Publications

Educators

2002
Working Paper

Design of Financial Systems: Towards a Synthesis of Function and Structure

By: Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie

May 1983 (Revised November 1983)
Background Note

Financial Structure of Corporate Pension Plans and Pension Funds

By: Jay O. Light

Keywords: Capital Structure; Retirement; Finance

Article

Financial Education and the Debt Behavior of the Young

By: Jaya Y. Wen, Meta Brown, Wilbert van der Klaauw, Basit Zafar and John Grigsby

April 2002 (Revised February 2004)
Teaching Note

Argentina's Financial System: The Case of Banco de Galicia

By: Rafael M. Di Tella, Tarun Khanna, Huw Pill and Ingrid Vogel

Teaching Note for (9-702-033). View Details

Keywords: Banking Industry; Argentina

1985
Article

Measuring and Reporting the Financial Condition of Public Organizations

By: Dutch Leonard

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Finance; Organizations

2022
Working Paper

The Gender Gap in Confidence: Expected But Not Accounted For

By: Christine L. Exley and Kirby Nielsen

We investigate how the gender gap in confidence affects the views that evaluators (e.g., employers) hold about men and women. If evaluators fail to account for the confidence gap, it may cause overly pessimistic views about women. Alternatively, if evaluators expect... View Details

Keywords: Confidence; Experiments; Gender; Perception; Values and Beliefs; Performance Evaluation; Analysis

April 1998
Case

Responding to 21st Century Financial Crisis

By: Huw Pill

During the 1990s, financial crises appear to have been almost annual events. Examples abound: the collapse of S & Ls in the United States; currency mayhem in Europe; Mexican devaluation and banking crisis; Japanese banks teetering on the verge of default; currency and... View Details

Keywords: Global Range; Financial Crisis

04 May 2009
Research & Ideas

What’s Next for the Big Financial Brands

now close to worthless. It drags down Bank of America's brand every time it is mentioned in the same breath. The Merrill Lynch brand is unlikely to ever recover and Bank of America should drop it. Merrill... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Financial Services; Financial Services

2007
Working Paper

Evidence from Goodwill Non-impairments on the Effects of Unverifiable Fair-Value Accounting

By: Karthik Ramanna and Ross L. Watts

SFAS 142 requires firms to use unverifiable fair-value estimates to determine goodwill impairments. Standard setters suggest managers will use the discretion given by such estimates to convey private information on future cash flows, while agency theory predicts... View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Goodwill Accounting; Standards; Agency Theory

SSRN

February 2005
Article

Portrait of a Failed Rebellion: An Account of Rational, Sub-optimal Violence in Western Uganda

By: Lucy Hovil and Eric D. Werker

While newspaper reports typically describe anti-civilian violence in civil war as resulting from hatred or anarchy, there is an emerging literature that interprets these processes as calculated, strategic actions of war makers. We argue that this literature... View Details

Keywords: Civilian Violence; Civil War; Insurgency; War Financing; Uganda; Failure; Society; Uganda

October 2008
Case

Financial Crisis in Asia: 1997-1998 (Abridged)

By: Huw Pill, Rafael M. Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer

What caused the 1997-98 Asia Crisis: Asian nations' poor economic management, international financial contagion, close "crony" relations between local politicians and capitalists? This case examines how the crisis erupted in Thailand and spread in a chain of events... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Crisis; Ethics; Financial Institutions; Financial Management; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Government Relations; Asia

Educators

March 2024
Module Note

Navigating the Future: Managing Financial Forecasts

By: Mark Egan

This module note guides instructors on delivering a course module that focuses on understanding, developing, and using financial forecasts from a chief financial officer’s (CFO) perspective. The cases in the module equip students with an understanding of the techniques... View Details

Keywords: CFO; Forecasting; Corporate Finance; Forecasting and Prediction; Financial Management; Revenue; United States

2021
Working Paper

Accounting for Product Impact in the Pharmaceuticals Industry

By: Amanda Rischbieth, George Serafeim and Katie Trinh

We apply the product impact measurement framework of the Impact-Weighted Accounts Initiative (IWAI) in two competitor companies within the pharmaceuticals industry. We design a monetization methodology that allows us to calculate monetary impact estimates of accessible... View Details

SSRN

September 2023
Module Note

Live Case Exercise for Financial Reporting

By: Tatiana Sandino and Marshal Herrmann

Harvard Business School employs the case method as a cornerstone of its pedagogy, providing students with opportunities to engage in discussions related to difficult or contentious decisions confronted by real-world organizations. In this “live case,” we depart from... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Research; Corporate Disclosure

Research Summary

Comparative Financial Systems and Corporate Governance

One implication of the inherent logic of a financial system lies in the effects on corporate governance. Differences in financial systems across countries -- for instance, in terms of the role of banks, equity markets, and shareholder voting systems -- result in... View Details

March 1980 (Revised October 1980)
Background Note

Financial Leverage, the Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Cost of Equity Capital

Demonstrates how the capital asset pricing model can be used to estimate the impact of financial leverage on the cost of equity capital. The levering and unlevering of betas are illustrated. Also presents a methodology for decomposing the cost of equity into its three... View Details

Keywords: Cost of Capital; Asset Pricing; Investment

Educators

May 1992 (Revised January 2000)
Supplement

ABB: Accountability Times Two (B)

By: Robert L. Simons

Describes internal allocation conflicts in a complex global company structured as a matrix organization. ABB Switzerland has secured and will build an important power station project; however, internal market allocation policies dictate that this work be handled by ABB... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Conflict Management; Complexity; Sweden; Switzerland