Publications

2017
Working Paper

Innovation Policies

By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

Past work has shown that failure tolerance by principals has the potential to stimulate innovation, but has not examined how this affects which projects principals will start. We demonstrate that failure tolerance has an equilibrium price ― in terms of an investor's... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Investing; Abandonment Option; Failure Tolerance; Venture Capital; Attitudes; Investment; Failure; Innovation and Invention

SSRN

April 2006
Case

Finance Leadership in Novartis Consumer Health Businesses

By: Boris Groysberg and Ingrid Vargas

Describes and contrasts the roles and challenges of three high-performing finance heads at Novartis Consumer Health businesses in Australia, Japan, and Venezuela. All three faced tremendous pressures in terms of managing time and limited resources, but the particular... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Financial Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Leadership Style; Health Industry; Japan; Australia; Venezuela

2010
Working Paper

Trade Policy and Firm Boundaries

By: Laura Alfaro, Paola Conconi, Harald Fadinger and Andrew F. Newman

We study how trade policy affects firms' ownership structures. We embed an incomplete contracts model of vertical integration choices into a standard perfectly-competitive international trade framework. Integration decisions are driven by a trade-off between the... View Details

Keywords: Trade; Policy; Vertical Integration; Business and Government Relations; Boundaries; Ownership; Mathematical Methods

2001
Working Paper

Bank Capital and Risk Management: Issues for Banks and Regulators

By: Kenneth A. Froot

Banks and financial firms are in the process of evolving away from primary warehousers of risk to diversified originators and distributors of financial services. These changes are important for the way that financial firms think about their needs for economic... View Details

Keywords: Bank Capital And Risk Management; Issues For Banks And Regulators; Risk Management; Governance Compliance; Capital; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry

January 2013 (Revised February 2013)
Case

EverTrue: Mobile Technology Development (A)

By: William R. Kerr and Alexis Brownell

Brent Grinna is evaluating different options for the technology development of his start-up's iPhone app, including hiring local programmers, finding a CTO, or outsourcing. He only has a little over two months before he presents his alumni networking app to Brown... View Details

Keywords: Start-up; Mobile App; oDesk; Outsourcing; CTO; Minimum Viable Product; App Development; Business Startups; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Intellectual Property; Product Development; Globalization; Technology Industry; Massachusetts; Boston; India

February 2011 (Revised May 2011)
Case

Utilis: Designing, Producing, and Selling Rapid Deployment Shelters for a Troubled World

By: Herman B. Leonard, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Simon Harrow

How can a company that supplies disaster response and humanitarian agencies best handle the intrinsically unpredictable and highly volatile demand for its products? Utilis is a French supplier of rapid-deploy high-end tent solutions for civilian and military uses (such... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Strategic Planning; Natural Disasters; Competitive Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry; France

02 Sep 2014
First Look

First Look: September 2

http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/SSRN%20-%20Org%20Sci%20Rewrite%20for%20ssrn_b75b2c22-40f6-430f-be8f-9797e71fe2ea.pdf September 2014 Journal of Economic Perspectives Management Practices, Relational Contracts and View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

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

Find at Harvard

October 2016
Supplement

Moshe Kahlon: Telecommunications Reform and Competition in Israel's Cellular Market (B)

By: Joshua Margolis, Amram Migdal and Kerry Herman

The case complements “Moshe Kahlon: Telecommunications Reform and Competition in Israel’s Cellular Market (A),” HBS case number 417-017, which addresses reforms to regulations in Israel’s telecommunications industry initiated and implemented under the leadership of... View Details

December 2019
Case

CME Group in 2019

By: José B. Alvarez, Forest Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred

Chicago-based CME Group is the world’s largest futures and options marketplace, with annual trading volume of over 4.8 billion contracts in 2018. This case is set in late 2019, as heightened perceptions of risk stemming from the U.S.-China trade war are driving record... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Risk Management; Futures and Commodity Futures; Trade; Price; Competition; Risk and Uncertainty; Competitive Strategy; United States; China; Brazil

Teaching Interest

Economics of Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital

Designed for Harvard College sophomores.

Course Description: Why do so many individuals choose to pursue entrepreneurship despite substantial risks? How do these entrepreneurs raise money to finance their ventures? And what is the impact of... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurship And Strategy; Venture Capital

2011
Working Paper

Cyclicality of Credit Supply: Firm Level Evidence

By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

Theory predicts that there is a close link between bank credit supply and the evolution of the business cycle. Yet fluctuations in bank-loan supply have been hard to quantify in the time-series. While loan issuance falls in recessions, it is not clear if this is due to... View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Banks and Banking; Bonds; Financial Markets; Financing and Loans; Banking Industry

SSRN

January 2018 (Revised September 2023)
Case

Giving Birth to Ovia Health

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Julia Kelley

In late 2016, Paris Wallace, the CEO of Ovia Health, and the rest of the company’s co-founders faced a difficult decision about the best way to grow Ovia Health’s revenue. Founded in 2012, Ovia Health specialized in mobile and web applications in the women’s health... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

05 Sep 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, September 5, 2017

forthcoming Journal of Financial Economics The Effects of Media Slant on Firm Behavior By: Baloria, Vishal P., and Jonas Heese Abstract—The media can impose reputational costs on firms because of its important role as an information... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2010
Chapter

Backlash to Arbitration: Three Causes

By: Louis T. Wells

There are at least three reasons for the current backlash among developing countries against the international regime that governs disputes between foreign investors and host governments. First is the inconsistency of the decisions rendered by arbitration panels... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; International Finance; Foreign Direct Investment; Agreements and Arrangements; Business and Government Relations; Conflict Management

October 2022
Case

Colette Phillips and GetKonnected!: Creating Inclusive Ecosystems

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Amy Chiu and Joyce Kim

Colette Phillips’ marketing firm had just won the City of Boston’s 2nd largest contract in history to a Black-owned company. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Get Konnected!, the networking organization for people of color that she founded 15 years earlier and led to... View Details