Publications

14 Oct 2019
News

A Guide to the Big Ideas and Debates in Corporate Governance

2009
Working Paper

The Impact of Private Equity Ownership on Portfolio Firms' Corporate Tax Planning

By: Brad Badertscher, Sharon P. Katz and Sonja Olhoft Rego

This study investigates whether private equity (PE) firms influence the tax practices of their portfolio firms. Prior research documents that PE firms create economic value in portfolio firms through effective governance, financial, and operational engineering. Given... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Investment Portfolio; Corporate Governance; Taxation; Ownership Stake; Value Creation

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02 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

Corporate Tax Cuts Don't Increase Middle Class Incomes

Halfpoint In the worlds of economic theory and conservative political orthodoxy, corporate tax cuts, such as the 2017 tax reform in the United States, should create benefits beyond businesses. As the... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland

October 14, 2019
Article

A Guide to the Big Ideas and Debates in Corporate Governance

By: Lynn S. Paine and Suraj Srinivasan

How corporations govern themselves has become a matter of broad public interest in recent decades. Amid this many commentators and experts still disagree on such basic matters as the purpose of the corporation, the role of corporate boards of directors, the rights of... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Mission and Purpose; Governing and Advisory Boards; Business and Shareholder Relations; Performance; Measurement and Metrics

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January 2014 (Revised November 2014)
Case

Legislative Choices for U.S. Corporate Tax Reform

By: Robert C. Pozen and Eric Lonstein

This case asks students to wear the hat of a policymaker to explore the politically charged issues around corporate tax reform in the U.S. View Details

Keywords: Tax Accounting; Policy-making; Political Economy; Policy; Taxation; United States

January 1993 (Revised July 2003)
Case

Texas High-Speed Rail Corporation

By: Timothy A. Luehrman

The finance director of the Texas High-Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) is considering modifications to the financing program designed to support the development, construction, and operations of THSRC's planned high-speed rail system. The current plan achieves many objectives,... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Financial Strategy; Financing and Loans; Taxation; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Strategic Planning; Valuation; Rail Industry; Texas

18 Jul 2005
Research & Ideas

Time to Rethink the Corporate Tax System?

ultimately harm shareholders, and the role boards of directors play in making sure their companies stay within the rules. Ann Cullen: How has the way corporations view taxation... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

January 2001 (Revised June 2001)
Case

Local Initiatives Support Corporation

By: James E. Austin and Kim Slack

Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC) is a $74 million nonprofit social enterprise that combats poverty by helping community development organizations build affordable housing and create economic development opportunities through public-private partnerships. Poses a... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Development Economics; Education; Capital; Investment Funds; Taxation; Growth and Development; Partners and Partnerships; Nonprofit Organizations; Segmentation; Service Industry

December 2011
Article

Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?

By: Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval and Christopher J. Malloy

This paper employs a new empirical approach for identifying the impact of government spending on the private sector. Our key innovation is to use changes in congressional committee chairmanship as a source of exogenous variation in state-level federal expenditures. In... View Details

Keywords: Spending; Private Sector; Taxation; Innovation and Invention; Interest Rates; Business and Government Relations; Investment; Employment; Power and Influence

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June 2016 (Revised October 2016)
Technical Note

The Role of the Chief Financial Officer

By: C. Fritz Foley and Michael Lemm

This note profiles the role of the modern chief financial officer (CFO). It presents insights based on a variety of surveys and descriptions of HBS graduates who hold or have held the CFO role. Although the role varies significantly from one organization to another,... View Details

Keywords: CFO; Chief Financial Officer; Corporate Finance; Finance

August 2005
Teaching Note

Corporate Inversions: Stanley Works and the Lure of Tax Havens (TN)

By: Mihir A. Desai, Mark Veblen and Kathleen Luchs

Keywords: Taxation; Corporate Accountability

Article

Do Strong Fences Make Strong Neighbors?

By: Mihir Desai and Dhammika Dharmapala

Many features of U.S. tax policy towards multinational firms-including the governing principle of capital export neutrality, the byzantine system of expense allocation, and anti-inversion legislation-reflect the intuition that building "strong fences" around the United... View Details

Keywords: International Taxation; Initial Public Offerings; Foreign Portfolio Investment; Policy; Taxation; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Initial Public Offering; Mergers and Acquisitions; Foreign Direct Investment; United States

SSRN

12 Jan 2004
Research & Ideas

Does Your HQ Operation Fit With Corporate Strategy?

What does it mean? A: There is huge variation in headquarter size basically because there is a huge variation in the underlying strategy that corporations pursue. Essentially we found that "structure... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

26 Sep 2016
Blog Post

An Interview with Corporate Relations Director, Kurt Piemonte

Tell us about your role at HBS. There are two main aspects of my role at HBS — one is to assist MBA students with their job searches and career planning, and the other is to aid companies in their recruiting efforts. I focus on... View Details

Keywords: All Industries

March 2009
Article

Earnings Management and Corporate Tax Shelters, and Book-Tax Alignment

By: Mihir Desai and Dhammika Dharmapala

This paper reviews recent evidence analyzing the link between earnings management and corporate tax avoidance and considers the implications for how policymakers should evaluate the financial reporting environment facing firms. A real-world tax shelter is dissected to... View Details

Keywords: Earnings Management; Taxation; Financial Reporting; Business and Shareholder Relations

SSRN

2002
Book

Searching for a Corporate Savior: The Irrational Quest for Charismatic CEOs

By: Rakesh Khurana

Corporate CEOs are headline news. Stock prices rise and fall at word of their hiring and firing. Business media debate their merits and defects as if individual leaders determined the health of the economy. Yet we know surprisingly little about how CEOs are selected... View Details

Keywords: Managerial Roles; Selection and Staffing; Personal Characteristics; Experience and Expertise; Investment Activism; Corporate Strategy

March 2017
Article

Institutional Ownership and Corporate Tax Avoidance: New Evidence

By: Mozaffar N. Khan, Suraj Srinivasan and Liang Tan

We provide new evidence on the agency theory of corporate tax avoidance (Slemrod, 2004; Crocker and Slemrod, 2005; Chen and Chu, 2005) by showing that increases in institutional ownership are associated with increases in tax avoidance. Using the Russell index... View Details

Keywords: Tax Avoidance; Agency Costs; Institutional Ownership; Private Ownership; Crime and Corruption; Taxation; Agency Theory

SSRN