Publications

2019
Working Paper

Why Does Business Invest in Education in Emerging Markets? Why Does It Matter?

By: Valeria Giacomin, G. Jones and Erica Salvaj

This working paper examines why a significant number of businesses have made non-profit investments in education in emerging markets between the 1960s and the present day. Using a sample of 110 interviews with business leaders from an oral history database at the... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy; CSR; Oral History; Emerging Markets; Education; Reputation; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business History

2010
Chapter

Happiness Adaptation to Income beyond 'Basic Needs'

By: Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch

We test for whether, once "basic needs" are satisfied, there is happiness adaptation to further gains in income using three data sets. Individual German Panel Data from 1985 to 2000, and data on the well-being of over 600,000 people in a panel of European countries... View Details

Keywords: Wealth and Poverty; Happiness; Human Needs; Income; Adaptation; Economic Growth

August 2007 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Trouble with a Bubble

By: Tom Nicholas

Examines technology, firm performance, and the stock market during the 1929 Great Crash and the Great Depression of the 1930s. The 1920s was an extraordinary period of technological progress marked by a strong run-up in stock market prices. Firms invested heavily in... View Details

Keywords: Bubble; Stock Market; Great Depression; Irving Fisher; Information Technology; Organizational Change and Adaptation; History; Financial Markets; Performance; Labor and Management Relations; Equity; Financial Crisis; Innovation and Invention; United States

Educators

Purchase

26 Jun 2012
First Look

First Look: June 26

Authors:Desai, Mihir A., C. Fritz Foley, and James R. Hines, Jr. Abstract This paper analyzes the extent to which firms use trade credit to reallocate capital in response to tax incentives. Tax-induced differences in pretax returns... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

16 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Breaking the Code of Change

tenure of Dunlap's predecessor, Phillip Lippincott, Scott had struggled to improve its operational effectiveness at the plant level by working on process improvement and launching an effort to work cooperatively with its union. In the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Beer & Nitin Nohria

April 2012
Article

Corporate Ownership Structure and Bank Loan Syndicate Structure

By: Chen Lin, Yue Ma, Paul Malatesta and Yuhai Xuan

Using a novel data set on corporate ownership and control, we show that the divergence between the control rights and cash-flow rights of a borrowing firm's largest ultimate owner has a significant impact on the concentration and composition of the firm's loan... View Details

Keywords: Ownership; Financing and Loans; Cash Flow; Borrowing and Debt; Accounting; Crisis Management; Relationships; Law; Contracts; Banking Industry

August 2013
Article

Corporate Ownership Structure and the Choice Between Bank Debt and Public Debt

By: Chen Lin, Yue Ma, Paul Malatesta and Yuhai Xuan

This paper examines the relation between a borrowing firm's ownership structure and its choice of debt source using a novel, hand-collected data set on corporate ownership, control, and debt structures for 9,831 firms in 20 countries from 2001 to 2010. We find that the... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Ownership; Borrowing and Debt; Corporate Finance

February 2017
Teaching Note

Oversight Systems

By: Frank Cespedes

This Teaching Note accompanies the case, set in May 2016, which discusses sales strategy and channel partnerships at Oversight Systems, an early stage software firm that developed analytics for organizations to monitor their data for errors, fraud, and operational... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Sales Strategy; Entrepreneurial Sales; Entrepreneurial Sales And Marketing; Software Sales; Marketing; Marketing Management; Pricing; Salesforce Management; Distribution Channels; Marketing Strategy; Technology Industry; North America

Purchase

Frank Nagle is an assistant professor in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. Professor Nagle studies how competitors can collaborate on the creation of core technologies, while still competing on the products and services built on top of them - especially... View Details

2012
Working Paper

Clusters, Convergence, and Economic Performance

By: Mercedes Delgado, Michael E. Porter and Scott Stern

This paper evaluates the role of regional cluster composition in the economic performance of industries, clusters, and regions. On the one hand, diminishing returns to specialization in a location can result in a convergence effect: the growth rate of an industry... View Details

Keywords: Industry Clusters; Performance; Economics

Purchase

2016
Working Paper

Options-Pricing Formula with Disaster Risk

By: Robert J. Barro and Gordon Y. Liao

A new options-pricing formula applies to far-out-of-the money put options on the overall stock market when disaster risk is the dominant force, the size distribution of disasters follows a power law, and the economy has a representative agent with Epstein-Zin utility.... View Details

Keywords: Option Pricing; Rare Disaster; Price; Stock Options; Financial Crisis

Research Summary

Innovation and Productivity

In this stream of research, Professor Steinwender examines how firms adjust their innovative behavior and productivity in response to changes in the external environment. Analyzing Spanish firm-level data, she finds that two mechanisms proposed in the economic... View Details

15 Dec 2009
First Look

First Look: Dec. 15, 2009

Working PapersThe Global Networks of Multinational Firms Authors:Laura Alfaro and Maggie Chen Abstract In this paper we characterize the topology of global multinational networks and examine the macro and micro patterns of multinational... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2011
Article

Scalable Detection of Anomalous Patterns With Connectivity Constraints

By: Skyler Speakman, Edward McFowland III and Daniel B. Neill

We present GraphScan, a novel method for detecting arbitrarily shaped connected clusters in graph or network data. Given a graph structure, data observed at each node, and a score function defining the anomalousness of a set of nodes, GraphScan can efficiently and... View Details

Keywords: Biosurveillance; Event Detection; Graph Mining; Scan Statistics; Spatial Scan Statistic

04 Feb 2025
HBS Seminar

Anocha Aribarg, University of Michigan

Research Summary

The Real Exchange Rate, Innovation and Productivity

By: Laura Alfaro

We evaluate manufacturing firms' responses to changes in the real exchange rate (RER) using detailed firm-level data for a large set of countries for the period 2001-2010. We uncover the following stylized facts about regional variation of manufacturing firms'... View Details

23 Dec 2008
First Look

First Look: December 23, 2008

high-skilled immigrants on U.S. technology formation. Specifically, we use reduced-form specifications that exploit large changes in the H-1B visa program. Fluctuations in H-1B admissions levels significantly influence the rate of Indian... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Suraj Srinivasan

Suraj Srinivasan is the Philip J. Stomberg Professor of Business Administration, a member of the Accounting and Management faculty unit, and chair of the View Details

Keywords: accounting industry; financial services

2023
Working Paper

Fintech to the (Worker) Rescue: Access to Earned Wages, Financial Health and Employee Turnover

By: Jose Murillo, Boris Vallée and Dolly Yu

Using novel data from a Mexican FinTech firm, we study the usage by workers of earned wages access, an innovative financial service offered by firms to their employees as a benefit. We find usage to be significant and concentrated towards the end of the pay cycle. We... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Present Bias; Earned Wage Access; Wages; Employees; Retention; Well-being; Mexico