Publications

July 2021 (Revised October 2023)
Case

K.C. Li: The Tungsten King

By: Geoffrey Jones and Casey Verkamp

This case examines the business career of Kuo-Ching Li, who was born in China in 1892, and built a successful minerals trading business called Wah Chang in the United States during the interwar years. He acquired a prominent role in tungsten, the strongest natural... View Details

Keywords: Immigration Acts; Racial Bias; Globalization; Government and Politics; Business History; Entrepreneurship; Business and Government Relations; Mining Industry; China; United States; Latin America

September 2011
Article

What Drives Sell-Side Analyst Compensation at High-Status Investment Banks?

By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and David A. Maber

We use proprietary data from a major investment bank to investigate factors associated with analysts' annual compensation. We find compensation to be positively related to "All-Star" recognition, investment-banking contributions, the size of analysts' portfolios, and... View Details

Keywords: Investment Banking; Research; Compensation and Benefits; Investment Portfolio; Forecasting and Prediction; Resource Allocation; Status and Position; Business Earnings; Quality; Revenue; Stocks; Voting

Find at Harvard

2022
Working Paper

Retail Investors’ Contrarian Behavior Around News, Attention, and the Momentum Effect

By: Cheng (Patrick) Luo, Enrichetta Ravina, Marco Sammon and Luis M. Viceira

Using a large panel of U.S. brokerage accounts trades and positions, we show that a large fraction of retail investors trade as contrarians after large earnings surprises, especially for loser stocks, and that such contrarian trading contributes to post earnings... View Details

Keywords: Retail Investors; Post Earnings Announcement Drift; Price Momentum; Behavioral Finance; Investment; Demographics

SSRN

Read Now

May 2013
Article

The Stock Selection and Performance of Buy-Side Analysts

By: Boris Groysberg, Paul Healy, George Serafeim and Devin Shanthikumar

Prior research on equity analysts focuses almost exclusively on those employed by sell-side investment banks and brokerage houses. Yet investment firms undertake their own buy-side research and their analysts face different stock selection and recommendation incentives... View Details

Keywords: Buy-side Analysts; Sell-side Analysts; Stock Recommendations; Recommendation Optimism; Recommendation Performance; Investment Recommendations; Conflicts Of Interest; Financial Markets; Financial Institutions; Financial Services Industry; United States

2025
Working Paper

Government-Brokerage Analysts and Market Stabilization: Evidence from China

By: Sheng Cao, Xianjie He, Charles C.Y. Wang and Huifang Yin

We show analysts at government-controlled brokerage firms serve as a market stabilization tool in China. Using earnings forecasts from 2005–2019, we find government-brokerage analysts issue relatively more optimistic—yet less accurate and timely—forecasts during... View Details

Keywords: Sell-side Analysts; Forecast Optimism; Forecast Accuracy; Government Incentives; Market Stabilization; Government Ownership; Coordinated Economies; Stocks; Forecasting and Prediction; Business and Government Relations; Emerging Markets

SSRN

Read Now

April 2008
Case

Campbell and Bailyn's Boston Office: Managing the Reorganization

By: Anne Donnellon and Dun Gifford Jr

Ken Winston, the regional sales manager at a securities brokerage firm, has reorganized his generalist salespeople into Key Account Teams (KAT) to increase sales of specialized, higher-margin fixed income products. Winston is also implementing a new corporate... View Details

March 2015
Article

Inside the “Black Box” of Sell-Side Financial Analysts

By: Lawrence D. Brown, Andrew C. Call, Michael B. Clement and Nathan Y. Sharp

Our objective is to penetrate the “black box” of sell-side financial analysts by providing new insights into the inputs analysts use and the incentives they face. We survey 365 analysts and conduct 18 follow-up interviews covering a wide range of topics, including the... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Use and Leverage; Investment; Analysis; Forecasting and Prediction; Stocks; Financial Services Industry

Find at Harvard

July 2015
Article

The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Investment Recommendations: Analysts' Perceptions and Shifting Institutional Logics

By: Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

We explore the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings on sell-side analysts' assessments of firms' future financial performance. We suggest that when analysts perceive CSR as an agency cost, due to the prevalence of an agency logic, they produce... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility; Analysts; Investment Recommendations; Sustainability; Institutional Logics; Environment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Investment; Corporate Governance; United States

May 2014
Case

Building a High Performance Culture at IDFC

By: V.G. Narayanan and Vidhya Muthuram

IDFC was set up in 1997 to direct private finance to infrastructure projects in India. Over the years, it expanded its capabilities to become a 'complete solutions provider' offering financing solutions including debt and equity, investment banking, brokerage and asset... View Details

March 2013 (Revised October 2013)
Supplement

Growing Integrated Services at Jones Lang LaSalle (2008) (C)

By: Ranjay Gulati and Luciana Silvestri

This case describes the strategic and organizational challenges that Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) faced between 2005 and 2008. Having dismantled its long-standing service-line-oriented structure, JLL created two interdependent groups: Accounts and Markets. Accounts housed... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Strategy; Integration; Real Estate Industry; North America; South America; Central America

Research Summary

Market Triads: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Market Intermediation (Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, June 2002)

By: Rakesh Khurana

This paper examines the role of executive search firms in CEO search. The paper argues that the numerical shift from two party market transactions (e.g. buyers and sellers) to three party transactions (e.g. buyers, sellers, and third party) transforms market exchanges... View Details

28 Aug 2012
First Look

First Look: August 28

employed by sell-side investment banks and brokerage houses. Yet investment firms undertake their own buy-side research, and their analysts face different stock selection and recommendation incentives than their sell-side peers. We... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Entrepreneurial Management - Faculty & Research

residential real estate agency market present a puzzle for economic theory because brokerage is not a concentrated industry. We model brokered markets as a game in which agents post prices for customers and then choose which other agents... View Details

June 2014 (Revised January 2017)
Case

Focus Financial Partners and the U.S. RIA Industry in 2014

By: Luis Viceira and Emily A. Chien

In the Spring of 2014, Rudy Adolf, CEO and founder of Focus Financial, and the two other co-founders of the firm are considering alternative growth strategies to solidify Focus Financial's position as a leading aggregator of independent wealth management firms in the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Financial Services Industry