selection and recommendation incentives... View Details
- March 2013
- Case
NovaStar Financial: A Short Seller's Battle
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Amy Kaser
The NovaStar case describes the challenges faced by short seller Marc Cohodes of hedge fund Rocker Partners as he tried to expose what he thought was widespread fraud in mortgage lender NovaStar Financial. The case is set in the time period from 2001 to 2007 and tracks... View Details
Keywords: Short Selling; Financial Accounting; Financial Analysis; Financial Analysts; Valuation; Business Analysis; Financial Statement Analysis; Financial Statements; Securitization; Securities Analysis; Fraud; Accounting Quality; Accounting Red Flags; Accounting Restatements; Hedge Fund; Hedge Funds; Accounting Scandal; Accounting Fraud; Financial Crisis; Financial Intermediaries; Financial Firms; Corporate Accountability; Subprime Lending; Mortgage Lending; Accounting; Accrual Accounting; Fair Value Accounting; Governance; Governance Compliance; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Financial Services Industry; United States; California
- 2012
- Article
Hiring Cheerleaders: Board Appointments of 'Independent' Directors
By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher Malloy
We provide evidence that firms appoint independent directors who are overly sympathetic to management, while still technically independent according to regulatory definitions. We explore a subset of independent directors for whom we have detailed, micro-level data on... View Details
- May 2012
- Article
Complicated Firms
By: Lauren Cohen and Dong Lou
We exploit a novel setting in which the same piece of information affects two sets of firms: one set of firms requires straightforward processing to update prices, while the other set requires more complicated analyses to incorporate the same piece of information into... View Details
- Article
The Stock Selection and Performance of Buy-Side Analysts
We examine the selection and performance of stocks recommended by analysts at a large investment firm relative to those of sell-side analysts during the period mid-1997 and 2004. The buy-side firm's analysts issued less optimistic recommendations for stocks with larger... View Details
- July – August 2011
- Article
What Factors Drive Analyst Forecasts?
A firm's competitive environment, its strategic choices, and its internal capabilities are considered important determinants of its future performance. Yet there is little evidence on whether analysts' forecasts of firm performance actually reflect any of these factors... View Details
- May – June 2011
- Article
Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth: How High Status Individuals Decrease Group Effectiveness
By: Boris Groysberg, Jeffrey T. Polzer and Hillary Anger Elfenbein
Can groups become effective simply by assembling high status individual performers? Though an affirmative answer may seem straightforward on the surface, this answer becomes more complicated when group members benefit from collaborating on interdependent tasks.... View Details
- March 2011
- Article
Do Sell-Side Stock Analysts Exhibit Escalation of Commitment?
By: John Beshears and Katherine L. Milkman
This paper presents evidence that when an analyst makes an out-of-consensus forecast of a company's quarterly earnings that turns out to be incorrect, she escalates her commitment to maintaining an out-of-consensus view on the company. Relative to an analyst who was... View Details
- September 2011
- Article
What Drives Sell-Side Analyst Compensation at High-Status Investment Banks?
By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and David A. Maber
We use proprietary data from a major investment bank to investigate factors associated with analysts' annual compensation. We find compensation to be positively related to "All-Star" recognition, investment-banking contributions, the size of analysts' portfolios, and... View Details
- October 2010 (Revised December 2010)
- Case
Global Expansion at Sanford C. Bernstein (A) (Abridged)
By: Linda A. Hill and Dana Teppert
Sanford C. Bernstein, a premier sell-side research firm, is expanding globally, and has recently opened an office in Hong Kong. Global Director of Research Robert van Brugge must consider how best to organize the firm's research department to enhance cross-sector and... View Details
- October 2010
- Supplement
Global Expansion at Sanford C. Bernstein (B) (Abridged)
By: Linda A. Hill and Dana Teppert
Sanford C. Bernstein, a premier sell-side research firm, is expanding globally, and has recently opened an office in Hong Kong. Global Director of Research Robert van Brugge must consider how best to organize the firm's research department to enhance cross-sector and... View Details
- October 2010 (Revised July 2012)
- Case
Global Expansion at Sanford C. Bernstein
By: Linda A. Hill and Dana Teppert
Sanford C. Bernstein, a premier sell-side research firm, is expanding globally and has recently opened an office in Hong Kong. Global Director of Research Robert van Brugge must consider how best to organize the firm's research department to enhance cross-sector and... View Details
- October 2010 (Revised July 2012)
- Supplement
Robin Bienenstock at Sanford C. Bernstein
By: Linda A. Hill and Dana Teppert
Robin Bienenstock, a senior sell-side equity research analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, considers how to build her research franchise given the changing nature of the industry and the firm. A collaborative research paper called "Computer in Your Pocket" was recently... View Details
- October 2010 (Revised July 2012)
- Supplement
Toni Sacconaghi at Sanford C. Bernstein
By: Linda A. Hill and Dana Teppert
Toni Sacconaghi, a senior sell-side equity research analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein covering U.S. IT hardware companies, thinks about the challenges and opportunities presented by the firm's new office in Hong Kong. Sacconaghi was previously the only analyst covering... View Details
- August 2010
- Article
Sell-Side School Ties
By: Lauren H. Cohen, Christopher J. Malloy and Andrea Frazzini
We study the impact of social networks on agents' ability to gather superior information about firms. Exploiting novel data on the educational backgrounds of sell-side equity analysts and senior officers of firms, we test the hypothesis that analysts' school ties to... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Hiring Cheerleaders: Board Appointments of 'Independent' Directors
By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher J. Malloy
We test the hypothesis that firms appoint independent directors who are overly sympathetic to management, while still technically independent according to regulatory definitions. We explore a subset of independent directors for whom we have detailed, micro-level data... View Details