Publications

August 1988 (Revised October 1988)
Background Note

Business Plan

Describes the various uses for a business plan and focuses on writing a business plan to attract financing for a new venture. View Details

Keywords: Business Plan; Business Startups; Borrowing and Debt; Venture Capital; Management

August 2023
Article

What About the Race Between Technology and Education in the Global South? Comparing Skill-premiums in Colonial Africa and Asia

By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg

Historical research on the race between education and technology has focused on the West but barely touched upon ‘the rest’. A new occupational wage database for 50 African and Asian economies allows us to compare long-run patterns in skill premiums across the colonial... View Details

Keywords: Skill Premium; Human Capital; Wages; History; Education; Africa; Asia

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May 2022 (Revised December 2023)
Case

Founder Collective

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

Founder Collective ("FC") launched in 2009 with a clear mission: to be the most aligned fund for founders at the seed stage. In keeping with its mission, FC maintained smaller fund sizes and was not a lifecycle investor. By November of 2021, the seed market had become... View Details

Keywords: Seed Investing; Business Startups; Mission and Purpose; Investment; Competitive Strategy; Venture Capital

June 2010 (Revised January 2019)
Case

The Guggenheims and Chilean Nitrates

By: Geoffrey Jones and Felipe Tamega Fernandes

The case describes the growth of Guggenheim Brothers as one of the largest mining companies in the world in the early twentieth century. Global expansion led the firm to Chile, first in copper and later in natural nitrates. Chile's economic growth was driven by the... View Details

Keywords: History; Venture Capital; Business History; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Foreign Direct Investment; Financial Crisis; Mining Industry; Chile

August 2004 (Revised April 2007)
Case

Intel Capital, 2005 (A)

By: David B. Yoffie, Barbara Mack, Adriana Boden and Lee Rand

All companies in a technology-intensive industry must worry about the development of their ecosystems and, in particular, the availability and cost of complementary assets. One strategy for promoting complements is to invest in them directly. Explores Intel's strategy... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Venture Capital; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Investment; Assets; Corporate Finance; Semiconductor Industry; Computer Industry; Technology Industry; United States

June 2003 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Pension Policy at The Boots Company PLC

By: Luis M. Viceira and Akiko M. Mitsui

In early 2000, the trustees of the pension scheme at Boots considered a proposal to move 100% of the pension assets into a bond portfolio, which would be passively managed. The Boots Co. PLC was a leading retailer of cosmetics and toiletries in the United Kingdom, and... View Details

Keywords: Performance Productivity; Employees; Asset Management; Capital Structure; Investment Portfolio; Consumer Products Industry; United Kingdom

February 2001
Case

Bang Networks, Inc.

By: Paul A. Gompers and Sergio Rattner

Bob Rosin, president and CEO of Bang Networks, must decide how much debt financing to take on. The company is a raw start-up and is considering taking on $10 million in debt. The firm has six offers and needs to identify the best one. View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Restructuring; Decisions; Borrowing and Debt; Venture Capital

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March 1991 (Revised August 1994)
Case

Berkshire Partners

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery

Berkshire Partners is a limited partnership engaged in the acquisition of companies valued between $25 million and $250 million. The purpose of the case is to examine the resources of the firm and discuss the firm's competitive advantage vis-a-vis other types of... View Details

Keywords: Working Capital; Partners and Partnerships; Competitive Advantage; Acquisition; Corporate Finance

February 2011
Teaching Note

Citigroup's Exchange Offer (TN)

By: Robin Greenwood

Teaching Note for 210009. View Details

Keywords: Equity; Government and Politics; Stocks; Price; Capital; Banks and Banking; Performance Evaluation; Risk and Uncertainty; Capital Markets; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States

November 1995 (Revised April 1998)
Case

National Insurance Corporation

The case visits the catastrophe insurance business at an interesting time in the history of the insurance markets. A major reinsurer, National Insurance, is taking a look at the new insurance derivatives being traded on the Chicago Board of Trade with a view to using... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Insurance; Capital Markets; Insurance Industry; United States

April 2022
Article

The Past Is Prologue? Venture-Capital Syndicates' Collaborative Experience and Start-Up Exits

By: Dan Wang, Emily Cox Pahnke and Rory M. McDonald

Past research has produced contradictory insights into how prior collaboration between organizations—their relational embeddedness—impacts collective collaborative performance. We theorize that the effect of relational embeddedness on collaborative success is... View Details

Keywords: Inter-organizational Networks; Collaboration; Entrepreneurship; Networks; Organizations; Performance; Venture Capital

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April 2019
Technical Note

A Note on Boards in VC-Backed Ventures

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Ramana Nanda, Suraj Srinivasan and Terrence Shu

What is the value of a Board, and why does a company need one? The note documents the formal role of a Board of Directors as going beyond simply acting as legal representation of corporate ownership. Moreover, this role changes as the company moves through different... View Details

Keywords: Founders; Business Startup; Board; Board Of Directors; Business Startups; Governing and Advisory Boards; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship

17 Sep 2018
News

Female Founders Index

17 Jan 2019
News

The First Five Years: ‘30 Under 30’ Edition

2017), Kiran Gandhi (MBA 2015), Anthony Tucker (MBA 2017), and Anish Pathipati (MBA 2016) How did you find out you had been named to the 2019 "30 Under 30?" Akash Pradhan, investor, TPG Capital and TPG Growth: “I woke up to text messages... View Details

01 Jun 2003
News

Rock Gift to Support Entrepreneurial Studies

those efforts both now and for the future.” Over the years, Rock, considered a founding father of the venture capital industry, helped form numerous start–ups that went on to become 20th–century success stories, including Intel, Teledyne,... View Details

Keywords: Jeffrey L. Cruikshank; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

September 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Accelerating with Caution: Forecasting and Managing birddogs' Growth

By: Mark Egan

As 2017 was drawing to a close, birddogs’ founder and CEO, Peter Baldwin, was working with his CFO Jack Sullivan to prepare for 2018. Their task at hand? To predict the demand for their product in the coming season, determine the appropriate investments in working... View Details

Keywords: Inventory; Working Capital; Forecasting and Prediction; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financing and Loans; Apparel and Accessories Industry

September 2019
Article

The Effect of Enforcement Transparency: Evidence from SEC Comment-Letter Reviews

By: Miguel Duro, Jonas Heese and Gaizka Ormazabal

This paper studies the effect of the public disclosure of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) comment-letter reviews (CLs) on firms’ financial reporting. We exploit a major change in the SEC’s disclosure policy: in 2004, the SEC decided to make its CLs... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure; SEC Comment-Letter Reviews; Public Enforcement; Governance; Information Publishing; Policy; Financial Reporting; Capital Markets; Organizational Change and Adaptation

SSRN

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2018
Working Paper

Global Portfolio Diversification for Long-Horizon Investors

By: Luis M. Viceira and Zixuan (Kevin) Wang

This paper conducts a theoretical and empirical investigation of global portfolio diversification for long-horizon investors in the presence of permanent cash flow shocks and transitory discount rate shocks to asset prices and returns. An increase in the cross-country... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Risk and Uncertainty; Diversification; Capital Markets; Global Range