Publications

2009
Working Paper

Female Empowerment: Impact of a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines

By: Nava Ashraf, Dean Karlan and Wesley Yin

Female "empowerment" has increasingly become a policy goal, both as an end to itself and as a means to achieving other development goals. Microfinance in particular has often been argued, but not without controversy, to be a tool for empowering women. Here, using a... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Microfinance; Personal Finance; Decision Making; Microeconomics; Gender; Power and Influence; Philippines

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

Keywords: Stocks; Stock Shares; Investment; Investment Return; Price; Theory; Valuation

2007
Working Paper

Taxes and Portfolio Choice: Evidence from JGTRRA's Treatment of International Dividends

By: Mihir A. Desai and Dhammika Dharmapala

This paper investigates how taxes influence portfolio choices by exploring the response to the distinctive treatment of foreign dividends in the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (JGTRRA). JGTRRA lowered the dividend tax rate to 15% for American equities... View Details

Keywords: Equity; Financial Markets; International Finance; Investment Portfolio; Government Legislation; Taxation; United States

March 1996 (Revised August 1997)
Case

Recycling Problem: International Bank Lending in the 1970s

By: Huw Pill

Provides a brief overview of international bank lending to developing countries in the 1970s and its culmination in the Third-World debt crisis after 1982. View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Financing and Loans; Borrowing and Debt; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Crisis; Banking Industry

July 1992 (Revised January 1995)
Case

An Investment Linked to Commodity Futures

By: Kenneth A. Froot, Jay O. Light and Nancy Donohue

Describes a new investment which is linked to an index of commmodity futures prices. Explores how the index is constructed, how commodity futures (as opposed to other futures and spot prices) behave, and what the portfolio impacts of such an investment might be. View Details

Keywords: Commodity Market; Investment Management; Portfolio Management; Financial Markets; Investment; Investment Portfolio; Futures and Commodity Futures

2023
Other Unpublished Work

Urgent: The IMF Must Reform

By: Laura Alfaro, Guillermo Calvo, José de Gregorio, Augusto de la Torre, Roque Fernandez, Pablo Guidotti, Enrique Mendoza, Ernesto Talvi, Liliana Rojas-Suarez and Andrés Velasco

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Emerging Markets; Financial Markets; International Finance; Latin America

September 2022 (Revised June 2025)
Case

York Capital CLOs and WorldStrides International

By: Victoria Ivashina and William Vrattos

The case follows the debt restructuring of WorldStrides International, a travel program provider in the education market, after the onset of COVID-19. The pandemic severely impacted the travel industry, creating challenges for many companies like WorldStrides, which... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Debt Restructuring; CLO; Compliance; Debt Securities; Financing and Loans; Decision Making; Travel Industry; Education Industry

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

September 2016 (Revised March 2021)
Case

DBL Partners: Double Bottom Line Venture Capital

By: Shawn Cole, Mark Kramer, Tony L. He, Anshul Maudar and T. Robert Zochowski

This case explores the origins and current practices of DBL, a San Francisco–based venture capital fund and one of the first impact investment funds to achieve significant financial returns to scale. This case allows for a competitive analysis of DBL's investment... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Investment Funds; Financial Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Tanzania

August 2011 (Revised August 2011)
Teaching Note

Mibanco: Meeting the Mainstreaming of Microfinance (TN)

By: Michael Chu

Teaching Note for 309-095. View Details

Keywords: Microfinance; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry

May 2004 (Revised August 2004)
Case

Enron Odyssey (A), The: The Special Purpose of "SPEs"

The board has asked Ron Tolbert, an employee in the Risk Assessment and Control Group, to analyze three SPE transactions executed by Enron executives: the Destec, Rhythms, and Fishtail/Bacchus transactions, which were prominently featured in the Examiner's Report in... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Financial Instruments; Analysis; Accounting; Financial Strategy; Energy Industry

May 2005
Article

Foreign Direct Investment and the Domestic Capital Stock

By: Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James R. Hines Jr.

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Capital; Stocks

Find at Harvard

March 1976 (Revised May 1993)
Teaching Note

Guaranteed Student Loan Program (A), Teaching Note

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

Keywords: Education; Financing and Loans; Programs

June 12, 2023
Article

The Limits of Capacity Building for Investment Contract Negotiations

By: Karl P. Sauvant, Vanessa Sze Wai Tsang and Louis T. Wells

Developing countries must negotiate the best possible investment contracts with foreign investors at the outset. Donor organizations regularly push for “capacity building” to create technical expertise for negotiations within host country governments. But building and... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Contracts; Negotiation

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