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- 2008
- Working Paper
Fixing Market Failures or Fixing Elections? Agricultural Credit in India
By: Shawn A. Cole
This paper integrates theories of political budget cycles with theories of tactical electoral redistribution to test for political capture in a novel way. Studying banks in India, I find that government-owned bank lending tracks the electoral cycle, with agricultural... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Welfare Payments and Crime
By: C. Fritz Foley
This paper tests the hypothesis that the timing of welfare payments affects criminal activity. Analysis of daily reported incidents of major crimes in twelve U.S. cities reveals an increase in crime over the course of monthly welfare payment cycles. This increase... View Details
- May 2008
- Article
Regulation and Bonding: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Flow of International Listings
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Joseph Piotroski
In this paper, we examine the economic impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) by analyzing foreign listing behavior onto U.S. and U.K. stock exchanges before and after the enactment of the Act in 2002. Using a sample of all listing events onto U.S. and U.K. exchanges... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Structural Closure and Exposure: Market Reactions to Announcements of Acquisitions and Divestitures
By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski and Nitin Nohria
This paper develops an exchange-network perspective on corporate diversification and proposes two measures of corporate scope: structural closure and structural exposure. Structural closure focuses on exchanges of goods and services inside the firm... View Details
- March 2008
- Exercise
Exercise: Challenging Operational Assumptions
By: Frances X. Frei
This exercise provides students with an opportunity to thoroughly test an operating assumption. Students state an assumption as a testable hypothesis, collect and analyze relevant data, and communicate the results. At HBS, it is incorporated in a second-year elective... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Exploring the Duality between Product and Organizational Architectures: A Test of the Mirroring Hypothesis
By: Alan D. MacCormack, John Rusnak and Carliss Y. Baldwin
A variety of academic studies argue that a relationship exists between the structure of an organization and the design of the products that this organization produces. Specifically, products tend to "mirror" the architectures of the organizations in which they are... View Details
- March 2008
- Article
When Growth Stalls
By: Matthew S. Olson, Derek C. M. van Bever and Seth Verry
This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading.
An abrupt and lasting drop in revenue growth is a crisis that can strike even the... View Details
- February 2008 (Revised August 2008)
- Case
EXACT Sciences Corp.: Commercializing a Diagnostic Test
This case addresses the challenges of commercializing molecular diagnostics. Along the way, it explains the technology, payment system, and the measures used to assess the value of a diagnostic test. View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Contracting for Servicizing
Servicizing, a novel business practice that sells product functionality rather than products, has been touted as an environmentally beneficial business practice. This paper describes how servicizing transactions mitigate some problems associated with sales... View Details
- January 2008
- Background Note
Equity Derivatives
By: Joshua Coval and Erik Stafford
The goal of these simulations is to understand the dynamic replication technique behind the Black-Scholes/Merton options model. The simulations focus on a single stock and a risk-free discount bond, which are used to replicate a contingent payoff. The underlying stock... View Details
- January 2008 (Revised August 2009)
- Module Note
Competing through Business Models (A)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Joan E. Ricart
This note defines the concepts of business model and the value loop. It also introduces business model representations and proposes four tests for evaluating business models in isolation. This is the first note in a series of three written for the HBS elective course... View Details
- January 2008
- Case
Procter & Gamble Brazil (A): 2 1/2 Turnarounds
By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Matthew Bird
Juliana Azevedo Schahin, a local marketing director for Procter & Gamble in Sao Paulo, had worked closely with Tarek Fahahat, a regional executive based in Caracas, to solve the growth and profitability problems of P&G Brazil. They did so through the creation of... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Catering through Nominal Share Prices
By: Malcolm Baker, Robin Greenwood and Jeffrey Wurgler
We propose and test a catering theory of nominal stock prices. The theory predicts that when investors place higher valuation on low-price firms, managers will maintain share prices at lower levels, and vice-versa. Using measures of time-varying catering... View Details
- January 2008
- Article
Mastering the Management System
By: Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton
Companies have always found it hard to balance pressing operational concerns with long-term strategic priorities. The tension is critical: World-class processes won't lead to success without the right strategic direction, and the best strategy in the world will get... View Details
- 2007
- Book
Mergers: Leadership, Performance & Corporate Health
By: David G. Fubini, Colin Price and Maurizio Zollo
Drawing on their own extensive integration experience, the systematic analysis of 167 mergers, and cutting edge academic research, the authors of this book identify the common leadership challenges to be tackled for the achievement of what we call 'corporate health',... View Details
- December 2007
- Article
Private Power in Indonesia
By: Louis T. Wells
The Asian Currency Crisis led to the collapse of agreements Indonesia had negotiated for private electric power only a few years earlier. The ensuing struggle meant bad publicity and several hundred million dollars in costs for Indonesia. As Indonesia in 2007 was... View Details
- November 2007
- Case
Antegren: A Beacon of Hope
By: Joshua D. Margolis, Thomas J. DeLong and Terence Heymann
The CEO of Biogen Idec faces a set of difficult decisions regarding a promising drug for Multiple Sclerosis that is headed for early approval by the FDA. The first in a series focuses on operational decisions triggered by the drive for early approval. Sparks discussion... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
New Framework for Measuring and Managing Macrofinancial Risk and Financial Stability
By: Dale F. Gray, Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie
This paper proposes a new approach to improve the way central banks can analyze and manage the financial risks of a national economy. It is based on the modern theory and practice of contingent claims analysis (CCA), which is successfully used today at the level of... View Details
- October 2007 (Revised January 2009)
- Background Note
Analyzing Relative Costs
By: Hanna Halaburda and Jan W. Rivkin
Introduces students to the technique of relative cost analysis, a core technique of strategists. Among the intricate quantitative analyses that strategists undertake, relative cost analysis may be the most common. The goal of a relative cost analysis is simply to... View Details
- September 2007
- Case
Nonverbal Communication: Distinguishing Truth and Lies
This video-based coursework illuminates the importance--and difficulty--of judging whether people are trustworthy. Students can test their skills at assessing whether contestants in a high-stakes game show will cooperate or defect. View Details