Publications

September 2024
Case

Comun: Partners in Peril

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Alexis Lefort

In spring 2023, Abiel Gutierrez and Andres Santos, co-founders of Comun, faced a critical decision at their fintech startup serving Latino immigrants. Having launched their product the previous year, they experienced rapid growth but encountered rising fraud and... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Business Development; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Partners and Partnerships; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Latin America; United States

2021
Working Paper

Granular Corporate Hedging Under Dominant Currency

By: Laura Alfaro, Mauricio Calani and Liliana Varela

Foreign currency use can be a source of risk associated with currency mismatches, which firms can hedge using FX derivatives. This paper uncovers five novel facts about firms’ use of foreign currency (FX) derivatives employing a unique dataset covering the universe of... View Details

Keywords: FX Derivatives; Hedging; Currency; Cash Flow; Emerging Markets; Chile

January 2011 (Revised April 2011)
Case

CME Group

By: Forest L. Reinhardt and James Weber

The case describes CME Group, the world's largest commodities exchange, futures and options on futures contracts, history, regulation, and the strategic choices the company faced. CME Group was formed from the oldest and most well-known exchanges in the world. Traders... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Stocks; Goods and Commodities; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Risk Management; Market Participation; Market Transactions; Financial Services Industry; United States

George Serafeim is the Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He co-leads a Lab, within Harvard's Digital, Data, Design Institute, that focuses on organizational transformation through major shifts, including those... View Details

Keywords: asset management; insurance industry; automobiles; industrial goods; fashion; food; green technology

February 2016
Article

Labor Unemployment Insurance and Earnings Management

By: Yiwei Dou, Mozaffar N. Khan and Youli Zou

There is relatively little prior evidence on the potential impact of rank and file employees on financial reporting choices outside union negotiations. We contribute to the literature by providing new evidence that firms appear to manage long-run earnings upward in... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Employment; Insurance; Financial Reporting

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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

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16 Apr 2013
Working Paper Summaries

The Auditing Oligopoly and Lobbying on Accounting Standards

Keywords: by Abigail M. Allen, Karthik Ramanna & Sugata Roychowdhury; Accounting; Banking

2017
Working Paper

Why and How Investors Use ESG Information: Evidence from a Global Survey

By: Georgios Serafeim

Using survey data from a sample of senior investment professionals from mainstream (i.e., not SRI funds) investment organizations, we provide insights into why and how investors use reported environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information. The primary reason... View Details

Keywords: Investment Management; Sustainability; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Investment Fund; Investment Strategy; Corporate Accountability; Activist Shareholder; Engagement; Environment; Climate Change; Customers; Customer Satisfaction; Employee Engagement; Global Warming; Investment; Decision Making; Environmental Sustainability; Performance Expectations

This study focuses on how and why firms strategically respond to government signals regarding appropriate corporate activity. We integrate institutional theory with research on corporate political strategy to develop a political dependence model that explains (a) how... View Details

January 2014 (Revised May 2014)
Case

Tech Mahindra and the Acquisition of Satyam Computers (A)

By: Srikant M. Datar, Anjali Raina and Namrata Arora

Set in 2008, the case details Tech Mahindra, an information technology (IT) company within the Mahindra Group, an Indian multi-industry company with a diverse stable of businesses including automotives, farm equipment, and financial services, and its decision to... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Corporate Governance; Computer Industry; India

Robert S. Kaplan is Senior Fellow and Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School. He joined the HBS faculty in 1984 after spending 16 years on the faculty of the business school at Carnegie-Mellon University, where he... View Details

Keywords: health care; nonprofit industry

12 Jun 2018
Research & Ideas

In a Landscape of 'Me Too' Drug Development, What Spurs Radical Innovation?

than 10 percent chance of approval. Me toos have greater than 20 percent chance of reaching the market, and generally require lower investment. For patients, of course, it’s the novel blockbusters that can be the most life-changing. Tracking a windfall To understand... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Health; Pharmaceutical

Daniel Rabetti

Professor Rabetti is a financial economist from São Paulo, Brazil, with a Ph.D. in Business from Tel Aviv University. He joined the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School in 2023 as the S. Dhanabalan Chair in Quantitative Studies and an Assistant... View Details

March 2019
Case

Mahindra Finance

By: V.G. Narayanan and Tanvi Deshpande

Mahindra Finance is a non-banking lender operating mainly in the rural and semi-urban areas of India. Set up in 1991, the company had grown to become a market leader with assets of $8.5 billion and a presence in 3,30,000 villages across India. Since most of Mahindra's... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Business Model; Volatility; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decisions; Credit; Financing and Loans; Service Delivery; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry; India

17 Jan 2007
Op-Ed

Learning from Private-Equity Boards

oversee the ongoing business. Private-equity directors typically spend more time with their companies after the buyout than many of their public company counterparts. Private-equity boards are typically small working groups composed of individuals with relevant... View Details

Keywords: by Malcolm Salter; Financial Services

TeachingInterests

Managing International Trade and Investment

By: Dante Roscini

Managing International Trade and Investment (MITI) is designed for students who expect to engage directly or indirectly in commerce and in strategic or financial investments across national borders. It covers concepts that are relevant to a number of operating and... View Details

April 2017 (Revised August 2020)
Case

The U-Turns of National Truck Stops

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Alexander W. Schultz

Raj Makam had spent months trying to restructure a 2006 investment he had made in National Truck Stops, Inc. (NTS) as a senior member of Oaktree Capital Management’s (Oaktree) Mezzanine finance business within their Corporate Debt platform. It was the first time they... View Details

Keywords: Mezzanine Financing; Corporate Debt; Bankruptcy; Real Assets; Financing and Loans; Borrowing and Debt; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Restructuring; Private Equity; Cost vs Benefits; Atlanta; New York (city, NY)

2021
Working Paper

The Green Bonding Hypothesis: How Do Green Bonds Enhance the Credibility of Environmental Commitments?

By: Shirley Lu

This paper proposes and provides evidence on a green bonding hypothesis, where green bonds act as a commitment device that subjects firms to institutions holding them accountable to their environmental promises. I find that green-bond issuers face higher climate change... View Details

Keywords: Bonding Hypothesis; Sustainable Finance; Climate Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Bonds; Corporate Accountability

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2019
Working Paper

Do Banks Have an Edge?

By: Juliane Begenau and Erik Stafford

Overall, no! We show that the level and time series variation in cash flows for most bank activities are well matched by capital market portfolios with similar interest rate and credit risk to what banks report to hold. Ignoring operating expenses, bank loans earn high... View Details

Keywords: Banks; Market Efficiency; Bank Capital; Bank Debt; CAPM; Banking; Bank Deposits; Bank Funding Advantage; Leverage; Maturity Transformation; Replicating Portfolio; Efficiency; Banks and Banking; Capital Markets; Performance Evaluation; Performance Efficiency; Banking Industry; United States