Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(12,132)
- Faculty Publications (3,568)
- 2024
- Working Paper
Catalysts for Climate Solutions: Corporate Responses to Venture Capital Financing of Climate-tech Startups
By: Shirley Lu, George Serafeim and Simon Xu
We study whether incumbent firms increase their product focus on climate solutions in response to venture capital (VC) financing of climate-tech startups. Using large language models to measure a firm's focus on climate solutions, we find that incumbents in similar... View Details
- November–December 2024
- Article
Loss of Peers and Individual Worker Performance: Evidence From H-1B Visa Denials
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Kirk Doran, Astrid Marinoni and Chungeun Yoon
We study how restrictive immigration policies that result in the unexpected loss of co-workers affect the performance of skilled migrants employed in organizations. Specifically, we examine the impact of the loss of team members on their co-workers’ performance in... View Details
- November 2024
- Article
On the Representativeness of Voter Turnout
By: Louis Kaplow and Scott Duke Kominers
Prominent theory research on voting analyzes a variety of models in which expected pivotality drives voters' turnout decisions and hence determines voting outcomes. It is recognized, however, that such work is at odds with Downs's paradox: in practice, many... View Details
- November 2024
- Article
The Health Costs of Cost Sharing
By: Amitabh Chandra, Evan Flack and Ziad Obermeyer
What happens when patients suddenly stop their medications? We study the health consequences of drug interruptions caused by large, abrupt, and arbitrary changes in price. Medicare’s prescription drug benefit as-if-randomly assigns 65-year-olds a drug budget as a... View Details
- October 2024
- Supplement
Hakluyt: from Corporate Intelligence to Trusted Advisors (B)
By: Joseph B. Fuller and Lena Duchene
This case is a continuation of an earlier study chronicling Hakluyt & Company (Hakluyt)’s transformation from an obscure boutique to a global corporate advisory firm with an outsized reputation. In August 2024, the firm faced a pivotal moment as managing partner Varun... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Talent and Talent Management; Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Corporate Finance; Equity; Stock Shares; Corporate Governance; Business History; Compensation and Benefits; Recruitment; Leadership Style; Growth Management; Management Succession; Management Teams; Organizational Culture; Performance Evaluation; Networks; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Consulting Industry; Europe; United Kingdom; England; London
- 2025
- Working Paper
Generative AI and the Nature of Work
By: Manuel Hoffmann, Sam Boysel, Frank Nagle, Sida Peng and Kevin Xu
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology demonstrate a considerable potential
to complement human capital intensive activities. While an emerging literature documents wide-ranging
productivity effects of AI, relatively little attention has been paid... View Details
- October 2024
- Module Note
Purpose of the Firm
By: Debora L. Spar and Julia M. Comeau
Purpose of the Firm (PoF) is a short module designed to explore how, and under what circumstances, business leaders can harness the power of capitalism and markets to “make a difference in the world”—that is, to address a significant societal problem as a commercial... View Details
- October 2024
- Case
Estímulo: Blended Finance in Brazil
By: Vikram S. Gandhi, James Barnett, Maxim Pike Harrell and Marina Osborn
In December 2022, Estímulo—a Brazilian impact investment fund supporting small businesses—found itself at a crossroads. The fund was established in 2020 to provide emergency relief through accessible credit and financial education. When low default rates from borrowers... View Details
- October 2024
- Case
Parexel: Scaling Up and Industry Dynamics
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Ben Creo
Through the lens of biopharmaceutical contract research organization (CRO) PAREXEL, this case traces the evolution of the firm as it reinvents itself in response to the transformation of the CRO sector from a small, secondary cluster of firms into a major player with... View Details
- October 16, 2024
- Article
Physicians Can Help Cut Costs. They Just Need the Right Incentives.
By: Susanna Gallani and Derek A. Haas
Health care organizations have long tried to enlist physicians in their effort to control or reduce costs. One effective means for doing so is to create an incentive system that rewards physicians for their contributions. To design such a system, organizations should... View Details
- October 2024 (Revised November 2024)
- Case
SWEN Blue Ocean: Impact Investing Goes to Sea
By: Vikram S Gandhi and David Allen
In August 2023, SWEN Blue Ocean, a €170 million impact fund that invested in startups contributing to ocean sustainability, faced a critical investment decision. Part of SWEN Capital Partners, an €8 billion, Paris-based private equity fund, Blue Ocean was co-founded in... View Details
- October 2024 (Revised January 2025)
- Case
Citizens of the World: The International Legacy of Gloria von Thurn und Taxis
By: Lauren Cohen, Maximilian Form and Sophia Pan
When her husband passed away and inheritance taxes struck, Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis took decisive action to preserve her family’s fortune and legacy. The Thurn und Taxis family, one of Europe’s oldest aristocratic dynasties, had built their wealth through... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Bank Capital and the Growth of Private Credit
By: Sergey Chernenko, Robert Ialenti and David Scharfstein
We show that business development companies (BDCs)—closed-end funds that provide a
significant share of nonbank loans to middle market firms—are very well capitalized according
to bank capital frameworks. They have median risk-based capital ratios of about 36%... View Details
- September–October 2024
- Article
Boards Need a New Approach to Technology
By: Tarun Khanna, Mary C. Beckerle and Nabil Y. Sakkab
The boards of too many publicly traded companies are downright timid when considering matters involving science and technology. More often than not, they focus on security and digitization—a defensive posture that fails to consider the bigger opportunities emerging... View Details
- October 2024
- Article
Canary Categories
By: Eric Anderson, Chaoqun Chen, Ayelet Israeli and Duncan Simester
Past customer spending in a category is generally a positive signal of future customer spending. We show that there exist “canary categories” for which the reverse is true. Purchases in these categories are a signal that customers are less likely to return to that... View Details
- October 2024
- Article
Founder-CEO Compensation and Selection into Venture Capital-Backed Entrepreneurship
By: Michael Ewens, Ramana Nanda and Christopher Stanton
We show theoretically that a critical determinant of the attractiveness of VC-backed entrepreneurship for high-earning potential founders is the expected time to develop a startup’s initial product. This is because founder-CEOs’ cash compensation increases... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Ponzi Funds
By: Philippe van der Beck, Jean-Philippe Bouchaud and Dario Villamaina
Many active funds hold concentrated portfolios. Flow-driven trading causes price pressure, which
pushes up the funds’ existing positions resulting in realized returns. We decompose fund returns
into a price pressure (self-inflated) and a fundamental component and... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Priors, Experiments, Learning and Persuasion in (Bayesian) Entrepreneurial Finance
By: Ramana Nanda
At the heart of entrepreneurial finance lies a persuasion challenge: regardless of
the strength of an entrepreneur’s belief in the potential of their idea, they typically
need to convince investors to provide the financial capital required for its... View Details
- October 2024 (Revised May 2025)
- Case
Southern California Industrial: Freezer Drive
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a Boston based real estate private equity firm was seeking to make their very first West Coast investments in hopes of establishing their presence in the strategic region. An exciting property suddenly became available on the... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
When Batteries Meet Hydrogen: Dual-Storage Investments for Load-Shifting Purposes
By: Christian Kaps and Simone Marinesi
Power systems account for nearly 40% of global emissions. As the world tries to reduce emissions by increasing renewable penetration, storage technologies are playing an increasingly important role in matching variable renewable supply with demand. Batteries have... View Details