Publications

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A self-described “human Venn diagram” Christina Wallace has crafted a career at the intersection of business, technology, and the arts. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: arts; venture capital industry; consumer products; service industry; internet

2024
Working Paper

Internal and External Capital Markets of Large Banks

By: Lina Lu, Marco Macchiavelli and Jonathan Wallen

Despite regulatory restrictions, large U.S. bank holding companies have sizable and dynamic internal capital markets. They raise long-term debt at the holding company and deposits at the commercial bank to internally make unsecured loans to affiliated broker-dealers.... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; International Finance; Financial Markets

Article

Reaching for Yield in the Bond Market

By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

Reaching for yield—the propensity to buy riskier assets in order to achieve higher yields—is believed to be an important factor contributing to the credit cycle. This paper analyzes this phenomenon in the corporate bond market. Specifically, we show evidence for... View Details

Keywords: Fixed Income; Reaching For Yield; Financial Intermediation; Insurance Companies; Insurance; Assets; Bonds; Investment Return; Investment Portfolio; Risk Management; Insurance Industry

SSRN

June 2021 (Revised November 2021)
Case

Equity Bank: Charting the Future

By: Lauren Cohen, Michael Chitavi and Spencer C. N. Hagist

After climbing the ranks among Kenya's financial institutions from 66th to 1st, and toppling a quarter of the market share held by mobile money giant Safaricom, CEO James Mwangi must now guide Equity Bank into its next stage of development beyond "Equity 3.0." Should... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Leadership; Decision Making; Market Entry and Exit; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Institutions; Economics; Kenya

Educators

Purchase

Ayelet Israeli is the Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School Marketing Unit. She is the co-founder of the Customer Intelligence Lab at the Digital Data Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard Business School. She teaches... View Details

Keywords: retailing; e-commerce industry; internet; automotive

Charles C.Y. Wang

Charles C.Y. Wang is the Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and an associate editor of Management Science and Journal of Accounting Research,... View Details

December 2013
Article

Leviathan as a Minority Shareholder: Firm-level Implications of State Equity Purchases

By: Carlos F. K. V. Inoue, Sergio G. Lazzarini and Aldo Musacchio

In many countries, firms face institutional voids that raise the costs of doing business and thwart entrepreneurial activity. We examine a particular mechanism to address those voids: minority state ownership. Due to their minority nature, such stakes are less affected... View Details

Keywords: Business Groups; Development Banks; State Capitalism; Performance; State Ownership; Brazil

Luis M. Viceira is the George E. Bates Professor in the Finance Unit and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research, course development, and teaching focus on the areas of investment management... View Details

Keywords: banking; education industry; financial services; nonprofit industry; retail financial services

2012
Working Paper

Clear and Present Danger: Planning and New Venture Survival Amid Political and Civil Violence

By: Shon Hiatt and Wesley Sine

Although entrepreneurs constitute a key economic driving force for many emerging economies, they often face unstable environments due to the failure of governments to maintain civil and political order. Yet, we know very little about how environments characterized by... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Developing Countries and Economies; Government and Politics; Crime and Corruption; Balance and Stability; Strategic Planning

Adi Sunderam is the Willard Prescott Smith Professor of Corporate Finance at Harvard Business School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Faculty Affiliate of the Harvard Economics department. He teaches Finance 2 in... View Details

Keywords: asset management; banking; brokerage; federal government; financial services; investment banking industry

2021
Working Paper

The Green Bonding Hypothesis: How Do Green Bonds Enhance the Credibility of Environmental Commitments?

By: Shirley Lu

This paper proposes and provides evidence on a green bonding hypothesis, where green bonds act as a commitment device that subjects firms to institutions holding them accountable to their environmental promises. I find that green-bond issuers face higher climate change... View Details

Keywords: Bonding Hypothesis; Sustainable Finance; Climate Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Bonds; Corporate Accountability

SSRN

2018
Working Paper

Bank Risk-Taking and the Real Economy: Evidence from the Housing Boom and Its Aftermath

By: Antonio Falato, Giovanni Favara and David Scharfstein

The short-termism of lenders amplifies boom-bust credit cycles, leading in turn to real costs for the aggregate economy. During the U.S. housing credit boom, publicly-traded banks increased mortgage lending activity and relaxed standards much more than privately-held... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Markets; Investment; Corporate Finance; Banks and Banking

2024
Working Paper

LASH Risk and Interest Rates

By: Laura Alfaro, Saleem Bahaj, Robert Czech, Jonathan Hazell and Ioana Neamtu

We introduce a framework to understand and quantify a form of liquidity risk that we dub Liquidity After Solvency Hedging or “LASH” risk. Financial institutions take LASH risk when they hedge against losses, using strategies that lead to liquidity needs when the value... View Details

Keywords: Liquidity; Monetary Policy; Non-bank Intermediaries; Hedging; Risk and Uncertainty; Investment Funds; Financial Condition; Interest Rates

Purchase

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