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Defaults
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- Article
Debt Maturity: Is Long-Term Debt Optimal?
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
We model and calibrate the arguments in favor and against short-term and long-term debt. These arguments broadly include: maturity premium, sustainability, and service smoothing. We use a dynamic equilibrium model with tax distortions and government... View Details
- September 2008
- Article
Firm Heterogeneity and Credit Risk Diversification
By: Samuel G. Hanson, M. Hashem Pesaran and Til Schuermann
This paper examines the impact of neglected heterogeneity on credit risk. We show that neglecting heterogeneity in firm returns and/or default thresholds leads to under estimation of expected losses (EL), and its effect on portfolio risk is ambiguous. Once EL is... View Details
- January 2008
- Article
Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things
By: Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman and Willy C. Shih
Most companies aren't half as innovative as their senior executives want them to be (or as their marketing claims suggest they are). What's stifling innovation? There are plenty of usual suspects, but the authors finger three financial tools as key accomplices.... View Details
- 2008
- Chapter
The Importance of Default Options for Retirement Saving Outcomes: Evidence from the United States
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
This paper summarizes the empirical evidence on how defaults impact retirement savings outcomes. After outlining the salient features of the various sources of retirement income in the U.S., the paper presents the empirical evidence on how defaults impact retirement... View Details
- September 2007
- Case
Tetra Pak Argentina
By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Gustavo A. Herrero
Deals with the hands-on management of a difficult situation facing the subsidiary of a multinational corporation (Tetra Pak) in a developing country (Argentina). The situation arises from a major economic, social, and institutional breakdown that jeopardizes the... View Details
- Article
Wandering Minds: The Default Network and Stimulus-Independent Thought.
By: Malia F. Mason, Michael I. Norton, Jack D. Van Horn, Daniel M. Wegner, Scott D. Grafton and C. Neil Macrae
- November 2006 (Revised May 2007)
- Background Note
International Capital Markets and Sovereign Debt: Crisis Avoidance and Resolution
By: Laura Alfaro and Ingrid Vogel
Successive economic crises of the 1990s and early 2000s intensified focus on reform of the "international financial architecture." Because many of these crises involved defaults on sovereign bonds, an important component of the discussion revolved around the... View Details
- August 2006
- Article
Confidence Intervals for Probabilities of Default
By: Samuel G. Hanson and Til Schuermann
In this paper we conduct a systematic comparison of confidence intervals around estimated probabilities of default (PD) using several analytical approaches as well as parametric and nonparametric bootstrap methods. We do so for two different PD estimation... View Details
- August 2005 (Revised December 2006)
- Case
Procter & Gamble: Electronic Data Capture and Clinical Trial Management
By: Robert S. Huckman and Mark J. Cotteleer
Considers whether the management of Procter & Gamble (P&G) Pharmaceuticals should adopt Web-based electronic data capture (EDC) as the default standard for the management of its clinical drug trials. Provides a detailed description of the existing paper-based process... View Details
- June 2005 (Revised May 2008)
- Case
Yamanote Kaikan
By: Robin Greenwood, Arthur I Segel and Joshua Katzin
In 2001, James O'Connell, president of Holyoke Japan, an affiliate of Larson Capital, a distress debt private equity firm, wants to bid on a 90 billion yen loan currently in default by the borrower, Sanjo Enterprises, for a popular wedding and banquet facility with an... View Details
- March 2005
- Article
Sovereign Debt As a Contingent Claim: A Quantitative Approach
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
We construct a dynamic equilibrium model with contingent service and adverse selection to quantitatively study sovereign debt. In the model, benefits of defaulting are tempered by higher future interest rates. For a wide set of parameters, the only equilibrium is one... View Details
- 2005
- Working Paper
Nominal versus Indexed Debt: A Quantitative Horse Race
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
The main arguments in favor of and against nominal and indexed debt are the incentive to default through inflation versus hedging against unforeseen shocks. We model and calibrate these arguments to assess their quantitative importance. We use a dynamic equilibrium... View Details
- February 2004 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
Brazil 2003: Inflation Targeting and Debt Dynamics
By: Laura Alfaro, Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel
In October 2002, Brazilians elected a left-wing president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, for the first time in that country's history. As markets faltered in response, Lula sought to reaffirm his commitment to fiscal discipline, a floating exchange rate, and inflation... View Details
Keywords: Economy; Inflation and Deflation; Money; Borrowing and Debt; Policy; Emerging Markets; Brazil
- January 2004 (Revised April 2005)
- Case
Basel II: Assessing the Default and Loss Characteristics of Project Finance Loans (B)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Aldo Sesia
Supplements the (A) case. View Details
Keywords: Financial Services Industry
- January 2004 (Revised March 2004)
- Case
Redesigning Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanisms
By: Mihir A. Desai, Christina Pham, Julia Stevens and Kathleen Luchs
How should the debt of sovereign countries be restructured when countries approach default? Anne O. Krueger of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is proposing a new approach to sovereign defaults: the Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM). The SDRM would... View Details
- October 2003 (Revised January 2004)
- Case
The 2001 Crisis in Argentina: An IMF-Sponsored Default? (A)
By: Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel
At the end of 2001, Argentina's economy and society both appeared on the verge of collapse. Furious about controls imposed on the convertibility of their bank deposits into cash (the "corralito") and huge proposed government spending cuts amidst high unemployment and... View Details
- December 2002 (Revised January 2004)
- Case
Basel II: Assessing the Default and Loss Characteristics of Project Finance Loans (A)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Aldo Sesia
In June 1999, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision announced plans to revise the capital standards for banks. The Basel Committee believed that project loans were significantly riskier than corporate loans and, therefore, warranted higher capital charges under... View Details
- December 2002 (Revised June 2003)
- Teaching Note
Basel II: Assessing the Default and Loss Characteristics of Project Finance Loans (TN)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Aldo Sesia
Teaching Note for (9-203-035). View Details
- November 2002
- Supplement
Basel II: Assessing the Default and Loss Characterisrics of Project Finance Loans
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Aldo Sesia
Spreadsheet to (9-203-035). Download only. View Details
- July 2002 (Revised March 2003)
- Case
Restructuring Bulong's Project Debt
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Michael Kane
Preston Resources, a small Australian gold mining company, bought the Bulong nickel mine for A$319 million in November 1998 and financed the acquisition by issuing a US$185 million (A$294 million) project bond. At the time, mining had been underway for several months,... View Details