Publications

08 Sep 2015
First Look

September 8, 2015

support for both of these, but in different settings. In particular, we find that firms with higher CSR Investments enjoy an average of $1 billion of saved firm value upon an adverse event. In contrast, CSR... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

May 2022
Case

From GOP to NFT: Anthony Scaramucci and the Launch of Flatter NFT

By: Lauren Cohen, Richard Ryffel and Grace Headinger

Anthony Scaramucci, Managing Director of SkyBridge Capital, considered whether he should officially greenlight the launch of SkyBridge’s own NFT platform — Flatter NFT. He had led the investment firm to push first into Bitcoin and then Ethereum to make SkyBridge a... View Details

May 2000 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Health Development Corporation

By: Richard S. Ruback

Health Development Corp. (HDC) owns and operates health clubs in the Greater Boston area. HDC engaged a local investment banker to explore a sale of the company. The most likely buyer views HDC's prior purchase of real estate as a negative. HDC's management is... View Details

Keywords: Cash Flow; Property; Business Exit or Shutdown; Valuation; Value; Decisions; Health Industry; Boston

October 2012
Case

Hill Country Snack Foods Co.

By: W. Carl Kester and Craig Stephenson

Hill Country Snack Foods, located in Austin, Texas, manufactures, markets, and distributes snack foods and frozen treats. The CEO is passionate about maximizing shareholder value and believes in keeping tight control over costs and operating the business as efficiently... View Details

Keywords: United States; Financial Strategy; Debt Management; Retail Trade; Risk Management; Food; Capital Structure; Corporate Finance; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Texas

January 2007 (Revised October 2007)
Case

The Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund: Striving to Reshape the Social Enterprise Capital Markets

By: Michael Chu and Jean Hazell

Seeking to impact global poverty and philanthropy, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar donates $100 million to Tufts University for a trust restricted to investment in microfinance. Explores the origins of the initiative, the perspectives and objectives of the various parties... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Microfinance; Investment Funds; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Emerging Markets; Social Enterprise; Financial Services Industry

Benjamin Esty is the Roy and Elizabeth Simmons Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Over the years, he has taught a variety of courses ranging from advanced corporate finance and project finance to competitive strategy and leadership. He... View Details

Keywords: investment banking industry; investment banking industry; investment banking industry; investment banking industry; investment banking industry; investment banking industry; investment banking industry

Teaching Interest

Turnarounds and Transformation (formerly Entrepreneurial Management in a Turnaround Environment)

By: Ranjay Gulati

The focus of this course is the leader as a strategist, architect, decision maker, and change agent in a turnaround or transformation environment. This course is intended for students pursuing a range of career options as business operators,... View Details

Keywords: MBA; Transformation

June 2009
Journal Article

Taxes, Institutions and Foreign Diversification Opportunities

By: Mihir Desai and Dhammika Dharmapala

Investors can access foreign diversification opportunities through either foreign portfolio investment (FPI) or foreign direct investment (FDI). The worldwide tax regime employed by the U.S. potentially distorts this choice by penalizing FDI, relative to FPI, in... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Foreign Direct Investment; Investment Portfolio; Multinational Firms and Management; Taxation; Diversification; United States

SSRN

Find at Harvard

29 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

The Next Marketing Challenge: Selling to ’Simplifiers’

high-tech equivalents of the yard sale—electronic auction sites—bring Simplifiers together with those who are yet to catch the habit. This growing segment of Simplifiers presents a challenge to marketers. These are well-off people who View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Retail; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation

October 2005
Case

Tad Piper and Piper Jaffray

By: William W. George and Andrew N. McLean

In 2005, Tad Piper reflects on the successful spin-off from US Bancorp of Piper Jaffray, the investment bank founded by his grandfather. Profiles the development of Piper Jaffray from a Midwestern brokerage house to a national, diversified financial services firm. In... View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Leadership Style; Management Style; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry

2021
Working Paper

Accounting for Workforce Impact at Scale

By: Adel Fadhel, Katie Panella, Ethan Rouen and George Serafeim

Using new data on workforce composition and wages, we systematically measure the employment impact at U.S. firms from 2008 to 2020, including 2,682 unique firms and 22,322 firm-year observations. We document significant variation across industries and firms within each... View Details

Keywords: Impact Accounting; ESG; Employee Turnover; Wages; Employment; Measurement and Metrics; Human Capital; Diversity; United States

SSRN

Read Now

December 2000
Background Note

Online Retailers

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alastair Brown

Describes online retailers, companies that use the Internet to sell physical goods. Defines online retailers and describes different ways to categorize them. Explores their economic model and value proposition for consumers in comparison with offline retailers. Next,... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Internet; Retail Industry

March 2013
Article

Misvaluing Innovation

By: Lauren Cohen, Karl Diether and Christopher Malloy

We demonstrate that a firm's ability to innovate is predictable, persistent, and relatively simple to compute, and yet the stock market ignores the implications of past successes when valuing future innovation. We show that two firms that invest the exact same in... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Return Predictability; R＆D; Information; Forecasting and Prediction; Research and Development; Innovation and Invention

Find at Harvard

Read Now

January 2008 (Revised July 2008)
Case

Opportunity Partners

By: Robin Greenwood and James Quinn

Philip Goldstein, the principal in a growing hedge fund and prominent activist investor, has taken a position in a Mexico-based closed-end fund. Following a hard-fought proxy contest in which he advocated for management to eliminate the fund's substantial discount,... View Details

Keywords: Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Business and Shareholder Relations; Value; Financial Services Industry; Mexico

September 2017
Case

Blackstone's Julia Kahr at the Summit

By: Paul A. Gompers, John D. Dionne and Amram Migdal

In 2009, Blackstone, the New York-based alternative asset and financial services firm, committed to invest up to $750 million into Summit Materials, a new company in the aggregates sector (i.e., construction materials, such as crushed stone, sand, gravel, cement,... View Details

January 1999 (Revised March 2004)
Case

AMB Consolidation, The

By: William J. Poorvu and Daniel J. Rudd

Anne Shea, assistant vice president at the Curators' Fund (The Fund), is responsible for investing roughly $80 million in real-estate assets. Less than three years ago, Anne invested $40 million into a commingled fund run by AMB Institutional Realty Advisors, Inc., a... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Conflict of Interests; Industry Structures; Property; Investment; Public Ownership; Real Estate Industry

2019
White Paper

Impact-Weighted Financial Accounts: The Missing Piece for an Impact Economy

By: George Serafeim, T. Robert Zochowski and Jennifer Downing

Reimagining capitalism is an imperative. We need to create a more inclusive and sustainable form of capitalism that works for every person and the planet. Massive environmental damage, growing income and wealth disparity, stress, and depression within developed... View Details

Keywords: Impact-Weighted Accounts; IWAI; Background; Economic Systems; Economy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Measurement and Metrics; Financial Statements