Publications

14 Mar 2023
In Practice

What Does the Failure of Silicon Valley Bank Say About the State of Finance?

percent to 5 percent, and banks have equity of $20 for every $100 of assets. In order for the two-year bonds to earn the new market rate of 5 percent, their value will need to fall by about 7.5 percent, so... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Financial Services; Banking

20 Dec 2011
First Look

First Look: December 20

& Course MaterialsKroll Bond Rating Agency Bo BeckerHarvard Business School Case 212-034 The established credit raters were criticized for inflating the mortgage credit bubble that imploded in 2008. A... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

January 2005 (Revised October 2005)
Background Note

Standard & Poor's Sovereign Credit Ratings: Scales and Process

By: Rawi E. Abdelal and Christopher Bruner

Describes Standard & Poor's sovereign credit ratings scales and the credit rating process. In particular, describes the role and function of the rating committee and the analytical categories considered in arriving at a final sovereign credit rating. View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Credit; Bonds; Policy; Risk and Uncertainty; Measurement and Metrics; Forecasting and Prediction; Financial Services Industry

January 2008 (Revised September 2009)
Case

Financing American Housing Construction in the Aftermath of War

By: David Moss and Cole Bolton

At the start of WWI, the United States faced a significant housing shortage. Public officials feared the spread of disease—and even communism—in the nation's cramped urban centers where vacancy rates held near zero and families often "doubled up" in single-housing... View Details

Keywords: Central Banking; Bonds; Mortgages; Government Legislation; Business History; Housing; Banking Industry; United States

14 Nov 2007
First Look

First Look: November 14, 2007

PlaNet Finance was a French NGO providing technical support and training services to microfinance institutions (i.e., institutions providing financial services to the poor) and other microfinance actors, rating of microfinance... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Research Summary

Time Varying Expected Returns, Stochastic Dividend Yields, and Default Probabilities: Linking the Credit Risk and Equity Literature (with George Chacko and Jens Hilscher)

In standard structural bond pricing models, the firm defaults once the market value of assets has fallen below a threshold. Expected returns, or at least dividend yields, are assumed to be constant, which implies that any asset value movement is permanent and has the... View Details

20 Jan 2009
Research & Ideas

Risky Business with Structured Finance

at Princeton University, the paper analyzes the difficulties of rating structured finance assets and the perils of relying on ratings to determine prices. "We began studying the corporate View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Banking; Financial Services

27 Apr 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate Leadership and Creditor Recovery Rates: Evidence from Executive Gender

Keywords: by Clarissa Hauptmann and Anywhere Sikochi

2010
Chapter

The Euro as a Reserve Currency for Global Investors

By: Luis M. Viceira and Ricardo Gimeno

This article explores the demand for the euro for risk management purposes and the evidence of stock market integration in the euro area. We define a reserve currency as one that investors demand either because it helps them hedge real interest risk and inflation risk,... View Details

Keywords: Volatility; Inflation and Deflation; Capital Markets; Currency; Stocks; Financial Markets; Financing and Loans; Investment Return; Investment Portfolio; Risk Management

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February 2018
Case

Infrastructure in Nigeria: Unlocking Pension Fund Investments

By: John Macomber and Pippa Tubman Armerding

The so-called “infrastructure finance gap” was a problem in Nigeria as in many parts of the world. Infrastructure projects like power plants and dams were very large capital investments that could generate long-term consistent cash flows, but their financing and... View Details

Keywords: Pension Fund Investing; Infrastucture; Power/Energy; Credit Enhancement; Infrastructure; Project Finance; Investment Funds; Emerging Markets; Nigeria; Africa

21 Jul 2009
First Look

First Look: July 21

ratings play an important role in the financial system, but investors and regulators who use ratings cannot easily verify their quality, and ratings are paid for by the firms... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

18 Apr 2017
First Look

First Look at New Ideas, April 18

argue that the puzzling combination of high-frequency excess sensitivity and low-frequency decoupling between short- and long-term rates can be understood using a model in which (i) shocks to short-term interest View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

06 Feb 2007
First Look

First Look: February 6, 2007

interest rates may change over time. This view creates a wedge between the short-term and long-term risk properties of asset returns and implies that target allocations may vary with investment horizon and over time. One implication of... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

January 2011 (Revised December 2017)
Case

Tombstones

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and David Lane

This case consists primarily of excerpts from term sheets and prospectuses for six securities offerings made by US companies during 2009-2010, just after the financial crisis and recession of 2008-09. There are three issues of senior unsecured notes, one floating rate... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Equity; Debt Securities; Bonds; Motivation and Incentives; United States

June 2025
Case

TfL Pension Fund and the 2022 Gilt Market Crisis

By: Emil N. Siriwardane, Vincent Dessain, Emer Moloney and Carlota Moniz

On September 27, 2022, Padmesh Shukla, CIO of the Transport for London (TfL) Pension Fund, was keeping a careful eye on the turmoil in the U.K. sovereign bond (or gilt) market. When the new government announced the largest tax cuts the U.K. had seen in half a century,... View Details