Publications

October 2020 (Revised December 2020)
Case

Investing at Pivotal Ventures

By: Emil N. Siriwardane, Emily R. McComb and Eren Kuzucu

Launched in 2015 by Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Pivotal Ventures is an investment and incubation company. The company aims to support and promote transformational ideas, people and organizations, and advance social progress for women... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Management; Mission and Purpose; Venture Capital

2020
Working Paper

Short-Termism, Shareholder Payouts, and Investment in the EU

By: Jesse M. Fried and Charles C.Y. Wang

Investor-driven “short-termism” is said to harm EU public firms' ability to invest for the long term, prompting calls for the EU to better insulate managers from shareholder pressure. But the evidence offered—in the form of rising levels of repurchases and dividends—is... View Details

Keywords: Short-termism; Quarterly Capitalism; EU; Dividends; Equity Issuances; Equity Compensastion; Capital Flows; Capital Distribution; R＆D; Innovation; Investment; Corporate Governance; Investment Return; Acquisition; European Union

2022
Working Paper

The Stock Market Value of Human Capital Creation

By: Matthias Regier and Ethan Rouen

We develop a measure of firm-year-specific human capital investment from publicly disclosed personnel expenses (PE) and examine the stock market valuation of this investment. Measuring the future value of PE (PEFV) based on the relation between lagged... View Details

Keywords: Intangibles; Market Valuation; Human Capital; Stocks; Financial Markets; Valuation

October 2020 (Revised November 2023)
Case

COVID-19 Testing at Everlywell

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Olivia Hull

In March 2020, as COVID-19 spreads rapidly across the U.S., Everlywell founder Julia Cheek considers how to respond as a small start-up specializing in at-home lab testing. After making dramatic budget cuts, she decides to pivot the organization to address the... View Details

2020
Working Paper

The ESG-Innovation Disconnect: Evidence from Green Patenting

By: Lauren Cohen, Umit G. Gurun and Quoc H. Nguyen

No firm or sector of the global economy is untouched by innovation. In equilibrium, innovators will flock to (and innovation will occur where) the returns to innovative capital are the highest. In this paper, we document a strong empirical pattern in green patent... View Details

Keywords: ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Investment; Decision Making; Policy; Energy; Green Technology; Technological Innovation; Patents

2024
Working Paper

Long-Run Returns to Private Equity in Emerging Markets

By: Shawn Cole, Martin Melecky, Florian Mölders and Tristan Reed

We provide the first evidence on the long-run returns to private equity in emerging and frontier markets using the cash flows from every equity investment made by the International Finance Corporation across 130 countries over 58 years. Risk-adjusted returns are... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Investment; Emerging Markets; Developing Countries and Economies; Investment Return

2020
Working Paper

Venture Capitalists and COVID-19

By: Paul A. Gompers, Will Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan and Ilya A. Strebulaev

We survey over 1,000 institutional and corporate venture capitalists (VCs) at more than 900 different firms to learn how their decisions and investments have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We compare their survey answers to those provided by a large sample of... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Health Pandemics; Investment; Decision Making; Surveys

July 2020
Supplement

Instabeat—Crossing the Finish Line

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Nicole Tempest Keller and Alpana Thapar

Lebanese entrepreneur Hind Hobeika was just 21 years old when she launched her startup, Instabeat, which had developed the first real-time bio-feedback device for swimmers to monitor and improve their performance. It had been an extremely testing 10-year journey to... View Details

Keywords: Start-up; Wearables; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Information Technology; Information Infrastructure; Strategy; Operations; Management; United States; Lebanon

May–June 2020
Article

Interfirm Ties Between Ventures and Limited Partners of Venture Capital Funds: Performance Effects in Financial Markets

By: Umit Ozmel, M. Deniz Yavuz, Timothy E. Trombley and Ranjay Gulati

We argue that strong indirect ties are conducive to the transfer of private information, which provides an advantage in identifying profitable investment opportunities. In our context, a strong indirect tie is generated between an investor and a focal firm if the... View Details

Keywords: Interfirm Ties; Social Networks; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Performance

May 2020
Article

Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Inter-Generational Investment

By: Nava Ashraf, Natalie Bau, Corinne Low and Kathleen McGinn

Using a randomized control trial, we examine whether offering adolescent girls nonmaterial resources—specifically, negotiation skills—can improve educational outcomes in a low-income country. In so doing, we provide the first evidence on the effects of an intervention... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Competency and Skills; Training; Age; Gender; Education; Investment; Outcome or Result; Developing Countries and Economies

2020
Article

Public Sentiment and the Price of Corporate Sustainability

By: George Serafeim

Combining corporate sustainability performance scores based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data with big data measuring public sentiment about a company’s sustainability performance, I find that the valuation premium paid for companies with strong... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Investment Management; Investment Strategy; Big Data; Machine Learning; Environment; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance; Performance; Asset Pricing; Investment; Management; Strategy; Human Capital; Public Opinion; Value; Analytics and Data Science

2020
Working Paper

Aggregate and Firm-Level Stock Returns During Pandemics, in Real Time

By: Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari, Andrew Greenland and Peter K. Schott

We show that unexpected changes in the trajectory of COVID-19 infections predict U.S. stock returns, in real time. Parameter estimates indicate that an unanticipated doubling (halving) of projected infections forecasts next-day decreases (increases) in aggregate U.S.... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Stock Returns; Health Pandemics; Stocks; Investment Return; Forecasting and Prediction

March 2020
Article

Governance Through Shame and Aspiration: Index Creation and Corporate Behavior

By: Akash Chattopadhyay, Matthew D. Shaffer and Charles C.Y. Wang

After decades of deprioritizing shareholders' economic interests and low corporate profitability, Japan introduced the JPX-Nikkei400 in 2014. The index highlighted the country's "best-run" companies by annually selecting the 400 most profitable of its large and liquid... View Details

Keywords: JPX-Nikkei 400 Index; Status Incentives; Return On Equity; Capital Efficiency; Social Norms; Index Inclusion; Reputation Incentives; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Behavior; Investment Return; Status and Position; Japan

February 2020
Case

Highfields Capital and McDonald's

By: Mark Egan and Robin Greenwood

McDonald’s reported its fifth consecutive quarter of declining same-store sales growth in early 2015. Despite McDonald’s recent poor performance, Jonathon S. Jacobson, the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Boston-based Highfields Capital Management, had initiated... View Details

Keywords: McDonald's; Stocks; Performance Improvement; Operations; Finance; Restructuring; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry

2020
Working Paper

How Do Private Equity Fees Vary Across Public Pensions?

By: Juliane Begenau and Emil Siriwardane

We study how investment fees vary within private-capital funds. Net-of-fee return clustering suggests that most funds have two tiers of fees, and we decompose differences across tiers into both management and performance-based fees. Managers of venture capital funds... View Details

Keywords: Pension Funds; Fee Dispersion; Search And Negotiation Frictions; Private Equity; Investment Funds

December 2019 (Revised June 2024)
Case

The Dutch East India Company in 1612 (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci

The Dutch East India Company’s board of directors must decide what to do about an impending legal requirement to liquidate the company’s assets and return to shareholders their capital and any profits earned during a ten-year lock-up period. The charter granted to the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Globalized Firms and Management; Organizational Structure; Laws and Statutes; Financial Markets; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Government Relations; Business History; Shipping Industry; Netherlands