Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(5,169)
- Faculty Publications (1,623)
- January 2009 (Revised October 2011)
- Case
Barack Obama and the Bush Tax Cuts (A)
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Eric D. Werker
As his inauguration approached, President-elect Obama faced a financial sector meltdown, a costly bailout, and massive government deficits. With the economy in recession, interest rates near zero, and joblessness on the rise, Obama needed to decide whether, and how... View Details
- January 2009 (Revised May 2011)
- Case
China Mobile's Rural Communications Strategy
By: William C. Kirby, F. Warren McFarlan, G.A. Donovan and Tracy Manty
China Mobile was the world's leading mobile communications service provider with over 400 million customers. In some cities, its penetration rate was over 100%. With such huge successes, Chairman Wang Jianzhou was exploring ways to expand its customer base. Nearly... View Details
- January 2009 (Revised April 2009)
- Case
Disaster in April: The Obligations of Kelly Construction
By: John D. Macomber, Christopher M. Gordon and Ben Creo
A construction company experiences a crane accident with multiple fatalities. The CEO, a client, and an employee must make choices to meet the company's obligations. Set in 2006, the case looks at the choices faced by board members of a museum that is an important... View Details
- 2009
- Working Paper
An Ounce of Prevention: The Power of Public Risk Management in Stabilizing the Financial System
By: David A. Moss
The magnitude of the current financial crisis reflects the failure of an economic and regulatory philosophy that had proved increasingly influential in policy circles over the past three decades.
This paper suggests (1) that contrary to the prevailing wisdom,... View Details
- 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
- December 2008 (Revised October 2009)
- Case
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
By: David E. Bell and Brian Matthew Milder
In 2006, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation joined together to form a new organization, AGRA, to tackle the historic challenge of increasing agricultural production in Africa. Launched with much fanfare and led by former U.N.... View Details
- December 2008
- Case
The Financial Crisis of 2008
This case presents excerpts from the speeches of observers to the 2008 financial crisis, including former and current central bankers, a private banker, and a Nobel-prize winning economist. They present different interpretations of the causes of the financial crisis... View Details
- 2008
- Book
On Competition
By: M. E. Porter
Competition is one of society's most powerful forces for making things better in many fields of human endeavor. The study of competition and the creation of value, in their full richness, have preoccupied me for several decades. Competition is pervasive, whether it... View Details
- November 2008 (Revised January 2009)
- Case
The Restructuring of Daiei
In 2004, the Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan (IRCJ) was given the task of restructuring Daiei, one of the largest Japanese retailers and the country's most prominent zombie companies. The IRCJ was a government-sponsored organization that was funded with... View Details
- November 2008
- Journal Article
Can Research Committees Add Value for Investors? An Analysis of Lehman Brothers' Ten Uncommon Values® Recommendations
By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Yang Gui
Since 1949 Lehman Brothers has used an investment committee to select the top ten recommendations made by its analysts each year. We examine the performance of this committee's recommendations and find that on average its selections generated abnormal returns of 2.7%... View Details
- November 2008
- Journal Article
Financial Constraints and Growth: Multinational and Local Firm Responses to Currency Crises
By: Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley and Kristin Forbes
This paper examines how financial constraints and product market exposures determine the response of multinational and local firms to sharp depreciations. U.S. multinational affiliates increase sales, assets, and investment significantly more than local firms during,... View Details
- October 2008
- Case
Financial Crisis in Asia: 1997-1998 (Abridged)
By: Huw Pill, Rafael M. Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer
What caused the 1997-98 Asia Crisis: Asian nations' poor economic management, international financial contagion, close "crony" relations between local politicians and capitalists? This case examines how the crisis erupted in Thailand and spread in a chain of events... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised September 2011)
- Supplement
PepsiCo's Bid for Quaker Oats (C)
Third in a series of PepsiCo's bid for Quaker Oats. Describes the auction for Quaker Oats including terms of the bids. After winning the auction, Coke's stock price fell dramatically. Coke's Board then refused to approve the deal and withdrew. Quaker then approached... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised September 2009)
- Case
Consumer Lending in Japan: Citi CFJ (A)
By: J. Gunnar Trumbull and Akiko Kanno
Despite a tradition of high household savings, Japan has supported a dynamic and technically sophisticated consumer-lending sector. The high profitability of the sector has periodically attracted interest from domestic banks as well as international investors. Most... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Just Keep My Money! Supporting Tax-time Savings with U.S. Savings Bonds
By: Peter Tufano
This paper reports the results of a 2007 experiment testing if specific process simplification can foster increased take-up rates for savings products, particularly by low-to-moderate income (LMI) households. Tax refund recipients at certain H&R Block tax preparation... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
PlanetTran
By: Lauren H. Cohen and Christopher J. Malloy
PlanetTran is an environmentally-friendly car service that utilizes a fleet of hybrid cars in providing livery service to corporations and individuals. The founder, Seth Riney, is evaluating outside funding options in order to expand the company, and has met several... View Details
- October 2008
- Article
The Small World of Investing: Board Connections and Mutual Fund Returns
By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher J. Malloy
This paper uses social networks to identify information transfer in security markets. We focus on connections between mutual fund managers and corporate board members via shared education networks. We find that portfolio managers place larger bets on firms they are... View Details
- September 2008 (Revised October 2008)
- Case
Shareholder Activists at Friendly Ice Cream (A1)
By: Fabrizio Ferri, V.G. Narayanan and James Weber
Two activist investors, one a founder and one a hedge fund manager, seek to improve board oversight at a chain restaurant company. Prestley Blake founded Friendly Ice Cream in 1935 with his brother, and the two created a chain of full-service restaurants. In 1979, they... View Details
- September 2008 (Revised October 2008)
- Supplement
Shareholder Activists at Friendly Ice Cream (A2)
By: V.G. Narayanan, Fabrizio Ferri and James Weber
The A1 and A2 versions of the “Shareholder Activists at Friendly Ice Cream (A)” split the original A case into two parts. The A1 case ends as activists Sardar Biglari and Phil Cooley prepare to meet with CEO Don Smith at Friendly's headquarters in September 2006. The... View Details