Publications

2012
Working Paper

Risky Business: The Impact of Property Rights on Investment and Revenue in the Film Industry

By: Venkat Kuppuswamy and Carliss Y. Baldwin

Our paper tests a key prediction of property rights theory, specifically, that agents will respond to marginal incentives embedded in property rights when making non-contractible, revenue-enhancing investments (Grossman and Hart, 1986; Hart and Moore, 1990). Using rich... View Details

Keywords: Property Rights; Property; Rights; Investment; Contracts; Revenue; Motivation and Incentives; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; United States

SSRN

June 2011
Article

Truth in Giving: Experimental Evidence on the Welfare Effects of Informed Giving to the Poor

By: Christina Fong and Felix Oberholzer-Gee

It is often difficult for donors to predict the value of charitable giving because they know little about the persons who receive their help. This concern is particularly acute when making contributions to organizations that serve heterogeneous populations. While we... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Policy; Information; Knowledge Acquisition; Game Theory; Prejudice and Bias; Poverty; Welfare

24 Apr 2023 - 27 Apr 2023
Conference Presentation

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion: The Paradoxical Effect & Impact on Security

By: J. Carlos Vega, Hise O. Gibson, Nicole Gilmore and Larry Whiteside Jr.

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) is necessary to create the world class teams we need to defend against advanced threats and adversaries; however, the approach that most take often fails spectacularly. The panel challenges the current practices, the failings, and... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Cybersecurity; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

29 Feb 2016
HBS Case

Bigbelly's Big Bet on the Digital Trash Can

advertising. “Government is a giant customer. They buy a lot of stuff” Harvard Business School professor Mitchell Weiss explores this strategy pivot in a new case on Bigbelly, co-written with case researcher Christine Snively, that looks... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Energy

February 2014
Article

Responses to Entry in Multi-Sided Markets: The Impact of Craigslist on Local Newspapers

By: Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu

How do firms respond to entry in multi-sided markets? We address this question by studying the impact of Craigslist, a website providing classified-advertising services, on local U.S. newspapers. We exploit temporal and geographical variation in Craigslist's entry to... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Market Entry and Exit; Internet and the Web; Newspapers; Advertising; Advertising Industry; Journalism and News Industry

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... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland

March 2014 (Revised May 2014)
Teaching Note

The TELUS Share Conversion Proposal

By: Lucy White and Benjamin C. Esty

On February 21, 2013, TELUS announced a proposal to convert the firm's non-voting shares into voting shares on a one-to-one basis, thereby eliminating the firm's dual class structure. Shareholders were scheduled to vote on the proposal at the firm's annual general... View Details

14 Nov 2019
Book

Lifting the Lid on Turkey's Hidden Business History

Business History at Harvard Business School. Jones talked with us about the book. Sean Silverthorne: Given the growth of the Turkish economy and View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

October 2013 (Revised September 2014)
Case

The TELUS Share Conversion Proposal

By: Lucy White, Benjamin C. Esty and Lisa Mazzanti

On February 21, 2013, TELUS announced a proposal to convert the firm's non-voting shares into voting shares on a one-to-one basis, thereby eliminating the firm's dual class structure. Shareholders were scheduled to vote on the proposal at the firm's annual general... View Details

13 Jun 2012
HBS Case

HBS Cases: A Startup Takes On the Credit Ratings Giants

to by assigning overly optimistic ratings to highly complex and opaque mortgage- and asset-backed securities. The high ratings signaled to investors that the financial instruments had little chance of... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Banking; Financial Services

fall 2010
Article

Lawsuits and Empire: On the Enforcement of Sovereign Debt in Latin America

By: Faisal Z. Ahmed, Laura Alfaro and Noel Maurer

The re-occurring phenomenon of sovereign default has prompted an enormous theoretical and empirical literature. Most of this research has focused on why countries ever chose to pay their debts (or why private creditors ever expected repayment). The problem originates... View Details

Keywords: Lawsuits and Litigation; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Sovereign Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Debt Securities; Motivation and Incentives; Markets; Equity; Banking Industry; Latin America

21 May 2018
HBS Case

How Would You Price One of the World's Great Watches?

taseffski When Stefan Thomke finished writing the Harvard Business School case study on A. Lange & Söhne, he sent it to the German watchmaker for feedback. View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Fashion

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

28 Aug 2009
Working Paper Summaries

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

Keywords: by Brad Badertscher, Sharon P. Katz & Sonja Olhoft Rego; Financial Services

January 2001 (Revised May 2010)
Case

BP Amoco (A): Policy Statement on the Use of Project Finance

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane

Following the BP/Amoco merger in December 1998, CFO David Watson asked Bill Young to recommend when and under what circumstances the firm should use external project finance instead of internal corporate funds to finance new capital investments. As part of this... View Details

Keywords: Project Finance; Mergers and Acquisitions; Policy; Capital Budgeting

November 2011
Case

Comfort Class Transport: Does Customer Service Need an Overhaul?

By: Michael J Roberts and Paul E. Morrison

The general manager of a chauffeured limousine transport company is concerned about underperformance at the company's customer service call center. The eight-person call center handles almost all customer interaction including discussing company services with... View Details

Keywords: Capacity Utilization; Supply ＆ Demand; Operations Management; Customer Service; Management; Demand and Consumers; Service Operations; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Performance Capacity; Customer Satisfaction; Transportation Industry

20 Feb 2013
Research & Ideas

Big Deal: Reflections on the Megamerger of American and US Airways

On February 14, US Airways and American Airlines put their names on a valentine to each other as they announced an $11 billion merger, a union that created the largest airline... View Details

Keywords: Re: Rosabeth M. Kanter & Stuart C. Gilson; Air Transportation

January 2019 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Chinese Infrastructure Investments in Sri Lanka: A Pearl or a Teardrop on the Belt and Road?

By: Meg Rithmire and Yihao Li

In 2015, a surprise presidential election result seemed to imperil Chinese investments in Sri Lanka, which were associated with China’s Belt and Road Initiative to build global infrastructure. In the previous decade, China had undertaken two major projects in the... View Details

Keywords: Belt And Road Initiative; Investment; Infrastructure; China; Sri Lanka

January 2010 (Revised December 2012)
Case

Knight the King: The Founding of Nike

By: Noam Wasserman and Kyle Anderson

It had taken Phil Knight 16 long years to build Nike into the number one athletic-shoe company in the country. When Knight had first conceived of the company for an MBA class project, Adidas had had more than 80% market share, but Knight's marketing approach had... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Initial Public Offering; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Apparel and Accessories Industry