Publications

19 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

Inexperienced Investors and Market Bubbles

MacKay observed in 1852, "even chimney-sweeps and old clotheswomen dabbled in tulips." These days it's not just chimney-sweeps who are lured to investment heartbreak. New research suggests that even professional fund managers—if... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

09 Jan 2007
First Look

First Look: January 9, 2007

Venture Capital Investment Cycles: The Impact of Public Markets Authors:Paul Gompers, Anna Kovner, Josh Lerner, and David Scharfstein Publication:Journal of Financial Economics (forthcoming). (Earlier version distributed as National... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

12 Feb 2024
News

Dale LeFebvre to Receive Horatio Alger Award

Dale LeFebvre (MBA 1998), founder and executive chairman of 3.5.7.11 Investments, was recently named by the nonprofit Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans as a recipient of the 2024 Horatio Alger Award. For more than 75 years, the award has been... View Details

Keywords: Securities, Commodities, and Other Financial Investments; Finance

Web

Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Science Entrepreneurship - Health Care

space with a profound interest in life science company creation. He earned his PhD in bioengineering from ETH Zurich, served as a venture fellow at Flagship Pioneering, and later joined the Wyss Institute at Harvard as a technology... View Details

June 1997 (Revised February 2012)
Case

The Union Carbide Deal (Abridged)

By: Thomas J. DeLong

On November 3, 1986, after a three-hour board of directors meeting, Union Carbide decided to accept First Boston's proposal to embark on a $2.5 billion recapitalization program. Jameson and his associates' efforts had paid off. Jameson had reason to be excited: He had... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Capital Structure; Investment Banking; Financial Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Competition; Financial Services Industry

Web

Latin America - Global

2025, in Mexico City, Harvard Business School’s Institute for Business in Global Society (BiGS) and the Latin America Research Center hosted a solutions-driven roundtable, bringing together business leaders, policymakers, and civil... View Details

12 Sep 2023
Research & Ideas

How Can Financial Advisors Thrive in Shifting Markets? Diversify, Diversify, Diversify

finding of a new study by Harvard Business School associate professor Marco Di Maggio. “Having a broader view of the financial picture of the client helps [advisers] keep their clients and helps with growing the clientele as well.” Traditional View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Financial Services

20 Jul 2021
Blog Post

Aisha Fatima Dozie is Igniting Confidence as the Founder of Bossy Cosmetics

From investment banking, to the federal government, to a beauty startup.From North America, to Africa, to Europe, to South America. Aisha Fatima Dozie (MBA 2002), founder of Bossy Cosmetics, has a colorful, vibrant, and inspiring life... View Details

22 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

“Too Big To Fail”: Reining In Large Financial Firms

including taking Fannie and Freddie out of the investment business, simplifying mortgage disclosure documents, consolidating the federal government's highly fractured financial services regulatory agencies, and requiring that financial... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson; Banking; Financial Services

2024
Working Paper

Internal and External Capital Markets of Large Banks

By: Lina Lu, Marco Macchiavelli and Jonathan Wallen

Despite regulatory restrictions, large U.S. bank holding companies have sizable and dynamic internal capital markets. They raise long-term debt at the holding company and deposits at the commercial bank to internally make unsecured loans to affiliated broker-dealers.... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; International Finance; Financial Markets

Read Now

September 1994
Case

BayFunds

By: Alvin J. Silk, Lisa Klein Pearo and Jamie Harper

In June, 1994, the Senior Vice President of BayBank's Investment Management Group is preparing a strategic plan for her organization's line of mutual funds. Sixteen months earlier, BayBank, Massachusetts's leading retail bank, had entered the mutual fund business by... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Investment Funds; Product Marketing; Integration; Financial Services Industry

Web

Asia Pacific - Global

dinner discussion, Mr. Kalliarekos traced the origins and evolution of private equity in the US, explored the unique opportunities for PE firms across Asia, and discussed the critical importance of global managerial and operational talents for successful View Details

September 1997 (Revised October 1997)
Case

French Pension System, The: On the Verge of Retirement?

By: David A. Moss, Anne Dias and Bertrand O. Stephann

Surveys the French pension system, its particular institutional characteristics, and some of the critical challenges and opportunities facing French reformers. Like almost every other industrialized country, France has a large pay-as-you-go public pension system that... View Details

Keywords: Retirement; Compensation and Benefits; Capital Markets; Economic Growth; Labor; Problems and Challenges; Opportunities; Welfare; Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Public Administration Industry; France

January 2009
Article

FDI, Productivity, and Financial Development

By: Laura Alfaro, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Selin Sayek

This paper examines the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on growth by focusing on the complementarities between FDI inflows and financial markets. In our earlier work, we found that FDI is beneficial for growth only if the host country has well-developed... View Details

Keywords: Human Capital; Income; Performance Productivity; Financial Markets; Foreign Direct Investment; Financial Institutions; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues

Read Now

Article

The Collapse of First Executive Corporation: Junk Bonds, Adverse Publicity, and the Run on the Bank Phenomenon

By: S. C. Gilson, H. DeAngelo and L. DeAngelo

In April 1991, regulators seized the major subsidiaries of First Executive Corporation (FE), an insurer that invested heavily in junk bonds. During the junk bond market turmoil of 1989–1990, adverse publicity fueled a bank run at FE, forcing a $4 billion portfolio... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Bonds; Banks and Banking

September 1998
Case

Vanguard Group, Inc. (1998), The

By: Andre F. Perold

Since the beginning of 1997, Vanguard's assets under management have increased more than 60% from $240 billion to almost $400 billion, making it second in market share only to Fidelity. Vanguard views this success as another vindication of its low-cost strategy of... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Cost Management; Investment Funds; Product; Service Operations; Performance Expectations; Competition; Consolidation; Expansion; Internet; Financial Services Industry

2015
Article

International Trade, Multinational Activity, and Corporate Finance

By: C. Fritz Foley and Kalina Manova

An emerging new literature brings unique ideas from corporate finance to the study of international trade and investment. Insights about differences in the development of financial institutions across countries, the role of financial constraints, and the use of... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Investment; Trade; Corporate Finance

September 2003 (Revised May 2004)
Case

New Partnership for Africa's Development, The

By: Laura Alfaro, Debora L. Spar and Cate Reavis

In a world context of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund and their interaction with developing countries, this case looks at an African development initiative to address its own problems: The New Economic... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Developing Countries and Economies; International Finance; Investment; Poverty; Africa