Publications

Educators

March 2009 (Revised May 2013)
Supplement

Kinyuseisaku: Monetary Policy in Japan (B)

By: Laura Alfaro and Akiko Kanno

Toshihiko Fukui, Governor of the Bank of Japan, faced a complex situation in the fall of 2007. An economic recovery had allowed the central bank to abandon its zero interest rate policy, which had been in place for years, and raise rates to 0.5%. The Bank of Japan was... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Money; Central Banking; Interest Rates; Policy; Japan

Video

Narayanan Vaghul

Narayanan Vaghul, Former Chairman of ICICI Bank Limited, describes his views on the relationship of development banking institutions with the government upon joining ICICI in 1985 (Filmed October 26, 2017). View Details

2022
Working Paper

Distributional Consequences of Monetary Policy Across Races: Evidence from the U.S. Credit Register

By: Laura Alfaro, Ester Faia and Camelia Minoiu

We examine the consequences of monetary policy on racial disparities, focusing on the role of bank lending to firms through collateral and selection channels. Leveraging comprehensive loan-level data from the U.S. credit register (Y-14Q) of the Federal Reserve, we show... View Details

Keywords: Monetary Policy Transmission; Inequity; Credit Registry; Wealth; Collateral Channel; Selection; Racial Disparity; Racial Inequality; Equality and Inequality; Banks and Banking; Credit; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Banking Industry; United States

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24 Mar 2013
News

There’s a Reason for Deposit Insurance

February 6, 2021
Editorial

The Chinese Debt Trap Is a Myth: The Narrative Wrongfully Portrays Both Beijing and the Developing Countries It Deals With.

By: Deborah Brautigam and Meg Rithmire

Our research shows that Chinese banks are willing to restructure the terms of existing loans and have never actually seized an asset from any country, much less the port of Hambantota. A Chinese company’s acquisition of a majority stake in the port was a cautionary... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Developing Countries and Economies; International Relations; China

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Article

Savings in Transnational Households: A Field Experiment Among Migrants from El Salvador

By: Nava Ashraf, Diego Aycinena, Claudia Martinez A. and Dean Yang

While remittance flows to developing countries are very large, it is unknown whether migrants desire more control over how remittances are used. This research uses a randomized field experiment to investigate the importance of migrant control over the use of... View Details

Keywords: Migration; Remittances; Intrahousehold Allocation; Savings; Saving; Residency; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; El Salvador; United States

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September 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Case

National Australia Bank: Looking Out for the Customer

By: Mark R. Kramer and Hugh Foley

After learning that most defaults were due to health, job or marital problems, National Australia Bank revised its debt collection department to shift from penalizing people in default to assisting them in developing a work-out plan, enabling more than 90% to meet... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Borrowing and Debt; Customer Focus and Relationships; Success; Australia

Educators

Samuel Antill is an assistant professor of business administration in the Finance Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches the Finance II course in the MBA required curriculum.

Professor Antill’s research interests are in corporate... View Details

2015
Working Paper

Banks' Risk Exposures

By: Juliane Begenau, Monika Piazzesi and Martin Schneider

This paper studies U.S. banks' exposure to interest rate and credit risk. We exploit the factor structure in interest rates to represent many bank positions in terms of simple factor portfolios. This approach delivers time varying measures of exposure that are... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Interest Rates; Credit; Banks and Banking; United States

03 Jun 2015
Video

Hakeem Belo-Osagie

Hakeem Belo-Osagie, head of United Bank for Africa,... View Details

11 Sep 2020
Video

James Mwangi

James Mwangi, CEO of Kenya’s Equity Bank, which has one of the largest customer bases of any bank in Africa, discusses how the Equity Bank model evolved through learning both from Asian companies and from the bank’s own customers. View Details

November 2022 (Revised October 2024)
Case

'A Marshall Plan for Africa': James Mwangi and Equity Group Holdings

By: Caroline M. Elkins, Debora L. Spar, Zeke Gillman and Julia M. Comeau

Financial Inclusion. Dignity. Trust. These were the core principles driving James Mwangi’s transformation of Equity Building Society, insolvent in 1991, into what is, today, Equity Group Holdings, East and Central Africa’s largest retail banking institution. Raised in... View Details

Keywords: Income Inequality; Micro Finance; Microcredit; Microfinance; Banks and Banking; Equality and Inequality; Mission and Purpose; Business Model; Social Entrepreneurship; Banking Industry; Banking Industry; Africa; Kenya

Educators

08 Jul 2021
Video

Peter Wharton-Hood

Peter Wharton-Hood, a former senior executive at Standard Bank and Deutsche Bank in South Africa, discusses Standard Bank’s expansion in Africa beyond South Africa during the 2000s, which involved a heavy focus on expanding lending in markets in which it entered. View Details

August 2005 (Revised March 2007)
Case

Politics and Prudential Supervision: ABN Amro's Bid for Antonveneta (A)

By: Rawi E. Abdelal and Christopher Bruner

Involves the March 2005 takeover bid launched by ABN Amro, the Dutch bank, for Padua-based Banca Antoniana Popolare Veneta S.p.A. (Antonveneta)--a bid that many would view as a test of Italy's commitment to the creation of a single European market for financial... View Details

Keywords: History; Transformation; Business and Government Relations; Integration; Competitive Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Emerging Markets; Financial Markets; Banks and Banking; Financial Services Industry; European Union; Italy

April 2007
Case

Microfinance in Bolivia: A Meeting with the President of the Republic

By: Michael Chu

Herbert Muller, chair of leading microfinance bank BancoSol, has met with Evo Morales one year after the populist leader's inauguration as president of Bolivia and proceeds to write an email to his fellow board directors. The bank is world famous for pioneering... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Race; Government Administration; Business and Government Relations; Microfinance; Poverty; Interest Rates; Banks and Banking; Financial Services Industry; Bolivia; South America

July 2007
Article

Geographical Segmentation of U.S. Capital Markets

Demographic variation in savings behavior can be exploited to provide evidence on segmentation in US bank loan markets. Cities with a large fraction of seniors have higher volumes of bank deposits. Since many banks rely heavily on deposit financing, this affects local... View Details

Keywords: Age; Economy; Capital Markets; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Local Range; United States