Publications

14 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Keeping Credit Flowing to Consumers in Need

modern-day doomsayers, referred to the specter of another Great Depression. This was not total hyperbole. While different analysts weighted the "fundamental" causes of the crisis differently, most recognized that the increased... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services; Financial Services; Financial Services

07 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Market Investors Pay More for Resilient Companies

The steep market drop in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis is being used as a laboratory to study the importance of companies investing in stakeholder relations with their employees, suppliers, and customers, and how those investments could be strategic resources... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Financial Services

January 1999 (Revised March 1999)
Background Note

Note on Currency Crises

Introduces students to theories about why currency crises occur. Discusses whether crises can be predicted. View Details

Keywords: Currency; Financial Crisis

Educators

07 Oct 2019
Sharpening Your Skills

How Companies Can Make Up with (Very) Unhappy Customers

for competitors. Tesco’s Stumble into the US MarketUK retailer Tesco was very successful penetrating foreign markets—until it set its sights on the United States. What Mark Zuckerberg Can Learn About Crisis Leadership from StarbucksWhile... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail; Air Transportation

August 2011 (Revised October 2014)
Case

High Wire Act: Credit Suisse and Contingent Capital (A)

By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia

Late in 2010, Credit Suisse CEO Brady Dougan and his team closed in on the decision of whether or not to issue contingent capital, which Swiss regulators would require by 2019. There were a number of substantial issues facing Dougan and his team, including whether... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Capital Markets; Financial Crisis; Decision Choices and Conditions; Leadership; International Finance; Financial Liquidity; Risk and Uncertainty; Competitive Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Switzerland

Educators

01 Dec 2008
News

Career Services Shifts into High Gear

Many members of the Class of 2008 were just settling into new jobs as reverberations from the financial crisis were felt around the world. While employment figures for the class remain strong, MBA Career... View Details

July 28, 2022
Article

How to Build a Life: How to Be Happy in a Recession

By: Arthur C. Brooks

Keywords: Happiness; Financial Crisis

June 2013
Article

Are There Too Many Safe Securities? Securitization and the Incentives for Information Production

By: Samuel G. Hanson and Adi Sunderam

We present a model that helps explain several past collapses of securitization markets. Originators issue too many informationally insensitive securities in good times, blunting investor incentives to become informed. The resulting endogenous scarcity of informed... View Details

Keywords: Information; Debt Securities; Financial Crisis

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September 2008
Article

Does Innovation Cause Stock Market Runups? Evidence from the Great Crash

By: Tom Nicholas

This article examines the stock market's changing valuation of corporate patentable assets between 1910 and 1939. It shows that the value of knowledge capital increased significantly during the 1920s compared to the 1910s as investors responded to the quality of... View Details

Keywords: History; Technological Innovation; Patents; Stocks; Valuation; Financial Crisis; Financial Services Industry; United States

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December 1998 (Revised January 1999)
Compilation

Explaining the Great Depression

By: David A. Moss and Joseph P Gownder

Although the Great Depression stands as the most punishing economic event of the 20th century, there is still remarkably little consensus about its causes. This case presents a number of prominent explanations including those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, John Maynard... View Details

Keywords: History; Financial Crisis; Theory; Economics

29 Jun 2009
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Leading Change

retrenchment; think growth. Key concepts include: Companies that survive the financial crisis by identifying and exploiting innovation will serve as economic growth engines in the future—and will be the... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

August 1984 (Revised June 1985)
Teaching Note

Great Depression: Causes and Impact, Teaching Note

By: Richard S. Tedlow

Keywords: Outcome or Result; Financial Crisis

August 1984 (Revised January 1986)
Case

Great Depression: Causes and Impact

By: Richard S. Tedlow

Keywords: Outcome or Result; Financial Crisis

01 Dec 2008
News

Business at the Summit

making and the culmination of HBS’s yearlong centennial observance, the three-day event was designed to galvanize thinking and action around the 21st century’s transcendent business challenges. What no one expected, but what dominated the event, was the biggest View Details

Keywords: leadership; alumni events; Centennial; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Educational Services; Finance; Management

05 Aug 2024
Research & Ideas

Watching for the Next Economic Downturn? Follow Corporate Debt

focused on housing and household debt for good reason: In the United States, a residential housing loan collapse touched off the deep financial crisis of 2008. But in the decade-plus since, the focus on... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

2020
Guest Column

Learning from Lehman: Lessons for Today

By: Laura Comstock, Michael Holland and Peter Tufano

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Financial Crisis; Financial Markets; Financial Instruments

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May 2010 (Revised August 2010)
Case

Breaking the Buck

By: Robert C. Pozen and Elizabeth Leonard

After an incredibly volatile six months since Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, Finbar McCall contemplated his options. As the investment manager of RPG Prime Reserve Fund, Inc. (RPGXX), McCall had just heard the news that the U.S. Treasury was extending the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Financial Crisis; Financial Management; Insurance; Investment Funds; Business and Government Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Financial Services Industry

Educators