Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,262)
- Faculty Publications (178)
- February 2023
- Article
OTC Intermediaries
By: Andrea L. Eisfeldt, Bernard Herskovic, Sriram Rajan and Emil Siriwardane
We study the effect of dealer exit on prices and quantities in a model of an over-the-counter (OTC) market featuring a core-periphery network with bilateral trading costs. The model is calibrated using regulatory data on the entire U.S. credit default swap (CDS) market... View Details
- January 2023
- Case
EKI Energy Services: One Billion Carbon Credits
By: George Serafeim
Within nine months from the time of its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in April of 2021, EKI Energy Services (EKI) shares had increased by more than 8,000%. Equally explosive was the growth of the company’s revenues and Earnings Before Interest, Taxes and Depreciation... View Details
- January 2023
- Case
Rentokil: The Terminix Acquisition
By: Ted Berk, Emily R. McComb and Julia Kelley
When announcing their agreement to merge in December 2021, creating a clear leader in global pest control, UK-based Rentokil and Tennessee-based Terminix described extensive benefits of the cross-border combination. The companies touted the advantages of their combined... View Details
- November 2022 (Revised March 2023)
- Case
OneSmart
By: Nien-he Hsieh, Meg Rithmire and Shu Lin
At the end of 2021, Xi “Steve” Zhang was facing an existential crisis for himself and his business. OneSmart was a premium educational company founded in 2008 offering K-12 afterschool tutoring for students nationwide under a number of brands. The company was founded... View Details
- October 2022 (Revised May 2023)
- Case
Ginkgo Bioworks vs. Scorpion Capital: The Debate Over Related-Party Revenues
Ginkgo Bioworks, a synthetic biology company based in Boston, Massachusetts, faced divergent views on its revenue possibilities and accounting practices. After a report emerged accusing it of fraudulent accounting and lack of innovation, its share price plunged. But... View Details
- September 2022 (Revised January 2023)
- Case
Bear to Bull: An Analyst’s Journey with Netflix
By: Aiyesha Dey, Joseph Pacelli, Jennifer G. Lawson and Tom Quinn
Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said “hell freezing over” was more likely than him upgrading the “sell” rating he had maintained on movie and television streaming giant Netflix since 2011, despite meteoric subscriber and share price growth. In 2022, however,... View Details
- September 2022
- Article
House Prices, Home Equity and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from U.S. Census Micro Data
By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda
During 1992-2007, house price growth is strongly correlated with local entrepreneurship. We show with Census Bureau data that most of this entry is related to construction and real estate; these entrants tend to be small and short-lived. Using a 1998 Texas reform that... View Details
- August 2022 (Revised March 2023)
- Case
Pricing at Netflix: The Sequel
By: Elie Ofek and Amy Klopfenstein
This case continues the themes discussed in "Pricing at Netflix" (Case 521-004). Following the conclusion of the original case, Netflix developed new, high-profile original content, added millions of subscribers, and introduced another price increase in January 2022.... View Details
Keywords: Marketing; Advertising; Marketing Strategy; Entertainment; Film Entertainment; Television Entertainment; Finance; Strategy; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Business Strategy; Adaptation; Internet and the Web; Customers; Customer Satisfaction; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Advertising Industry; North and Central America; United States
- March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
- Case
MTN: Unlocking Value While Driving Socioeconomic Progress
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Dilyana Karadzhova Botha
On March 10, 2021, Ralph Mupita the new CEO of MTN Group, Africa's largest telecommunications company, presented the group’s 2020 annual results and unveiled a new strategy to “drive growth and unlock value.” Despite MTN’s leadership in most of its markets, the... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
Stock Market Stimulus
By: Robin Greenwood, Toomas Laarits and Jeffrey Wurgler
We study the stock market effects of the arrival of the three rounds of “stimulus checks” to U.S. taxpayers and the single round of direct payments to Hong Kong citizens. The first two rounds of U.S. checks appear to have increased retail buying and share prices of... View Details
Keywords: Stock Market; COVID-19 Pandemic; Fiscal Stimulus; Stimulus Payments; Impact; Stocks; System Shocks; Price; Spending; United States; Hong Kong; China
- Article
A Better Way to Assess Managerial Performance
Total shareholder return (TSR) has become the definitive metric for gauging performance. Unlike accounting measures such as revenue growth or earnings per share that reflect the past, TSR is based on share price and thus captures investor expectations of what will... View Details
- January 2022 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Introducing EVA at ISS: A Better Way to Evaluate CEO Performance and Compensation?
By: Jonas Heese, Charles C.Y. Wang and James Weber
In early 2019, Anthony Campagna, the global director of fundamental research at ISS EVA, a unit of the proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), was preparing to release ISS's analyses of public company performance and CEO compensation ahead of Say... View Details
- January 2022
- Case
Walmart USA—Searching for Growth
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Maria P. Roche
In 2022, Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Walmart, and his team looked back at a difficult but ultimately successful past year. The global pandemic had posed enormous challenges, but the company had weathered the storm successfully, raising same-store sales growth,... View Details
- November 2021
- Article
Ratings, Reviews, and the Marketing of New Products
By: Itay P. Fainmesser, Dominique Olié Lauga and Elie Ofek
We study how user-generated content (UGC) about new products impacts a firm's advertising and pricing decisions and the effect on profits and market dynamics. We construct a two-period model where consumers value quality and are heterogeneous in their taste for the new... View Details
- October 28, 2021
- Article
Creating a Meaningful Corporate Purpose
By: Hubert Joly
Today, most company leaders believe that their companies’ larger purpose is to make a positive difference in the world—not just to maximize shareholder value. Defining a corporate why and making sure it guides decisions and operations has therefore become a cornerstone... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised September 2022)
- Case
GoPro: Becoming a Subscription Hero
By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini and Nicole Tempest Keller
In 2021, Nick Woodman, founder and CEO of GoPro, was reviewing the company’s subscription offering, considering whether to extend it beyond benefits that were directly related to the company’s iconic camera. Founded in 2002, GoPro had gained renown for its innovative... View Details
- October 7, 2021
- Article
Carbon Might Be Your Company’s Biggest Financial Liability
By: Robert G. Eccles and John Mulliken
The price of carbon may be zero in many places today, but it’s unlikely to remain zero for long. That means that many companies have hidden liabilities on their books. To cover their carbon short position, executives can take several steps: Measure the position in... View Details
- Article
Large Banks and Small Firm Lending
By: Vitaly Bord, Victoria Ivashina and Ryan D. Taliaferro
We examine the long-lasting effects of the 2007 real estate price collapse on small business credit supply. Banks affected by the decline in real estate prices systematically contracted their credit to small firms. At the same time, regional and local banks, many of... View Details
- July 2021
- Article
Outsourcing Tasks Online: Matching Supply and Demand on Peer-to-Peer Internet Platforms
By: Zoë Cullen and Chiara Farronato
We study the growth of online peer-to-peer markets. Using data from TaskRabbit, an expanding marketplace for domestic tasks at the time of our study, we show that growth varies considerably across cities. To disentangle the potential drivers of growth, we look... View Details
- June 2021 (Revised November 2024)
- Case
MicroStrategy: Accounting for Cryptocurrency
By: Jonas Heese and Annelena Lobb
On February 15, 2021, Alina Moss, an analyst who covered the technology company MicroStrategy, pondered a rise in MicroStrategy’s share price. Moss had dialed into the company earnings call. When it ended, Moss had more questions than answers. MicroStrategy had... View Details