Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(936)
- Faculty Publications (123)
- 2018
- Working Paper
Corporate Refinancing, Covenants, and the Agency Cost of Debt
By: Daniel Green
How valuable are restrictive debt covenants in reducing the agency costs of debt? I exploit the revealed preference decision to refinance fixed-coupon bonds, which weighs observable interest rate savings against the unobservable costs of a change in restrictive... View Details
Keywords: Covenants; Refinancing; Corporate Bonds; Agency Costs; Debt Policy; Borrowing and Debt; Bonds; Interest Rates
- June 2018
- Article
Deviations from Covered Interest Rate Parity
By: Wenxin Du, Alexander Tepper and Adrien Verdelhan
We find that deviations from the covered interest rate parity (CIP) condition imply large, persistent, and systematic arbitrage opportunities in one of the largest asset markets in the world. Contrary to the common view, these deviations for major currencies are not... View Details
- May 2018
- Article
U.S. Treasury Premium
By: Wenxin Du, Joanne Im and Jesse Schreger
We quantify the difference in the convenience yield of U.S. Treasuries and government bonds of other developed countries by measuring the deviation from covered interest parity between government bond yields. We call this wedge the “U.S. Treasury Premium.” We document... View Details
- February 2018
- Case
Infrastructure in Nigeria: Unlocking Pension Fund Investments
By: John Macomber and Pippa Tubman Armerding
The so-called “infrastructure finance gap” was a problem in Nigeria as in many parts of the world. Infrastructure projects like power plants and dams were very large capital investments that could generate long-term consistent cash flows, but their financing and... View Details
- Article
The Economic Consequences of Hospital Admissions
By: Carlos Dobkin, Amy Finkelstein, Raymond Kluender and Matthew Notowidigdo
We use an event study approach to examine the economic consequences of hospital admissions for adults in two datasets: survey data from the Health and Retirement Study, and hospitalization data linked to credit reports. For non-elderly adults with health insurance,... View Details
- January 2018 (Revised January 2021)
- Case
Colombia's 4G Road Program: The Pacífico 3 Bond Offer
By: John Macomber, Maria Fernanda Miguel and Mariana Cal
Colombia conceived its 4G (Fourth Generation) Road Program to try to attract $17 billion from the private sector for investment in toll roads. The nation had also created the National Infrastructure Agency of Colombia (ANI) to oversee multiple investments, and the... View Details
Keywords: Private Public Partnerships; Infrastructure; Projects; Finance; Emerging Markets; Colombia
- January 2018 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
Capital Allocation at HCA
By: W. Carl Kester and Emily R. McComb
In early 2017, HCA Holdings, an investor-owned hospital management company, faced a strategically important capital allocation decision. After the exit of its private equity sponsors in 2016, HCA had to determine how best to allocate its substantial annual free cash... View Details
Keywords: Capital Allocation; Cash Distribution Policy; Dividends; Share Repurchases; Growth Strategy And Execution; Growth Investing; Capital Expenditures; Debt Management; Debt Reduction; Debt Policy; Hospital Management; Investor-owned Hospital Chains; Capital Budgeting; Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Corporate Finance; Decision Choices and Conditions; Health Industry; United States
- 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
- 2020
- Working Paper
The Real Exchange Rate, Innovation and Productivity
By: Laura Alfaro, Alejandro Cuñat, Harald Fadinger and Yanping Liu
We evaluate manufacturing firms' responses to changes in the real exchange rate (RER) using detailed firm-level data for a large set of countries for the period 2001–2010. We uncover the following stylized facts about regional variation of manufacturing firms'... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
The Decline of Big-Bank Lending to Small Business: Dynamic Impacts on Local Credit and Labor Markets
By: Brian S. Chen, Samuel G. Hanson and Jeremy C. Stein
Small business lending by the four largest banks fell sharply relative to others in 2008 and remained depressed through 2014. We explore the dynamic adjustment process following this credit supply shock. In counties where the largest banks had a high market share, the... View Details
Keywords: Small Business; Financing and Loans; Banks and Banking; System Shocks; Credit; Labor; United States
- August 2017 (Revised February 2024)
- Teaching Note
Exotic Interest Rate Swaps: Snowballs in Portugal
By: Boris Vallee, Patrick Augustin and Philippe Rich
This case explores a complex swap transaction implemented by Metro do Porto in 2007. It represents an opportunity to study fixed income derivative instruments, such as plain-vanilla swaps and structured swaps, as well as understand the opportunities and challenges of... View Details
- April 2017 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Restructuring Ukraine
By: Kristin Mugford, Seema Amble and Tian Feng
In June 2015, Ukraine found itself struggling with a volatile and devalued currency, dramatically diminished foreign reserves, and a projected financing shortfall of $40 billion. Ukraine’s new government sought to return the nation to stability following political... View Details
Keywords: Exchange Rates; Politics; Macroeconomics; Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Restructuring; Economy; Currency Exchange Rate; Banks and Banking; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Bonds; Sovereign Finance; Capital Markets; Credit; Debt Securities; Financial Liquidity; Financial Markets; Government and Politics; Ukraine
- January 2017
- Case
Exotic Interest Rate Swaps: Snowballs in Portugal
By: Boris Vallee, Patrick Augustin and Philippe Rich
This case explores a complex swap transaction implemented by Metro do Porto in 2007. It represents an opportunity to study fixed income derivative instruments, such as plain-vanilla swaps and structured swaps, as well as understand the opportunities and challenges of... View Details
- October 2016
- Case
Turkasset: Bringing Customer-Centricity to Debt Collection
By: Dennis Campbell and Gamze Yucaoglu
In December 2014, in preparation for the year-end board presentation, Hilmi Guvenal (PMD 1993), shareholder and CEO of Turkasset, and Ilker Yoney, COO, sat down to discuss Turkasset’s five- and ten-year strategic plans. Since taking leadership of the company in 2009,... View Details
Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Customer Experience; Customer Service; Customer-centric; Emerging Market; Customer Focus; Employee Empowerment; Employee Engagement; Employee Training; Staffing; Operations Management; Quality Management; Service Management; Service Quality; Continuous Improvement; Turkasset; Collections Agency; NPL; Call Center; Financial Services; Borrowing and Debt; Customer Focus and Relationships; Organizational Culture; Operations; Management; Service Operations; Quality; Competitive Advantage; Cost vs Benefits; Financial Services Industry; Turkey
- 2016
- Working Paper
The Stock Market and Bank Risk-Taking
By: David S. Scharfstein and Antonio Falato
We argue that stock market pressure to generate earnings encourages banks to increase risk. We measure risk using confidential supervisory ratings as well as financial information released in regulatory filings. We document that there is an increase in the risk-taking... View Details
- June 2016
- Article
Local Currency Sovereign Risk
By: Wenxin Du and Jesse Schreger
We introduce a new measure of emerging market sovereign credit risk: the local currency credit spread, defined as the spread of local currency bonds over the synthetic local currency risk-free rate constructed using cross-currency swaps. We find that local currency... View Details
- May 2016
- Supplement
2016 Update: Argentina Turns the Page
By: David E. Bell, Forest Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred
This brief case is a supplement to “Cresud and Argentina” (515-043) and “Note on Agriculture in Argentina” (515-069). Set in early 2016, it describes developments in Argentina under newly elected President Mauricio Macri, including the country’s return to international... View Details
Keywords: Argentina; ＂ Cresud; Agriculture; Economic Reform; Economic Policy; Land Investment; Macri; Currency; Agribusiness; Diversification; Economy; Emerging Markets; Credit; Currency Exchange Rate; Investment; Business and Government Relations; Government and Politics; Inflation and Deflation; Trade; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Argentina; Buenos Aires; South America
- March 2016
- Article
Trade Credit and Taxes
By: Mihir Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James R. Hines Jr.
This paper analyzes the extent to which firms use trade credit to reallocate capital in response to tax incentives. Tax-induced differences in pretax returns encourage the use of trade credit to reallocate capital from firms facing low tax rates to those facing high... View Details
- Article
Reaching for Yield in the Bond Market
By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina
Reaching for yield—the propensity to buy riskier assets in order to achieve higher yields—is believed to be an important factor contributing to the credit cycle. This paper analyzes this phenomenon in the corporate bond market. Specifically, we show evidence for... View Details
- July 2015
- Article
The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Investment Recommendations: Analysts' Perceptions and Shifting Institutional Logics
By: Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim
We explore the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings on sell-side analysts' assessments of firms' future financial performance. We suggest that when analysts perceive CSR as an agency cost, due to the prevalence of an agency logic, they produce... View Details