Publications

QuantCon NYC 2018 Quantitative Investing Confernece - Interview Video

23 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 23

catastrophic risks to patients, physicians, pharmaceutical firms, and regulators. Between the early 1960s and the present, national systems were built to collect, standardize, and respond to individual reports of side effects, with the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

02 Aug 2016
First Look

August 2, 2016

same behaviors described as “random behaviors.” Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51401 Financial Regulation in a Quantitative Model of the Modern Banking System By: Begenau, Juliane, and Tim Landvoigt... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Mar 2025
Blog Post

How to Approach Your Equity Compensation

equity grants—both in relation to other offers and as part of my overall financial picture? What factors determine whether my shares/options will become valuable (or not)? When should I exercise (buy), sell, or hold? What tax implications... View Details

Lazy Prices

Using the complete history of regular quarterly and annual filings by U.S. corporations from 1995-2014,... View Details

28 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Six Lessons from Mobile Money Ventures in Developing Countries

In many emerging economies, the need to give people in poverty better access to financial services seems obvious. The mobile phone is a perfect vehicle, given their widespread adoption, even among the View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Financial Services; Financial Services

June 2020 (Revised September 2020)
Case

Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO (A)

By: Tsedal Neeley and John Masko

With the economy in a freefall, MetricStream is losing customers, hemorrhaging cash and struggling to make payroll. Several board members are threatening to quit. Others are pressing to sell the company even at dismally low valuations. It’s 2008 and lightning has... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Race; Gender; Leadership Style; Risk and Uncertainty; Change; Prejudice and Bias; Decision Making; Personal Development and Career; Technology Industry; California

February 2001 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Merrill Lynch: Integrated Choice (Abridged)

By: F. Warren McFarlan and James Weber

Merrill Lynch, a full-service brokerage firm with $1.5 trillion in client assets, is under attack from both discount and electronic brokerage firms. It responds with Integrated Choice, a suite of products designed to capture clients, from the do-it-yourself investor... View Details

Keywords: Investment Banking; Marketing Strategy; Distribution Channels; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry

February 2016 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Alvogen

By: Daniel Isenberg and William Kerr

Alvogen is a young Icelandic generic pharmaceutical company, whose CEO believes that his global strategy will give them an edge in this competitive industry.
Robert Wessman, Alvogen’s CEO, was also previously the CEO of Actavis, another Icelandic generics... View Details

Keywords: Pharmaceutical Companies; Generic Drugs; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Risk and Uncertainty; Pharmaceutical Industry; Iceland

October 1998 (Revised August 1999)
Case

Amazon.com--Going Public

By: William A. Sahlman and Laurence E. Katz

Amazon.com, an early pioneer in electronic commerce, prepares its initial public offering in the face of turbulent market conditions. Joy Covey, Amazon.com's CFO and the case protagonist, discusses the risks and opportunities of going public and the nature of... View Details

Keywords: Going Public; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Model; Financial Strategy; Business Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Electronics Industry; Retail Industry

June 2011 (Revised October 2012)
Case

Patagonia Sur: For-Profit Land Conservation in Chile

By: Arthur I Segel, Nicolas Ibanez and Jay Verjee

Warren Adams founded Patagonia Sur in 2007 as one of the world's first for-profit land conservation businesses. His goal was to purchase over 100,000 acres of land in southern Chile and to run a variety of sustainable businesses to generate annual returns for... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Environmental Sustainability; Profit; Investment; For-Profit Firms; Entrepreneurship; Investment Return; Revenue; Risk and Uncertainty; Capital; SWOT Analysis; Real Estate Industry; Chile

April 2011
Case

Felipe Calderón: Leading with Light and Power (A)

By: J. Bruce Harreld and David Lane

This sequence of cases explores how leaders get their team focused on framing, analyzing, and ultimately acting upon complex decisions. The A case provides an inside look as President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, works with his cabinet ministers to decide how to... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Decisions; Public Sector; Leadership; Conflict and Resolution; Power and Influence; Urban Development; Welfare or Wellbeing

Find at Harvard

TeachingInterests

Executive Education - Owner/President Management Program

By: Martin A. Sinozich

Delivered in three units that span 24 months over three calendar years, the Owner/President Management (OPM) program is a transformative learning experience that boosts leadership skills and the value of participants’ enterprises. Sinozich teaches the Finance... View Details

Web

Faculty & Research

Journal of Financial Economics 165 (March 2025). Optimal Illiquidity By: John Beshears , James J. Choi, Christopher Clayton, Christopher Harris, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian We study the socially optimal level of illiquidity in... View Details

November 1974 (Revised May 1994)
Case

Science Technology Co.

By: Thomas R. Piper

The president of a medium-sized electronics company is evaluating the financial forecasts and proposed financing program submitted by the chief financial officer. The forecasts are prepared in constant dollars, on which basis the proposed financing plan seems... View Details

Keywords: Currency; Financial Strategy; Forecasting and Prediction; Inflation and Deflation; Risk and Uncertainty; Outcome or Result; Technology Industry; Electronics Industry

04 Aug 2014
Op-Ed

Why Small-Business Lending Is Not Recovering

and residential real estate, which represent two-thirds of the assets of small-business owners and are often used as collateral for small-business loans, were decimated during the financial crisis. On the supply side, banks remain more... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Financial Services; Financial Services

02 Aug 2011
First Look

First Look: August 2

maximize their people's performance. Publisher's Link: http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/web/product_detail.seam?E=79788&R=10106-HBK-ENG&conversationId=323988 Surviving the Global Financial Crisis: Foreign Ownership and Establishment... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2016
Working Paper

Credit-Market Sentiment and the Business Cycle

By: David Lopez-Salido, Jeremy C. Stein and Egon Zakrajsek

Using U.S. data from 1929 to 2013, we show that elevated credit-market sentiment in year t – 2 is associated with a decline in economic activity in years t and t + 1. Underlying this result is the existence of predictable mean reversion in credit-market conditions.... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Credit; Macroeconomics

Find at Harvard

2003
Conference Paper

Follow the Money: What Really Drives Technology Innovation in Construction

By: John D. Macomber

Technology enthusiasts, academics, and software companies remain concerned about the slow pace of innovation in the construction industry. Tools are widely available that seem to provide eminently sensible and clearly apparent improvement to the process of design and... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Technological Innovation; Construction; Design; Performance Improvement; Motivation and Incentives; Knowledge Management; Adoption; Business Model; Capital Structure; Supply Chain