Publications

23 Jan 2007
First Look

First Look: January 23, 2007

Acquisition of Abbey: Banking Across Borders Harvard Business School Case 707-485 Banco Santander, Spain's largest commercial bank, announced in July 2004 the acquisition of Abbey National Bank, the fifth largest U.K. View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

September 2015
Article

Banks as Patient Fixed-Income Investors

By: Samuel G. Hanson, Andrei Shleifer, Jeremy C. Stein and Robert W. Vishny

We examine the business model of traditional commercial banks when they compete with shadow banks. While both types of intermediaries create safe "money-like" claims, they go about this in different ways. Traditional banks create money-like claims by holding illiquid... View Details

Keywords: Shadow Banking; Safe Money-like Claims; Commercial Banking

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Research Summary

Overview

Chu's research is focused on business and low income sectors, particularly in the use of commercial platforms to deliver what has traditionally been considered public responsibilities. In the last three decades, business models have emerged to meet the underserved... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Microfinance; Base Of The Pyramid; Role Of Profit And Social Impact; Private Sector Development; Emerging Markets; Business Ventures; Health Care and Treatment; Management; Social Enterprise; Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Health Industry; Latin America; North and Central America; Asia; Africa

30 Mar 2020
News

How Building Wellness Certifications are Adapting to COVID-19

12 Dec 2018
News

Impact Investing Could Accelerate the Fight Against Cancer

2024
Working Paper

Charting (and Updating) the Path: A Bayesian Perspective on Entrepreneurial Learning

By: Joshua L. Krieger

This chapter explores two distinct modes of entrepreneurial learning: assessing venture viability and choosing between alternative development paths. It introduces a framework for decomposing venture viability into technological feasibility, commercial potential and... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Learning

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August 2016
Teaching Note

Mahindra Lifespace Developers' Venture into Affordable Housing

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Monica Baraldi

Mahindra Lifespace Developers Limited (MLDL) was the infrastructure and real estate arm of the Mahindra Group, an Indian conglomerate with revenues of $16.5 billion in 2014. Employing 400 experts in land acquisition, design, project management, sales and marketing, and... View Details

Keywords: Business Conglomerates; Business Startups; Development Economics; Developing Countries and Economies; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Housing; Emerging Markets; Business and Government Relations; Human Needs; Social Issues; Urban Development; Real Estate Industry; India

March 2000 (Revised April 2003)
Case

Iridium LLC

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Fuaad Qureshi and William J Olson

This case involves part of a module on financing large projects in the elective curriculum course entitled "Large-Scale Investment." It is set in August 1999, just after Iridium, a global communications firm, declared bankruptcy. Although the case describes Iridium's... View Details

Keywords: Project Finance; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financial Strategy; Communications Industry; Technology Industry

October 2007 (Revised April 2009)
Case

TH!NK: The Norwegian Electric Car Company

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and David Kiron

On August 1, 2007, 61-year-old Jan-Olaf Willums' plane was flying along the Greenland coastline on his way back to Norway after intense discussions with several prominent U.S. venture capital investors, among them Kleiner Perkins and Rockport Capital Partners, about... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Product Launch; Market Entry and Exit; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants; Auto Industry; Green Technology Industry; Europe; Norway

December 2017
Case

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Sarah Mehta

It is July 2017, and Dr. Nteranya Sanginga, the director general of the Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), is making progress toward two of his primary strategic objectives for the nonprofit research Institute: 1) to scale the impact... View Details

Keywords: Scaling Technologies; Youth Unemployment; Innovation In Nonprofits; Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Cash Flow; Labor; Employment; Commercialization; Problems and Challenges; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Africa; Nigeria

October 2024
Article

Medicare Part D Protected-Class Policy Is Associated with Lower Drug Rebates

By: Pragya Kakani, Michael Anne Kyle, Amitabh Chandra and Luca Maini

Medicare Part D does not allow plans to exclude drugs in six protected classes from their formularies, which may limit plans’ ability to negotiate rebates and lead to higher spending. We estimated the association between protected-class status, US-level estimated... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States

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March 2021
Case

Proteak: Valuing Forestry Assets

By: Gerardo Pérez Cavazos and Carla Larangeira

In early 2020, 414 Capital was hired by Proteak, Mexico´s largest forestry platform, to perform a valuation of its teak business, a high-grade hardwood commonly used to build boat decks, outdoor walls, furniture, doors and small objects. Teak plantations typically... View Details

Keywords: Forestry; Assets; Valuation; Forest Products Industry; Financial Services Industry; Mexico

February 2020 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Wellthy: The Economics of Caring

By: Brian L. Trelstad and Joseph B. Fuller

In 2014, Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (MBA ’09) founded Wellthy, a B2C business that coordinates care for working professionals seeking help to support loved ones with chronic diseases or aging parents. With personal experience as a young professional providing care for her... View Details

Keywords: B2B Vs. B2C; Future Of Work; Health; Social Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; United States

September 1985 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Population Services International: The Social Marketing Project in Bangladesh

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Population Services International (PSI) was a not-for-profit agency founded to disseminate family planning information and to market birth control products, primarily in less developed countries seeking to curb their population explosions. In 1976, PSI concluded an... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Health; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Business and Government Relations; Nonprofit Organizations; Bangladesh

01 Aug 2022
News

A New Private Moon Race Kicks Off Soon

August 2020
Case

24M Technologies

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In early 2020, 24M Technologies (24M) announced that two of its strategic investors had commenced building plants to produce lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries based on 24M’s novel semi-solid electrode technology. This promised to halve the cost of conventional Li-ion... View Details

Keywords: Lithium-ion Batteries; Technological Innovation; Commercialization; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy

John Batter is a retired Litigation Partner in the Boston Office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP where his practice focussed on on the defense of public and private companies and their directors and management against breach of fiduciary duty claims and... View Details

2021
Working Paper

MLS as a Sports Product—The Prominence of the World's Game in the U.S.

By: Stephen A. Greyser and Kenneth Cortsen

The purpose of this Working Paper is to analyze how soccer at the professional level in the U.S., with Major League Soccer as a focal point, has developed over the span of a quarter of a century. It is worthwhile to examine the growth of Major League Soccer (MLS) from... View Details

Keywords: Soccer; Major League Soccer; Sports; Growth and Development; Organizational Structure; Business Model; Sports Industry; United States