Publications

August 2000 (Revised July 2002)
Background Note

Fundamental Enterprise Valuation: Short- and Long-Term Growth Rates and the Growth Horizon

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin

A technical note that defines short- and long-term growth rates and the growth horizon. View Details

Keywords: Cost of Capital; Stocks; Investment Return

29 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

'Green Bonds' May Be Our Best Bet for Environmental Damage Control

Municipalities have been selling bonds to pay for public works projects—fire stations, parking garages,sewage treatment systems—for 200 years. It’s only in the past decade or so, however, that they’ve been selling them with an extra perk: helping the environment. In... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Energy; Utilities; Construction; Green Technology; Public Administration

28 Aug 2014
Op-Ed

Government Can Do More to Unfreeze Small Business Credit

(Editor's note: This is the third in a series of articles based on a Harvard Business School working paper by Karen Mills that analyzes the current state of availability of... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Banking

01 Jun 2017
News

The Exchange: Venture Forth

courses, I’ve spent so much time teaching the tools that are based on theory. What is really interesting is that professionals in lots of industries, in particular the VC industry, totally disregard them. Using derived View Details

Keywords: April White

15 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

These VC Partners May Make Your Firm Less Innovative

“which is a fancy way of referring to all of the things you don’t have as a new company—products, knowledge, connections, resources.” The most common and effective way to make up for that lack is to find... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services; Banking

26 Aug 2013
Lessons from the Classroom

Built for Global Competition from the Start

mainstream option for entrepreneurial companies, which was highlighted during a panel discussion in class that included a local venture capital investor and recent HBS entrepreneurs. Several students inquired how the VC viewed and... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Education

March 2003 (Revised April 2006)
Background Note

Scale and Scope in Professional Service Firms

By: Ashish Nanda

This case discusses why economies (and diseconomies) of scale and scope exist in professional service firms (PSFs) and how they influence the amount and range of services that PSFs offer. It is distributed with a case that focuses on determining the optimal scale/scope... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Operations; Microeconomics; Service Industry

22 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 22

experience high costs of capital that are only partly mitigated by the presence of venture capital, the evidence for high View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

April 1993 (Revised September 1996)
Case

General Mills, Inc.: Analyzing an Annual Report

By: William J. Bruns Jr. and Marc H. Zablatsky

A directed analysis of the General Mills 1992 Annual Report. Focuses on the basics of reading an annual report including analysis of financial statements, calculations of financial ratios, and study of the layout and message of an annual report. View Details

Keywords: History; Cost Management; Activity Based Costing and Management; Financial Statements; Financial Strategy

April 2016
Supplement

Canadian Pacific's Bid for Norfolk Southern Spreadsheet Supplement

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Scott Mayfield

In December 2015, Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) has just made its third bid to acquire Norfolk Southern Corporation (NSC), one of the largest railroads in the United States. Having rejected the prior offers, NSC’s CEO James Squires and the NSC board must now value... View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Financial Strategy; Investment Activism; Bids and Bidding; Negotiation Offer; Corporate Strategy; Rail Transportation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Transformation; United States; Canada

January 1976 (Revised December 1988)
Case

Webster Industries (A)

The manufacturing manager of Webster's largest division is told to cut his managerial payroll by 15%. Provides company background data and a description of the manufacturing manager's reactions to the proposed reduction. Provides the students with an opportunity to... View Details

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Cost Management

19 Sep 2012
Research & Ideas

Funding Innovation: Is Your Firm Doing it Wrong?

urgent needs of the future. Start-ups, on the other hand, are intensely focused on innovation but are also beholden to the impatience and boom-and-bust cycles of the venture View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

14 Nov 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas: November 14, 2017

the index-inclusion incentives accounted for 16% of the average increase in aggregate annual earnings and 20% of the growth in aggregate market capitalization over our sample... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

24 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 24, 2007

compute pairwise coagglomeration measurements for U.S. manufacturing industries. Industry attributes are used to construct measures of the relevance of each of Marshall's three... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Feb 2010
First Look

First Look: Feb. 2

paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-018.pdf Endowments, Fiscal Federalism, and the Cost of Capital for States: Evidence from Brazil, 1891-1930 Authors:André... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 1999 (Revised July 2004)
Case

Life as a Minor League CEO Frank Burke and The Chattanooga Lookouts

By: Stephen A. Greyser and Kirk A. Goldman

A "slice of life" depiction of the range of issues and activities experienced by Frank Burke (HBS MBA 1987), the president of a minor league baseball team (the Chattanooga Lookouts). Raises questions of the applicability of MBA skills in this role and the "quotient of... View Details

Keywords: Happiness; Managerial Roles; Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Marketing; Cost Management; Cost vs Benefits; Operations; Sports; Business Education; Sports Industry; Tennessee

September 1989 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Depreciation at Delta and Pan Am

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

Depreciation policies of Delta Air Lines and Pan Am Corp. are compared and contrasted against a summary of operating data from each airline. Questions with the case require projection of future depreciation on a new aircraft using the policies of each company. View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Management Systems; Economic Growth; Policy; Cost; Financial Strategy; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Activity Based Costing and Management; Air Transportation Industry