Publications

31 Oct 2016
News

To jumpstart your career, don’t exceed expectations—rebel against them

04 Feb 2020
Video

Dr. Manu Chandaria

Manu Chandaria, Chair of the Kenyan-based steel and aluminum group Comcraft, discusses how businesses should look at “profit as a means, not the end.” He assets that the purpose of profit is to improve the... View Details

January 1996 (Revised September 1997)
Case

Scott Paper Company

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Jeremy Cott

A professional turnaround manager attempts to implement a massive global downsizing program at the world's largest producer of consumer tissue products. The plan involves laying off almost one third of the company's 34,000 hourly and salaried employees and dramatically... View Details

Keywords: Assets; Global Strategy; Resignation and Termination; Goals and Objectives; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Sales; Value Creation; Pulp and Paper Industry

15 Feb 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Can Financial Innovation Solve Household Reluctance to Take Risk?

Keywords: by Laurent Calvet, Claire Celerier, Paolo Sodini, and Boris Vallée; Financial Services; Computer

October 2011 (Revised July 2012)
Case

ATR KimEng Financial Corporation

By: Li Jin, Michael Shih-ta Chen and Dawn Lau

ATR KimEng is a Philippino asset management business. It is making an important decision on its own strategy going forward: should it stay independent, or be taken over by a large bank in the region. Through this case, we discuss the financial service industry in South... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Mergers and Acquisitions; Capital Markets; Investment; Financial Services Industry; Philippines

November 1988 (Revised January 1989)
Background Note

Note on Tax and Accounting Issues in Mergers and Acquisitions

Presents a simplified introduction to tax and accounting issues relevant to mergers and acquisitions. Mergers, asset purchase, and stock acquisition are dealt with in the context of taxable vs. non-taxable transactions. Accounting treatment of the transactions is... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Accounting

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June 2021
Case

Modern Endowment Management: Paula Volent and the Bowdoin Endowment

By: Luis M. Viceira, Emily R. McComb and Dean Xu

This case examines modern endowment investment management through the lens of a leadership transition between Chief Investment Officers (CIOs). In March 2021, Paula Volent is about to step down as the CIO of the endowment of Bowdoin College after twenty-one years, and... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Investment Banking; Growth Management; Investment Return; Capital Markets; Interest Rates; Competition; Cost Management; Risk Management; Financial Liquidity; Performance Evaluation

2016
Article

Cloaked Trading

By: Lauren Cohen, Dong Lou and Christopher J. Malloy

Using a novel, proprietary database of micro-level trading activities by asset managers, we show strong evidence of asset managers engaging in strategic trading in order to “cloak” their most valuable trades. This takes the form, for instance, of a manager who sells... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Trading; Information; Asset Management; Investment

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2024
Working Paper

What Do Bank Trading Desks Do?

By: Lina Lu and Jonathan Wallen

Bank trading desks earn profits from intermediating customer trading volume. Across a broad set of asset markets, we document that the trading desks of large U.S. dealer banks behave as financial intermediaries that profit from toll-taking as in Duffie et al. (2005).... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Profit; Financial Markets

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2015
Working Paper

Collateral Shortages and Intermediation Networks

By: Marco Di Maggio and Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi

This paper argues that in the presence of trading frictions and agency problems, the interbank market may be overly fragile, in the sense that small changes in the liquidity of assets used as collateral may lead to large swings in haircuts and a potential credit... View Details

Keywords: Financial Intermediation; Financial Networks; Secured Lending; Collateral; Repo Runs; ABCP Collapse; Networks; Negotiation; Financing and Loans; Financial Crisis

Research Summary

Working on third edition of textbook on the fund industry

The book explains how mutual funds and other collective investment vehicles are organized, how they manage your money, and how they are marketed to investors. It also addresses the internationalization of funds in terms of global investing and global... View Details

July 2021
Article

Augmenting Markets with Mechanisms

By: Samuel Antill and Darrell Duffie

We explain how the common practice of size-discovery trade detracts from overall financial market efficiency. At each of a series of size-discovery sessions, traders report their desired trades, generating allocations of the asset and cash that rely on the most recent... View Details

Keywords: Mechanism Design; Price Impact; Size Discovery; Allocative Efficiency; Workup; Dark Pool; Financial Markets; Market Design; Performance Efficiency

SSRN

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October 2019 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Pantheon Ventures in 2019

By: Victoria Ivashina and Tonia Labruyere

The case discusses the strategy of Pantheon, a UK-based fund of funds investing in private equity. Client demands and preferences had changed in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis and Pantheon had to adapt its business model to accommodate requests for... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Private Equity; Corporate Strategy; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom

October 2023 (Revised November 2023)
Case

Rheaply: Circularity For Every Business

By: Rembrand Koning and Alicia Dadlani

In March 2023, Garry Cooper, cofounder and CEO of Chicago-based Rheaply, needed to demonstrate that Rheaply’s expanded vision could translate into building cash flows and metrics needed to raise a Series B and turn the business into a model for financial and... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Social Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Environmental Sustainability; Entrepreneurial Finance; Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; United States; Illinois; Chicago

Teaching Interest

MBA Elective Curriculum: Investment Strategies

By: Malcolm P. Baker

This is a CORE course for students pursuing careers in finance. Thus, students interested in pursuing careers in mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, endowments, wealth management, financial consulting, marketing and client service, sales and trading,... View Details

August 2020
Article

Financial Market Risk Perceptions and the Macroeconomy

By: Carolin E. Pflueger, Emil Siriwardane and Adi Sunderam

We propose a novel measure of risk perceptions: the price of volatile stocks (PVS), defined as the book-to-market ratio of low-volatility stocks minus the book-to-market ratio of high-volatility stocks. PVS is high when perceived risk directly measured from surveys and... View Details

Keywords: Risk-centric Business Cycles; Cross-section Of Equities; Real Risk-free Rate; Real Investment; Financial Markets; Risk and Uncertainty; Perception; Investment

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December 2017 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Amazon Buys Whole Foods

By: José B. Alvarez, David Lane and Joni Coughlin

The June 2017 news that e-commerce giant Amazon was paying $13.7 billion for organic supermarket chain Whole Foods precipitated a broad sell-off in the shares of grocery retailers and suppliers. Behind the precipitous declines lay recognition that Amazon’s bold move... View Details

Keywords: Amazon; Whole Foods; Grocery; Grocery Delivery; Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Business Models; Food Value Chain; Agribusiness; Mergers and Acquisitions; Operations; Competitive Strategy; E-commerce; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry; Web Services Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

March 1989 (Revised April 1998)
Case

Marriott Corporation: The Cost of Capital (Abridged)

By: Richard S. Ruback

Gives students the opportunity to explore how a company uses the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) to compute the cost of capital for each of its divisions. The use of Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) formula and the mechanics of applying it are stressed. View Details

Keywords: Cost of Capital; Mathematical Methods