Publications

January 2019
Case

First Aid Beauty

By: Karen Mills and Annie Dang

In 2008, Lilli Gordon, an experienced financial and skincare entrepreneur, founded First Aid Beauty (FAB). She had discovered a white space in the prestige beauty market: high-end skin solutions that were suitable for sensitive skin. After initial success through... View Details

Keywords: Prestige Beauty; Skincare; Preferred Shares; Common Stock; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Decision Choices and Conditions; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

November 2011
Compilation

VCPE Strategy Vignettes: 2012

By: Josh Lerner, Felda Hardymon, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Ann Leamon and Lisa Strope

This compilation of five vignettes depicts common challenges confronting venture capital and leveraged buyout groups. They range from when to deviate from a strategy and how to manage an inept but well-connected executive to equity splits among founders and whether to... View Details

Keywords: Strategy

June 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Two Key Decisions for China's Sovereign Fund

By: Robert C. Pozen and Xiaoyu Gu

The China Investment Corporation (CIC) was China's sovereign wealth fund (SWF), established with $200 billion of registered capital in September 2007 to diversify China's foreign exchange holdings and increase risk-adjusted returns on those assets. CIC was unusual in... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Business Growth and Maturation; Decisions; Capital; Investment Banking; Investment Funds; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Ownership; Business and Shareholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Wealth; Expansion; Financial Services Industry; China; United States

December 1998 (Revised March 1999)
Case

Guangdong Nowada Group, The

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Anthony St. George

In late 1998, 38-year-old He Boquan, CEO of the Guangdong Nowada Group, a health beverage producer, needs to decide how to fund his company's growth and ambition to become China's number one domestic health beverage producer by 2002. A consultants study revealed that... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Capital; Foreign Direct Investment; Growth and Development; Leadership Style; Management Skills; Negotiation Offer; Competitive Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; China

October 2007 (Revised April 2009)
Case

TH!NK: The Norwegian Electric Car Company

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and David Kiron

On August 1, 2007, 61-year-old Jan-Olaf Willums' plane was flying along the Greenland coastline on his way back to Norway after intense discussions with several prominent U.S. venture capital investors, among them Kleiner Perkins and Rockport Capital Partners, about... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Product Launch; Market Entry and Exit; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants; Auto Industry; Green Technology Industry; Europe; Norway

08 Mar 2022
Video

Professors Josh Lerner and Shai Bernstein: Complexity

20 Feb 2009
Working Paper Summaries

When Does Domestic Saving Matter for Economic Growth?

Keywords: by Philippe Aghion, Diego Comin, Peter Howitt & Isabel Tecu

15 Sep 2021
News

Impact Investing’s Next Challenge

June 2014
Teaching Note

Andreessen Horowitz

By: Thomas Eisenmann

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a venture capital firm launched in 2009, has quickly broken into the VC industry's top ranks, in terms of its ability to invest in Silicon Valley's most promising startups. The case recounts the firm's history; describes its co-founders'... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Venture Capital; Disruption; Organizational Structure; Entrepreneurship; Industry Structures; Service Industry; United States

Article

The Effect of Dividends on Consumption

By: Malcolm Baker, Stefan Nagel and Jeffrey Wurgler

Classical models predict that the division of stock returns into dividends and capital appreciation does not affect investor consumption patterns, while mental accounting and other economic frictions predict that investors have a higher propensity to consume from... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Investment Return; Economics; Stocks; Capital; Business Earnings; Investment Portfolio; Investment Funds; Cost; Saving

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Research Summary

Current Research Interests

Employment Contract, Collective Bargaining, and Human Capital Investment

American Welfare Capitalists, 1910-1940

Political Economy of New Deal Labor Legislation

A Comparative Historical Analysis of Wartime Labor Regulation during W.W.II in the U.S.... View Details

18 Nov 2022
HBS Case

What Does It Take to Safeguard a Legacy in Asset Management?

coining the popular term in investing “growth at a reasonable price,” or GARP. Research can take months before the team considers adding a holding to its portfolio, a multi-round process. Once it buys a position, Brown View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

20 Jul 2020
News

Investors line up for the post-pandemic green recovery

Can India Overtake China?

What’s the fastest route to economic development? Welcome foreign direct investment (FDI), says China, and most policy experts agree. But a comparison with long-time laggard India suggests that FDI is not the only path to prosperity. Indeed, India’s homegrown... View Details

07 Oct 2016
News

The Real Problem Facing Women- and Minority-Owned Tech Startups

05 Nov 2012
News

How to restore America’s industrial commons

October 2021 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Project Maji: Pricing Water in Sub-Saharan Africa

By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and Esel Çekin

In July 2021, Sunil Lalvani, founder and CEO of Project Maji, a non-profit social enterprise headquartered in Dubai that had already provided sustainable, clean water solutions to 80,000 people living in rural communities across Ghana and Kenya, was facing an important... View Details

Keywords: Water; Pricing; Nonprofit Organizations; Projects; Price; Decision Making; Social Enterprise; Growth and Development Strategy; Equity; Green Technology; Social and Collaborative Networks; Africa; Dubai

May 2013 (Revised June 2014)
Case

Getit

By: Ramana Nanda and Rachna Tahilyani

Sidharth Gupta, CEO of Getit Infomediary Ltd, had just received a term sheet from Helion Venture Partners (Helion), one of India's independent venture capital firms, offering to invest Rs 200 million in return for an equity stake in the company. His dream of... View Details

Keywords: Publishing; Media And Publishing; Entrepreneurial Finance; Venture Capital; Media; Entrepreneurship; India