Publications

Research Summary

Strategy, Governance and Valuation

By: Krishna G. Palepu

Professor Palepu's current research focuses on strategy and governance. In the area of strategy, his recent focus has been on the globalization of emerging markets, particularly India and China, and the resulting opportunities and challenges for western multinationals... View Details

July – August 2009
Article

The Descent of Finance

What if the current recession turns out to be like the Great Depression of 1929-1933? Four years from now, the United States might find itself with a still-shrinking economy, half as many banks as in 2009, a third as many hedge funds, and retail banking resembling a... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; International Finance; Globalized Economies and Regions; Business and Government Relations; Financial Services Industry

Article

Investment in United States Government Securities by State Governments

By: Joseph L. Bower

Keywords: Investment; Financial Instruments; Government and Politics

Find at Harvard

13 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

How Government can Discourage Private Sector Reliance on Short-Term Debt

sector's tilt toward short-term financing was merely the industry responding to a lack of available government debt instruments, such as short-term risk-free Treasuries, that were much in demand by investors... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Financial Services

19 Jul 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Government 'Nudges' Motivate Good Citizen Behavior

A tiny nudge can motivate big change. (Source: dziewul) Most governments aren’t subtle when they want citizens to do something. The United States spends close to $1 billion annually on advertising--trying to convince citizens to do... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

10 Jun 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate Governance and Internal Capital Markets

Keywords: by Zacharias Sautner & Belén Villalonga

25 Apr 2000
Research & Ideas

Adjusting the Fit for Government

The role of government in Africa must be to establish an "investor friendly" environment, according to Obiageli Ezekwesili, a panelist at the Africa Business Conference's debate on "Government and the Enabling... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

16 Oct 2010
Working Paper Summaries

A Comparative-Advantage Approach to Government Debt Maturity

Keywords: by Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson & Jeremy C. Stein

14 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Time that Government Reopens for Business

DC. Jim Aisner: The newspapers point out that a federal government shutdown has occurred 17 times before, but that really doesn't provide much solace, does it? Joe Fuller: The thing that's particularly unnerving about this shutdown is its... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner

April 1995 (Revised July 1996)
Supplement

Governance at Metallgesellschaft (B)

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Samanta Graff

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Corporate Accountability; Business Conglomerates; Governing and Advisory Boards; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Corporate Governance; Mining Industry; Chemical Industry; Germany; United States

April 1995 (Revised July 1996)
Case

Governance at Metallgesellschaft (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Samanta Graff

MG Corp., a U.S. subsidiary of Germany's international conglomerate, Metallgesellschaft, engaged in a disastrous hedging strategy that nearly dragged the entire enterprise into bankruptcy. This case explores issues of responsibility and accountability among the... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Corporate Accountability; Business Conglomerates; Governing and Advisory Boards; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Corporate Governance; Mining Industry; Chemical Industry; Germany; United States

June 2008 (Revised October 2008)
Case

International Carbon Finance and EcoSecurities

By: Andre F. Perold, Forest L. Reinhardt and Mikell Hyman

In late 2007, EcoSecurities had to decide whether to undertake a new Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project in China. EcoSecurities was an aggregator of carbon credits and also invested directly in projects that produced carbon credits. Governments and firms... View Details

Keywords: Non-Renewable Energy; Cost Management; Investment Return; Business and Government Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Investment; Cash Flow; Valuation; Pollutants; Environmental Sustainability; Financial Services Industry; China

2018
Chapter

Behavioral Household Finance

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

This chapter provides an overview of household finance. The first part summarizes key facts regarding household financial behavior, emphasizing empirical regularities that are inconsistent with the standard classical economic model and discussing extensions of the... View Details

Keywords: Personal Finance; Global Range; Household; Behavior; Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Product Design; Welfare

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2021
Article

Venture Capital Booms and Startup Financing

By: William Janeway, Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

We review the growing literature on the relationship between venture capital booms and startup financing, focusing on three broad areas: First, we discuss the drivers of large inflows into the venture capital asset class, particularly in recent years—which are related... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Policy

September 2021
Case

Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance

By: David G. Fubini, Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni

The two vignettes within “Vignettes on Professional Service Firm Governance” (HBS No. 122-024) present various issues relating to governance in professional service firms (“PSFs”). In the first, the Managing Director of a U.S. consulting firm contemplates whether to... View Details

21 Aug 2006
Research & Ideas

How Europe Wrote the Rules of Global Finance

research project began in the classroom during my first year as a professor at HBS. In the winter of 2000, my students and I were discussing the financial crises that erupted in Asia during 1997 and 1998. Unlike its neighbors, the View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

2010
Working Paper

Law and Finance c. 1900

By: Aldo Musacchio

How persistent are the effects of legal institutions adopted or inherited in the distant past? A substantial literature argues that legal origins have persistent effects that explain clear differences in investor protections and financial development around the world... View Details

Keywords: Law; Finance; Corporate Governance; Practice; Growth and Development

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December 1993
Article

Risk Management: Coordinating Corporate Investment and Financing Policies

By: K. A. Froot, David S. Scharfstein and J. Stein

Keywords: Catastrophe Risk; Corporate Finance; Banking And Insurance; Hedging; Banking; Decision Choice And Uncertainty; Financial Markets; Insurance; Policy; Risk Management; Natural Disasters; Cost of Capital; Asset Pricing; Insurance Industry

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November 2012
Case

Tracy Palandjian at Social Finance US (A)

By: Alnoor Ebrahim, Catherine Clark and Beth Bafford

It had been eighteen months since Tracy Palandjian had left her position as a managing director at The Parthenon Group to start an ambitious venture called Social Finance US. With a mission "to mobilize investment capital to drive social change," her new organization... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career