Publications

November 2011
Article

Ownership Structure and Financial Constraints: Evidence from a Structural Estimation

By: Chen Lin, Yue Ma and Yuhai Xuan

This article examines the impact of the divergence between corporate insiders' control rights and cash-flow rights on firms' external finance constraints via generalized method of moments estimation of an investment Euler equation. Using a large sample of U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Ownership; Social Enterprise; Reputation; Cash Flow; Annuities; Investment; Investment Funds; Financial Reporting; Accounting Audits; Financial Services Industry; United States

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21 Nov 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

The New Challenge of Leading Financial Firms

managers or executives at banks, insurance companies, asset management or private equity firms, or hedge funds. Groysberg and Healy will teach the program in England, in India, in China, and on the HBS Boston campus throughout 2012 and 2013. "Leading a View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

December 1983 (Revised March 1999)
Case

The United States Financial Crisis of 1931

The behavior of the Federal Reserve System during the early years of the Great Depression has been a topic of considerable controversy. The Fed, it has been argued, pursued a contracting policy, thereby helping to turn what might have been only a brief recession into... View Details

Keywords: Government and Politics; Financial Crisis; United States

Article

Are Crises Good for Long-term Growth? The Role of Political Institutions

By: Alberto Cavallo and Eduardo Cavallo

This paper provides empirical evidence for the importance of institutions in determining the outcome of crises on long-term growth. We show that once unobserved country-specific effects and other sources of endogeneity are accounted for, political institutions affect... View Details

Keywords: Growth; Democracy; Macroeconomics; Growth and Development; Financial Crisis; Economic Growth; Government and Politics

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August 2022 (Revised October 2023)
Case

Bajaj Finance: Building an Omnipresent Financial Services Firm

By: Das Narayandas and Rachna Tahilyani

Bajaj Finance, India’s largest consumer finance firm with $20.9 billion of assets across 50.5 million customers, is on a journey to transform itself from a traditional firm that sells loans and other financial products through brick-and-mortar outlets to an omnipresent... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Transformation; Financial Instruments; Customer Satisfaction; Internet and the Web; Customer Focus and Relationships; India

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

Article

Immigrant Entrepreneurs in U.S. Financial History, 1775-1914

Throughout its history, the U.S. has been the beneficiary of a worldwide in-migration of entrepreneurial talent. This article surveys finance, one of the many sectors in which immigrants made a conspicuous impact. Part I demonstrates the dominant role of immigrants in... View Details

Keywords: History; Talent and Talent Management; Groups and Teams; Entrepreneurship; Policy; Immigration; Banks and Banking; United States

12 Sep 2023
Research & Ideas

How Can Financial Advisors Thrive in Shifting Markets? Diversify, Diversify, Diversify

How can financial planners expand their businesses as their core population ages and young investors flirt with novel financial products like cryptocurrency? The most profitable path forward is to follow the... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Financial Services

12 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

Why Investors Often Lose When They Sue Their Financial Adviser

assistant professor of finance at Harvard Business School. When they do find out, they often want to sue, but they can’t. Financial services companies require customers to waive their right to litigate and instead resolve their disputes... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Financial Services

January 2010 (Revised August 2010)
Background Note

Advanced Leadership Note: An Institutional Perspective and Framework for Managing and Leading

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Rakesh Khurana

Large-scale societal issues increasingly appear on the agenda of business leaders, including poverty, health, education, business-government relations, and the degradation of the environment. These problems are not entirely new, but the forces of globalization and the... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Framework; Global Range; Leadership; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Social Enterprise; Social Issues; Complexity

18 Aug 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Non-Audit Services and Financial Reporting Quality: Evidence from 1978-1980

Keywords: by Kevin Koh, Shivaram Rajgopal & Suraj Srinivasan; Accounting

22 Jun 2009
Research & Ideas

“Too Big To Fail”: Reining In Large Financial Firms

Here's a really scary thought. Now that the federal government has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into saving financial institutions deemed "too big to fail," hasn't it implicitly guaranteed similar... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson; Financial Services; Financial Services

2024
Working Paper

Intrinsic Motivation and Referrals Within Firms: Evidence from a Large Microfinance Institution

By: Natalia Rigol and Benjamin N. Roth

Many organizations rely on internal referrals between employees with differing comparative advantages. Yet when an employee encounters a lucrative opportunity, they may be motivated to retain it even when doing so harms efficiency. We develop a framework that... View Details

Keywords: Loan Officers; Strategic Behavior; Strategic Disclosure; Microfinance; Financial Institutions; Financing and Loans

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2020
Working Paper

The Effects of Information on Credit Market Competition: Evidence from Credit Cards

By: C. Fritz Foley, Agustin Hurtado, Andres Liberman and Alberto Sepulveda

We show empirically that public credit information increases competition in credit markets. We access data that cover all credit card borrowers in Chile and include details about relationship borrowers have with each lender. We exploit a natural experiment whereby a... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Credit; Financial Intermediaries; Credit; Information; Competition; Credit Cards; Financial Institutions

SSRN

Research Summary

International Financial Integration and Entrepreneurship (joint with Andrew Charlton)

By: Laura Alfaro

We explore the relation between international financial integration and the level of entrepreneurial activity in a country. Researchers have stressed the role of new firm activity and economic dynamism on growth. Yet, the empirical effects of international capital... View Details

Research Summary

Dissertation topic: The invisible hand and the good of communities: How institutional logics matter in local banks

How do individuals’ backgrounds and identities influence the strategies and success of newly founded ventures? In my dissertation, I explore the impact on local bank startups of their founders’ community and financial identities. Those identities have... View Details

July 2002 (Revised September 2002)
Case

Competition in Japanese Financial Markets, 2002 (Abridged)

By: Tarun Khanna

In early 2002, Japan, the world's largest economy, had been mired in a decade-long recession. A range of stimulus packages had failed to work their magic. The "Big Bang" financial deregulation reforms announced in 1998 had not quite produced the economic boom that the... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Financial Markets; Global Strategy; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Japan

January 2008 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Subprime Meltdown: American Housing and Global Financial Turmoil

By: Julio Rotemberg

This case focuses on the financial difficulties faced in the U.S. from August to December 2006 as well as their roots in subprime lending. After briefly discussing how mortgages were structured and traded in the pre-1990 period, it describes subprime mortgage lending,... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Central Banking; Financial Markets; Mortgages; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; United States

1999
Chapter

How Financial Firms Decide on Technology

By: Lorin M. Hitt, Frances X. Frei and Patrick T. Harker

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Decision Making; Technology; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry