Publications

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July–August 2021
Article

Lowering the Bar? External Conditions, Opportunity Costs, and High-Tech Startup Outcomes

By: Annamaria Conti and Maria P. Roche

We assess the heterogeneous impact of economic downturns on individuals’ decisions to bring high-technology ideas to the market in the form of new ventures. We thereby examine how worsening labor market conditions influence individuals’ opportunity costs of starting... View Details

Keywords: Necessity Entrepreneurship; Economic Conditions; Recessions; High-tech Startups; Opportunity Costs; Entrepreneurship; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Business Startups; Information Technology; Performance; Labor

29 Jan 2007
Research & Ideas

The Business Press Is a Watchdog that Bites

When tales of financial fraud hit the newsstands, business people and academics usually assume that it was analysts or auditors who brought the wrongdoing to light. Journalists, they believe, are only repeating what they've been told.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Journalism & News; Publishing

Research Summary

Capital Flows and Capital Goods (joint with Eliza Hammel)

By: Laura Alfaro

We examine one of the channels through which financial integration can help promote growth. In particular, we study the effects of capital account liberalization on the imports of capital goods. We pay particular attention to the effects of equity market... View Details

October 2019
Case

Kaspi.kz IPO

By: Victoria Ivashina and Esel Çekin

This case follows Kaspi.kz, a private equity (Baring Vostok) co-owned retail bank in Central Asia that evolved into a fintech, payments and e-commerce company. It provides insights into private equity financing, portfolio company management, and initial public offering... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Private Equity; Initial Public Offering; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Central Asia

July 2003
Case

Deutsche Borse

Focuses on how Deutsche Borse's (the German stock exchange based in Frankfurt) acquisition of a 50% stake in Clearstream International, a company specialized in clearing, settlement, and custody of securities across borders, may or may not confirm its position as the... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Financial Markets; Innovation and Invention; Germany

July 2006 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Changan Automobile Co., Ltd.

By: Dennis Campbell and Donglin Xia

Chairman Yin Jiaxu must communicate that the company's extraordinary reported performance in 2002 reflects Changan's unique strategy within the competitive dynamics of China's automobile industry. Changan's 2002 annual report demonstrated an extraordinary level of... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Ethics; Corporate Disclosure; Media; Business and Shareholder Relations; Auto Industry; China

February 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Mibanco: Meeting the Mainstreaming of Microfinance

By: Michael Chu and Gustavo A. Herrero

Mibanco, Peru's leading microfinance bank, faces intense competition as the banking industry rushes into low income segments. Companion video clips bring into the classroom the contemporary reality of a world-class microfinance institution, where the unpaved streets... View Details

Keywords: Microfinance; Profit; Business History; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Marketing Strategy; Service Operations; Performance; Competition; Banking Industry; Peru

24 Sep 2008
News

Harvard Business School Examines Crisis on Wall Street

2010
Working Paper

Accounting Scholarship that Advances Professional Knowledge and Practice

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Recent accounting scholarship has used statistical analysis on asset prices, financial reports and disclosures, laboratory experiments, and surveys of practice. The research has studied the interface among accounting information, capital markets, standard setters, and... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Business Education; Information; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Risk Management; Measurement and Metrics; Business Processes; Performance Improvement; Practice

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15 Aug 2006
First Look

First Look: August 15, 2006

financial markets change the interaction between banks and corporations? This paper compares the importance of interlocking boards of directors between corporations and banks in Brazil, Mexico, and the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

13 Jun 2011
HBS Case

Mobile Banking for the Unbanked

we need.” The Harvard Business School case study Mobile Banking for the Unbanked explores two very different examples of mobile financial service models: WIZZIT, a third-party startup that teamed with a major bank to provide standard... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking; Communications; Telecommunications

November 2012 (Revised November 2013)
Case

Persephone's Pomegranate: Crédit Agricole and Emporiki

By: Dante Roscini, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Jerome Lenhardt

In 2006 the French bank Crédit Agricole bought the Greek Emporiki bank, for €2.8 billion, at the peak of a bull market for bank takeovers. Six years, a major financial crisis, and €5.2 billion of losses later, in a context of great uncertainty in the European banking... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Currency; Development Economics; International Finance; International Relations; Banking Industry; Greece

April 2011 (Revised January 2024)
Case

The Greek Crisis: Tragedy or Opportunity?

By: Dante Roscini, Jonathan Schlefer and Konstantinos Dimitriou

After its 2009-2010 fiscal crisis shook the euro, could the Greek government stabilize debt, avoid default, and stay on the euro? This case looks at the Greek social and political road to fiscal crisis; the economics of that crisis and efforts to recover from it; the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Currency; Financial Condition; Central Banking; Financial Markets; International Finance; Policy; Conflict Management; Cooperation; Public Administration Industry; Greece

02 Nov 2018
News

New Exhibit at HBS’s Baker Library Tells Tale of Rise and Fall of Lehman Brothers

March 2005 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Capital Controls in Chile in the 1990s (A)

By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel

In 1991, Chile adopted a framework of capital controls focused on reducing the massive flows of foreign investment coming into the country as international interest rates remained low. Capital inflows threatened the Central Bank's ability to manage the exchange rate... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Financial Crisis; Capital; Governance Controls; Business and Government Relations; Chile

November 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Background Note

When Investing and Social Objectives Meet

By: Gregory S. Miller, Vincent Marie Dessain and Anders Sjoman

Introduces students to a group of investors and stakeholders who evaluate firms at least partially on factors other than eventual investment payoff. Focuses on investors who evaluate and attempt to impact firms' ethical, corporate governance, or other "societal"... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Investment; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations

August 2000 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Cox Communications, Inc., 1999

This case focuses on how much external financing a firm needs and what securities the firm should issue to raise this financing. Cox Communications is a major player in the cable industry, which is consolidating due to technological changes/capabilities brought about... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financing and Loans; Telecommunications Industry

29 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 29

European economic integration slackened in the 1960s. National markets for goods, most services, and labor were not being integrated because they were not really being liberalized. The exception to this rule was View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 1985
Case

Business Research Corp. (A)

By: William A. Sahlman

Contains a description of a decision confronting an entrepreneur: which of two investment proposals should he accept to fund the creation and marketing of a database that comprises the full text of research reports produced by Wall Street investment banking firms? The... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Cost vs Benefits; Valuation; Investment Banking; Negotiation Participants; Negotiation Deal; Financing and Loans; Financial Strategy; Corporate Finance; Service Industry