Publications

January 2009 (Revised February 2010)
Case

Necessity and Invention: Monetary Policy Innovation and the Subprime Crisis

By: Aldo Musacchio and Dante Roscini

This case describes the efforts of Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, to improve liquidity in money markets during the subprime crisis. The case explains the four main new tools for monetary policy (or quantitative easing) the Federal Reserve has used... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Money; Financial Liquidity; Central Banking; Policy; Business and Government Relations

As fires, floods, and droughts increasingly threaten homes, businesses, and other institutions, climate risk has become financial risk. Mortgages written on homes in exposed locations are being shed by banks and absorbed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,... View Details

June 2019
Case

Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Expanding from One to Many Millions of Customers

By: Thales S. Teixeira

By 2019, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were among the highest-growing internet startups around. These marketplaces sought to match suppliers of assets for rent, physical products, or services with customers demanding them. Among the most notable... View Details

Keywords: Airbnb; Etsy; Uber; Growth Hacking; Two-Sided Markets; Digital Marketing; Customer Acquisition; Two-Sided Platforms; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Customers; Acquisition; Organizational Change and Adaptation

September 1986 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Eastern Electric Apparatus Repair Company (A)

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Harry Gruner

As principals engaged in structuring leveraged buyouts for a well-capitalized risk arbitrage firm, Bob Meehan and George Schwartz are preparing to bid for the business and assets of a Westinghouse subsidiary. The case focuses on the value of the opportunity, methods of... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Bids and Bidding; Opportunities; Business Subsidiaries; Strategy; Valuation; Equity; Electronics Industry

Find at Harvard

23 Jun 2015
News

Governance reforms add significance to being a public company

05 Nov 2014
News

Divestment Alone Won’t Beat Climate Change

18 Aug 2017
News

How the U.S. Navy is Responding to Climate Change

September 2016 (Revised December 2018)
Case

Joan Bavaria and Multi-Dimensional Capitalism

By: Geoffrey Jones and Seema Amble

The case examines the career of Joan Bavaria, a pioneer of socially responsible investing and founder of Trillium Asset Management and Ceres, the nonprofit organization advocating for sustainability leadership. It describes her personal journey from art student and... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Personal Development and Career

September 2002 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Dimensional Fund Advisors, 2002

By: Randolph B. Cohen

Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) is an investment management firm that prides itself on basing its investment strategies on sound academic research. Many of the best-known finance research papers of the past two decades (especially those by Eugene Fama and Kenneth... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Use and Leverage; Research; Success; Investment; Financial Services Industry

July 1989
Case

NWA, Inc. - Northwest Airlines Revenue Management

Northwest Airlines is evaluating improvements to its revenue management system. This system executes a program of economic price discrimination under which the airline attempts to control the conditions on its discount fare offerings. Students must evaluate the effect... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Air Transportation; Management Systems; Corporate Finance; Air Transportation Industry; United States

March 2016 (Revised August 2018)
Case

JPMorgan Chase after the Financial Crisis: What Is the Optimal Scope of the Largest Bank in the U.S.?

By: David Collis and Ashley Hartman

When Jamie Dimon took over as CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPMorgan Chase) in 2005, he reaffirmed the commitment to pursue a "universal bank" strategy—providing a full range of products and services to both retail and wholesale clients. Yet the merits of the universal... View Details

Keywords: Scope; Regulatory Reforms; Universal Banking; Synergy; Optimization; Simplification; Finance; Strategy; Business Strategy; Financial Crisis; Consolidation; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry

2020
Chapter

Climate Change Is Going to Transform Where and How We Build

By: John D. Macomber

As fires, floods, and droughts increasingly threaten homes, businesses, and other institutions, climate risk has become financial risk. This implies that homeowners and investors have been making location decisions without properly pricing the cost of potential peril,... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Housing; Mortgages; Geographic Location; Real Estate Industry

Read Now

Research Summary

Valuation of Business Reorganizations

Business reorganization transactions, such as mergers, acquisitions and spin-offs, are often initiated based on the premise of value creation for shareholders. However, is this premise true, especially in the recent data? Due to the growing share of intangibles... View Details

January 1999 (Revised March 2004)
Case

AMB Consolidation, The

By: William J. Poorvu and Daniel J. Rudd

Anne Shea, assistant vice president at the Curators' Fund (The Fund), is responsible for investing roughly $80 million in real-estate assets. Less than three years ago, Anne invested $40 million into a commingled fund run by AMB Institutional Realty Advisors, Inc., a... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Conflict of Interests; Industry Structures; Property; Investment; Public Ownership; Real Estate Industry

August 3, 2022
Article

How Will Amazon Approach U.S. Primary Care?

By: Robert S. Huckman and Bradley Staats

Amazon has a playbook for reinventing businesses that it enters. It includes simplifying processes, experimenting to determine which new approaches work best, and continuously recombining its existing assets to come up with a better way to do things. It is likely to... View Details

Keywords: Amazon; Health Care; Technology; Primary Care; Health Care and Treatment; Information Infrastructure; Health Industry; Technology Industry; United States

Read Now

May 2011
Article

The Hollow Science

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The financial meltdown made clear that the executives of many major financial institutions were operating with inadequate or distorted information about the values and risks of their firms' assets. It's fair to say that business scholars bear some... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Financial Crisis; Financial Management; Information; Knowledge Acquisition; Risk Management; Practice

Find at Harvard

2022
Working Paper

Markups to Financial Intermediation in Foreign Exchange Markets

By: Jonathan Wallen

On average from 2013 to 2020, foreign asset managers in net sold forward 1.1 trillion U.S. dollars. This forward sale of dollars hedges the currency mismatch of foreign investment in U.S. dollar assets. By accommodating this demand, U.S. and European banks earn an... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Exchange; Financial Intermediation; Arbitrage; Market Power; Regulations; Currency; Assets; Interest Rates; Banking Industry