Publications

Educators

September–October 2023
Article

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: The Effects of Common Ownership on Corporate Social Responsibility

By: Mark R. DesJardine, Jody Grewal and Kala Viswanathan

Common owners face an incredible investment challenge: managing systematic risk. Because common owners hold shares in multiple firms across an industry, an action (or inaction) by one firm that affects industry peers is felt more severely by common owners than by... View Details

Keywords: Common Ownership; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Institutional Investing; Corporate Governance; Risk and Uncertainty; Investment Return

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Career Coach

Annette Rodriguez-Ferrer

Annette Rodriguez brings over 20 years of seasoned expertise in private equity, across business services, consumer services, and healthcare. She has dedicated her career to building teams and investing in and developing best-in-class... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing; Impact Investing

2023
Working Paper

Deglobalization and Entrepreneurial Investment: The Natural Experiment of Brexit

By: Elisa Alvarez-Garrido and Juan Alcácer

We seek to gain insight into the consequences of deglobalization on entrepreneurial investment by analyzing an instance of economic disintegration: the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. Brexit is not only a unique empirical opportunity, a natural... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; International Relations; Trade; Disruption; Globalized Economies and Regions; United Kingdom

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September 2010 (Revised May 2012)
Case

Harvard Management Company (2010)

By: Andre F. Perold and Erik Stafford

In February 2010, Jane Mendillo, CEO of Harvard Management Company, was reflecting on the list of issues facing Harvard University's endowment in preparation for the upcoming board meeting. The recent financial crisis had vividly highlighted several key issues... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Higher Education; Asset Management; Financial Liquidity; Investment Portfolio; Risk Management; Education Industry; Financial Services Industry; Massachusetts

Educators

23 Jan 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Cost of Capital Dynamics Implied by Firm Fundamentals

Keywords: by Matthew Lyle & Charles C.Y. Wang

September 2008 (Revised September 2010)
Case

Ithmar Capital

By: Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

The founders of Ithmar Capital, a mid-market private equity fund targeting businesses in and addressing the Gulf Co-operation Council countries, are about to raise their third fund, targeting $1 billion. The firm's current strategy as demonstrated in Funds I ($70... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Financial Management; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Financial Services Industry

Summer 2025
Article

Are ESG Improvements Recognized? Perspectives from the Public Sentiments

By: Shaolong Wu

While Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) increasingly guides investment management and corporate agendas nowadays, public reactions to firms' ESG performance remain under-studied. This paper fills this gap by investigating whether the public picks up firms' ESG... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Public Opinion; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance; Investment

SSRN

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September 2011 (Revised March 2012)
Case

KKR: Leveraging Sustainability

The case describes KKR's Green Portfolio Program, one of the firm's environmental initiatives, which has achieved $160 million in cost savings. While pleased with its progress in achieving greater energy efficiency and reduced carbon emissions, the firm is looking for... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Investment Portfolio; Energy Conservation; Cost Management; Supply Chain Management; Risk Management; Social Enterprise; Growth and Development; Performance Efficiency; Financial Services Industry

Educators

October 2013
Article

Corporate Venturing

By: Josh Lerner

For decades, large companies have been wary of corporate venturing. But as R&D organizations face pressure to rein in costs and produce results, companies are investing in promising start-ups to gain knowledge and agility. The logic of corporate venturing is... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Knowledge Acquisition; Corporate Strategy; Research and Development; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention

Article

Reaching for Yield in the Bond Market

By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

Reaching for yield—the propensity to buy riskier assets in order to achieve higher yields—is believed to be an important factor contributing to the credit cycle. This paper analyzes this phenomenon in the corporate bond market. Specifically, we show evidence for... View Details

Keywords: Fixed Income; Reaching For Yield; Financial Intermediation; Insurance Companies; Insurance; Assets; Bonds; Investment Return; Investment Portfolio; Risk Management; Insurance Industry

SSRN

May 2006 (Revised June 2006)
Case

Codon Devices

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and David Kiron

In December 2005, 40-year-old John Danner was about to make his first presentation to the board of directors of Codon Devices, a one-year-old biotechnology start-up based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After a month as the company's CEO, Danner was prepared to lay out... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Planning; Venture Capital; Intellectual Property; Governing and Advisory Boards; Genetics; Competitive Advantage; Science-Based Business; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Biotechnology Industry; Cambridge

29 Oct 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Public Sentiment and the Price of Corporate Sustainability

Keywords: by George Serafeim

2021
Working Paper

Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Learning from Corporate Fraud and Corporate Governance Spillovers

By: Trung Nguyen

This paper finds that investors learn from their experience with corporate fraud and financial misconduct and modify their investment behavior to avoid suspicious firms and increase corporate governance efforts. More specially, mutual funds that experienced corporate... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Investors; Investor Experience; Shareholder Voting; Corporate Fraud; Corporate Governance; Institutional Investing; Behavior; Change; Learning

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August 2005 (Revised April 2014)
Teaching Note

Innocents Abroad: Currencies and International Stock Returns

By: Mihir A. Desai, Kathleen Luchs, Elizabeth A. Meyer and Mark Veblen

What do international stocks contribute to the portfolio of a U.S. investor? How do currencies interact with stock price movements in determining the benefits of international diversification? This case helps students compare the risks and returns of foreign stock... View Details

August 2021
Article

Don't Take Their Word for It: The Misclassification of Bond Mutual Funds

By: Huaizhi Chen, Lauren Cohen and Umit Gurun

We provide evidence that bond fund managers misclassify their holdings, and that these misclassifications have a real and significant impact on investor capital flows. In particular, many funds report more investment grade assets than are actually held in their... View Details

Keywords: Mutual Funds; Economics; Finance; Measurement and Metrics; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry

SSRN