Publications

02 Apr 2024
What Do You Think?

What's Enough to Make Us Happy?

(Image created with Midjourney, an artificial intelligence tool) Happiness, an elusive condition we all want to experience, is a popular topic. It’s a complex subject. It may or may not require everything from good health to sufficient... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

October 2006
Case

Clearwire Corporation

By: Richard S. Ruback

Explores Clearwire's decision to fund its substantial capital investments through an initial public offering (IPO) or through private equity. Clearwire is developing and deploying a broadband wireless network using WiMAX technology. It had filed a registered statement... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technological Innovation; Initial Public Offering; Investment Portfolio; Telecommunications Industry

Brian Trelstad is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School in the General Management Unit and the Faculty Chair of the Advanced Leadership Initiative. He teaches elective courses on Social Entrepreneurship and Systems... View Details

Keywords: education industry; health care; service industry; emerging market private equity; private equity (other); venture capital industry

06 Sep 2007
News

Nonperforming CEOs

14 Nov 2021
News

Vikram Gandhi—HBS Professor and Managing Partner at Asha Impact Fund

13 Oct 2016
News

Harvard Historian Explains Clinton's Abe Lincoln Moment

February 2004
Case

Bradman and Tendulkar, LLC

By: Ananth Raman and Vishal Gaur

An investment firm is trying to project inventory turns for Radio Shack, a chain of consumer electronics stores. The investment firm has access to public financial data but not to internal operational metrics. It needs to project inventory turns because inventory... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Cash Flow; Demand and Consumers; Distribution Channels; Mathematical Methods; Valuation

October 2003
Article

Capture by Threat

By: Ernesto Dal Bo and Rafael Di Tella

We analyze a simple stochastic environment in which policy makers can be threatened by “nasty” interest groups. In the absence of these groups, the policy maker’s desire for reelection guarantees that good policies are implemented for every realization of the shock.... View Details

Keywords: Political Parties; Politicians; Nash Equilibrium; Political Elections

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2024
Working Paper

The Rise of Alternatives

By: Juliane Begenau, Pauline Liang and Emil Siriwardane

Since the 2000s, U.S. public pensions have shifted their risky investments towards alternative assets like private equity and hedge funds, some more aggressively than others. We explore several explanations for these cross-sectional trends, focusing on those implied by... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Investment Return; Risk and Uncertainty

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April 2011 (Revised April 2011)
Module Note

Investor Demand

By: Robin Greenwood

This conceptual note describes a series of cases on the investor demand approach to investment strategy and management. The cases demonstrate how and why securities market dislocations are driven by non-fundamental demand. I use the cases to progressively build a... View Details

Keywords: Investment

15 Nov 2011
First Look

First Look: November 15

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470905905,descCd-tableOfContents.html Working PapersComparing the Investment Behavior of Public and Private Firms Authors:John Asker, Joan Farre-Mensa,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2023 (Revised May 2023)
Case

CalPERS Private Equity 2.0

By: Josh Lerner, John D. Dionne and Alys Ferragamo

Yup Kim, the Head of Investments, Private Equity at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), reflected on the pension fund’s private equity strategy. In July of 2022, the fund was in the midst of a multi-year turnaround strategy with the goal to... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Investment Portfolio; Retirement; Leadership; Strategy; Public Sector

17 Jan 2007
Op-Ed

Learning from Private-Equity Boards

If Enron had been owned and controlled by a small group of private-equity investors, could the monitoring and control practices of a professionally run buyout shop have protected Enron's shareholders and employees from the problems that destroyed the company and... View Details

Keywords: by Malcolm Salter; Financial Services

13 Oct 2020
News

Questions raised about conflicts of interest around Biden son-in-law

William J. Poorvu

William Poorvu is the Class of 1961 Adjunct Professor in Entrepreneurship, Emeritus at Harvard Business School. He taught and was responsible for the real estate courses there for 35 years. He was the school's first adjunct professor, its first adjunct professor... View Details

2016
Working Paper

The Great Training Robbery

By: Michael Beer, Magnus Finnstrom and Derek Schrader

In 2012 U.S. corporations spent $164.2 billion on training and education. Overwhelming evidence and experience shows, however, that most companies are unable to transfer employee learning into changes in individual and organization behavior or improved financial... View Details

Keywords: Training; Organizations; Investment Return

SSRN

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03 Mar 2017
News

It's Time To Put Your Garbage To Work

John D. Dionne

John D. Dionne has been a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School since 2014 and is a recently retired Senior Managing Director and Senior Advisor to Blackstone. He is also Managing Partner of Franconia Capital, a... View Details

March 1994 (Revised December 1995)
Case

McArthur/Glen Realty Corp.

By: William J. Poorvu and John H. Vogel Jr.

Jonathan Potter is considering an investment in the newly formed McArthur/Glen Real Estate Investment Trust. The case gives some background on real estate investment trusts and their history. Also discusses manufacturers' outlet shopping centers, the type of real... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Real Estate Industry