Publications

Felix Oberholzer-Gee is the Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. An award-winning instructor, his academic work and consulting are focused on competitive strategy and the effects of digital technology on corporate... View Details

Keywords: media; professional services; manufacturing; advertising

27 Apr 2009
Research & Ideas

Building Businesses in Turbulent Times

Battered by contracting markets and frozen credit, many businesses today are fighting for survival. Indeed, the current global financial crisis provides a mandate for restructuring. But survival is not the... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

June 2010 (Revised August 2021)
Case

Vereinigung Hamburger Schiffsmakler und Schiffsagenten e.V. (VHSS): Valuing Ships

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Albert Sheen

After booming for more than five years, the global shipping (maritime) industry experienced a dramatic crash in late 2008 as the global financial system froze and the global economy slid into recession. Ship charter rates (revenue) fell by as much as 90% causing prices... View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Financial Crisis; Capital Markets; Financial Liquidity; International Finance; Globalized Markets and Industries; Valuation; Banking Industry; Shipping Industry; Germany

June 2019
Article

Social Risk, Fiscal Risk, and the Portfolio of Government Programs

By: Samuel G. Hanson, David S. Scharfstein and Adi Sunderam

We develop a model of government portfolio choice in which a benevolent government chooses the scale of risky projects in the presence of market failures and tax distortions. These two frictions generate motives to manage social risk and fiscal risk. Social risk... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Government and Politics; Programs

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01 Nov 2019
HBS Seminar

Meijun Liu, Shuo Li Liu, The University of Hong Kong, Division of information and technology & Stanford University School of Engineering

Global Capitalism at Risk: What Are You Doing About It?

Market capitalism, a system that has proven to be a remarkable engine of wealth creation, is poised for a breakdown. That sounds dire, and it is. Increasing income inequality, migration, weaknesses in the global financial system, environmental degradation, and... View Details

March 1992 (Revised December 1992)
Case

Salomon and the Treasury Securities Auction

By: Dwight B. Crane

Set in June 1991, two months prior to Salomon Brothers' announcement that the firm had violated the Treasury Department's rules governing the auctions of new Treasury securities. Salomon Vice Chairman John Meriwether must decide how to address problems that continue to... View Details

Keywords: Debt Securities; Managerial Roles; Ethics; Market Transactions; Bonds; Investment Banking; Crisis Management; Auctions; Legal Liability; Banking Industry

winter 2005
Article

Financing Auction Bids

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and S. Viswanathan

In many auctions, bidders do not have enough cash to pay their bid. If bidders have asymmetric cash positions and independent private values then auctions will be inefficient. However, what happens if bidders have access to financial markets? We characterize efficient... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Financial Markets; Valuation; Cash; Capital Markets; Profit; Competition

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December 2019
Case

CME Group in 2019

By: José B. Alvarez, Forest Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred

Chicago-based CME Group is the world’s largest futures and options marketplace, with annual trading volume of over 4.8 billion contracts in 2018. This case is set in late 2019, as heightened perceptions of risk stemming from the U.S.-China trade war are driving record... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Risk Management; Futures and Commodity Futures; Trade; Price; Competition; Risk and Uncertainty; Competitive Strategy; United States; China; Brazil

10 Sep 2021
News

The Evolution of Black Friday Shopping — And What 2021 May Bring

28 Feb 2007
Research & Ideas

Capital Rules: The Tensions of Global Finance

over the course of the 1980s and 1990s. Yet less than a decade after the financial crises that hit emerging markets in the 1990s, that orthodoxy is already in decline and its reign in question. As a matter... View Details

Keywords: by Rawi Abdelal

22 Apr 2014
First Look

First Look: April 22

decision-making is limited. Exploiting exogenous variation in state compulsory schooling laws in both standard and two-sample instrumental variable strategies, we show education increases financial market... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2013
Working Paper

How Does Risk Management Influence Production Decisions? Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Shawn Cole, Xavier Gine and James Vickery

Weather is a key source of income risk, particularly in emerging market economies. This paper uses a randomized controlled trial involving a sample of Indian farmers to study how an innovative rainfall insurance product affects production decisions. We find that... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Production; Weather; Insurance; Emerging Markets; Agribusiness; Insurance Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; India

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February 2008
Case

Moët Hennessy España

By: Tiziana Casciaro, Vincent Dessain and Elena Corsi

Since being appointed CEO of Moët Hennessy España (MHE), the Spanish subsidiary of the wine & spirits business of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH), the world's leading luxury products group, Ramiro Otano had overseen a spectacularly successful run at the company by... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Performance Effectiveness; Groups and Teams; Food and Beverage Industry; Spain

03 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

Corporate Social Responsibility in a Downturn

Kasturi "Kash" Rangan, the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School, argues that corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives are more necessary than ever. Rangan says that when carefully planned... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2024
Working Paper

What Do Bank Trading Desks Do?

By: Lina Lu and Jonathan Wallen

Bank trading desks earn profits from intermediating customer trading volume. Across a broad set of asset markets, we document that the trading desks of large U.S. dealer banks behave as financial intermediaries that profit from toll-taking as in Duffie et al. (2005).... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Profit; Financial Markets

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September 2013
Case

Boston Children's Hospital: Measuring Patient Costs (Abridged)

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The case describes a pilot project on applying activity-based costing to measure the cost of treating patients. After an overview of Boston Children's Hospital and its local health care market environment, the case presents process maps and financial data relating to... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Costing; Hospitals; Activity Based Costing and Management

21 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: Feb. 21

rival entrant. The radical innovation may yield lucrative financial returns but entails significant technological and market-related uncertainties. It is also particularly attractive to the rival entrant: if the View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Ebro Puleva

By: David E. Bell, Antonio Garcia de Castro, Rocio Reina Paniagua and Mary Louise Shelman

Once Spain's largest sugar company, Ebro Puleva has been transformed through a series of international acquisitions into the world's largest package rice company and second largest pasta company. In 2009, Chairman Antonio Hernandez Callejas must decide how to proceed... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Crisis; Globalized Firms and Management; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry; Spain