Publications

09 Apr 2014
Research & Ideas

A Playbook for Small-Business Job Creation

put up to $4 billion per year into high-growth companies. And it does so at no cost to taxpayers. "This public-private partnership is a good example of government and the private sector working together," Mills says. "This program has helped View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking; Financial Services

December 1997 (Revised August 1998)
Case

Randy Haykin: The Making of an Entrepreneur (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Jennifer Suesse

An MBA graduate, 10 years out, reflects on his career path. Randy Haykin is currently running his own venture catalyst organization in the Silicon Valley. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Personal Development and Career; Leadership Style; Organizations; San Francisco

1979
Chapter

A Comparison of Rates of Return to Social Security Retirees under Wage and Price Indexing

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Keywords: Retirement; Investment Return; Wages; Price; United States

07 Feb 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Creating the Founders’ Dilemmas Course

young dreamers might not otherwise consider—including their personal lives. Early in the course, the professor essentially plays a foil to the blindly enthusiastic entrepreneur by taking on the role of a concerned spouse: "Look at... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education

2011
Chapter

How Does Simplified Disclosure Affect Individuals' Mutual Fund Choices?

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

We use an experiment to estimate the effect of the SEC's Summary Prospectus, which simplifies mutual fund disclosure. Our subjects chose an equity portfolio and a bond portfolio. Subjects received either statutory prospectuses or Summary Prospectuses. We find no... View Details

Keywords: Information; Corporate Disclosure; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Retirement; Personal Finance; Investment Funds; Microeconomics

31 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

The Faculty Reader: Who is Reading What This Summer?

Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air to be so powerful. It is a thought-provoking book for those like myself who are constantly trying to balance my career, my ambitions, and my personal life. Books that are on my list to read are... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Information; Publishing

2008
Working Paper

Where Does It Go? Spending by the Financially Constrained

By: Shawn A. Cole, John Thompson and Peter Tufano

In this paper, we analyze the spending decisions of over 1.5 million Americans who vary in their degree of revealed credit constraints. Specifically, we analyze how these Americans spend their income tax refunds, using transaction-level data from a stored-value card... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Credit; Personal Finance; Spending; Taxation; Consumer Behavior; United States

2008
Working Paper

Just Keep My Money! Supporting Tax-time Savings with U.S. Savings Bonds

By: Peter Tufano

This paper reports the results of a 2007 experiment testing if specific process simplification can foster increased take-up rates for savings products, particularly by low-to-moderate income (LMI) households. Tax refund recipients at certain H&R Block tax preparation... View Details

Keywords: Household; Income; Bonds; Investment; Personal Finance; Saving; Taxation; United States

April 1993
Case

Sumiko Ito

By: David A. Thomas

Describes the life and career of the first Japanese female investment banker at Nomura Securities, Sumiko Ito, who later became a partner at Alex Brown, a U.S. investment bank. Organized around the major life events and career transitions Ms. Ito experienced. Set in... View Details

Keywords: Investment Banking; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Diversity; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Japan; England; United States

2008
Working Paper

Using Financial Innovation to Support Savers: From Coercion to Excitement

By: Peter Tufano

We review a wide variety of programs that support savings by families, in particular by low- and moderate-income families. These programs range from ones that literally compel families to save, to those that make it hard not to save, make it easier to save, provide... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Motivation and Incentives; Programs; Income; Personal Finance; Family and Family Relationships; Performance Effectiveness

April 2011
Supplement

Daniel Kim's Dilemma (B)

By: Bill George and Natalie Kindred

Daniel Kim was considering "blowing the whistle" on his friend, the CEO of a fast-growing startup where Kim had spent most of his professional career. When Kim joined the company, called Cardio-Metric, in 2002, it consisted of seven young engineers (including its two... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Venture Capital; Revenue; Governance Controls; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Style; Personal Development and Career; Problems and Challenges; Behavior

March 2009 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Zopa: The Power of Peer-to-Peer Lending

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Isabel Fernandez-Mateo and David Chen

Zopa, a U.K.-based peer-to-peer lending company, connected individual lenders and borrowers via an online interface. The company charged a small fee for completed loan transactions but has not turned a profit. Zopa offered two platforms, Markets and Listings. Markets... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Personal Finance; Market Participation; Digital Platforms; Social and Collaborative Networks; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom

06 Dec 2020
Working Paper Summaries

'Repayment-by-Purchase' Helps Consumers to Reduce Credit Card Debt

Keywords: by Grant E. Donnelly, Cait Lamberton, Stephen Bush, Zoe Chance, and Michael I. Norton

19 Mar 2007
Research & Ideas

Handicapping the Best Countries for Business

should government strategy matter to business people? It seems many executives, particularly Americans, believe government is incompetent. Richard Vietor: Business people care in several ways—macroeconomic, microeconomic, and foreign investment. An American business... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

14 Dec 2016
Working Paper Summaries

The State of Small Business Lending: Innovation and Technology and the Implications for Regulation

Keywords: by Karen Gordon Mills and Brayden McCarthy; Financial Services

Article

Buying (Quality) Time Predicts Relationship Satisfaction

By: A.V. Whillans, Jessie Pow and Joe J. Gladstone

Seven studies examine the association between time-saving purchases (e.g., housecleaning and meal delivery services) and relationship satisfaction. Study 1 uses an eleven-year longitudinal panel survey to show that increases in time-saving purchases predict long-term... View Details

Keywords: Personal Finance; Family and Family Relationships; Satisfaction; Well-being

Article

Credit and Punishment: Are Corporate Bankers Disciplined for Risk-Taking?

By: Janet Gao, Kristoph Kleiner and Joseph Pacelli

We examine whether bankers face disciplining consequences for structuring poorly performing corporate loans. We construct a novel data set containing the employment histories and loan portfolios of a large sample of corporate bankers and find that corporate credit... View Details

Keywords: Syndicated Loans; Credit Events; Career Outcomes; Loan Officers; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Risk Management; Corporate Finance; Personal Development and Career

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07 Mar 2013
Research & Ideas

Video: Harvard Business School at the Kumbh Mela

Finance Instructor Went to the Kumbh Mela. Video Embed Jim Aisner: What are the most important lessons you learned from your trip to India? John Macomber: I learned things on a personal level as well as... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner; Construction; Real Estate

November 2024
Article

Price Discounts and Cheapflation During the Post-Pandemic Inflation Surge

By: Alberto Cavallo and Oleksiy Kryvtsov

We study how within-store price variation changes with inflation, and whether households exploit it to attenuate the inflation burden. We use micro price data for food products sold by 91 large multi-channel retailers in ten countries between 2018 and 2024. Measuring... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Inflation and Deflation; Price; Consumer Behavior; Personal Finance; Product Positioning