Publications

01 Mar 2015
News

Research Brief: Political Capital

It’s no secret that politicians are trying to buy your vote—in the 2012 presidential campaign, Republicans and Democrats shelled out nearly $2 billion in their fight for the White House. But what’s the most effective way to spend that money? In a new working paper, HBS... View Details

Keywords: Janelle Nanos; Executive, Legislative, and Other General Government Support; Government; Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services; Professional Services

Web

Events - Private Capital Project

Lee (Global Head of Sustainable and Impact Investing, UBS Global Wealth Management), and Ben Roth (Assistant Professor, HBS), moderated by Brian Trelstad (Senior Lecturer, HBS and Partner, Bridges Fund Management) The State of the Indian... View Details

August 2020 (Revised December 2020)
Case

Latam Airlines and COVID-19: Seeking Bankruptcy Protection in the United States

By: Laura Alfaro, Mauricio Larrain, Carlos Vilches and Sarah Jeong

On May 26, 2020, Latam Airlines became the largest airline in the world to be driven to bankruptcy by COVID-19. With a complex debt structure and international investor composition, the company decided to file for bankruptcy protection in the United States, which... View Details

Keywords: Airlines; Pandemic; Coronavirus Pandemic; Health Pandemics; Air Transportation; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Capital Markets; Strategy; Latin America; Chile; United States

April 2003
Case

Captain Crisis in the United States Army, The

From 1989 to 1999, the Army watched as captain attrition rose from a planned and acceptable 6.7% to a staggering 10.6%. At the beginning of a new century, the Army leadership is concerned that current and projected staffing levels for junior officers are insufficient... View Details

Keywords: Human Capital; Retention; Government and Politics; Public Administration Industry

Find at Harvard

September 2006 (Revised August 2007)
Background Note

The History of Credit Agencies in the United States

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Tracy Manty

Provides a brief background on the history of credit agencies in the United States. Focuses on the mature process of data collection on an American consumer and how credit agencies share the information to determine proper credit risk and worthiness of a consumer. The... View Details

Keywords: Credit; United States

01 Dec 2019
News

Capitalizing the Corner Shop

engineering consulting company, and his mother started four businesses, ranging from a video game store to a bakery—Kehinde was exposed early on to the pains of capital constraints. “I grew up seeing how difficult it is,” he says. Working... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell

December 2022 (Revised August 2023)
Case

Ribbit Capital and the Gauntlet Investment Opportunity

By: Shai Bernstein and Allison M. Ciechanover

Ten-year-old, Palo Alto-based Ribbit Capital is best-known for its global investments in fintech. The firm was also an early advocate of crypto and blockchain, having invested in more than two dozen startups in the space in the past decade. In the Spring of 2022,... View Details

Keywords: Alternative Assets; Cryptocurrency; Business Startups; Investment Portfolio; Decision Choices and Conditions; Negotiation Deal; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Venture Capital; Financial Services Industry; California

February 2018
Case

Root Capital and the Efficient Impact Frontier

By: Shawn Cole and Caitlin Reimers Brumme

In 2015 Root Capital, a pioneer in the impact investing space, began to explore how to more systematically integrate impact and financial management. After much deliberation, Root Capital landed on ex-ante rating system for any potential investment that produced a... View Details

Keywords: Measurement and Metrics; Investment; Finance; Performance Efficiency; Boston

30 Jun 2020
Book

Capitalism Is More at Risk Than Ever

financial system The state of trade Inequality and populism Migration Environmental degradation Failure of the rule of law The state of public health and general education The rise of View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

2023
Book

Precarious Ties: Business and the State in Authoritarian Asia

By: Meg Rithmire

Developing Asia has been the site of some of the last century's fastest growing economies as well as some of the world's most durable authoritarian regimes. Many accounts of rapid growth alongside monopolies on political power have focused on crony relationships... View Details

Keywords: Business and Government Relations; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Systems; Crime and Corruption; China; Indonesia; Malaysia

23 Nov 1999
Research & Ideas

The Future of the Venture Capital Cycle

Over the past two decades, there has been a tremendous boom in the venture capital industry. The pool of U.S. venture capital funds has grown from less than $1 billion in 1976 (Charles River Associates 1976)... View Details

Keywords: by Paul A. Gompers & Josh Lerner; Financial Services

2016
Working Paper

Big History, Global Corporations, Virtual Capitalism

By: Richard L. Nolan

Homo sapiens has mastered its environment so thoroughly that, for the first time in history, a small minority of the population is capable of creating enough food and fuels to support not only itself, but also a growing majority of the 6 billion people now living on... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Internet and the Web; Innovation and Invention; United States

SSRN

Read Now

26 Sep 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism

Keywords: by Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona

January 2007 (Revised July 2008)
Case

Capital Field: A Room with a View

By: Nicolas P. Retsinas and Joshua Wyatt

Jerzy Peters, Managing Director of Patron Capital Partners, must decide the best investment option on the development of the Odra Polish theater chain and the associated real estate. Capital Field was a company formed by U.S.-educated Polish natives involved in real... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Emerging Markets; State Ownership; Privatization; Property; Real Estate Industry; Poland

February 2022
Case

NFX Capital and Moov Technologies

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Nicole Tempest Keller

In July 2019, James Currier, a general partner at San Francisco-based NFX Ventures, was considering a seed stage investment of $1.5 million in Moov Technologies, a B2B marketplace for used industrial equipment. NFX was a venture capital firm focused on seed-stage... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Network Effects; Marketplace Matching; Digital Platforms; Market Design; Applications and Software; Semiconductor Industry; Financial Services Industry; San Francisco

January 2006 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Capitalism and Democracy in a New World

By: Bruce R. Scott, Sarah Potvin and Alison Adams

Focuses on the formulation of the Northwestern Ordinance as the core of a development strategy for capitalism and democracy in the United States. A precursor to the Constitution, the Northwestern Ordinance was based on the New England Model to achieve a broad and... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Economic Systems; Income; Laws and Statutes; Government and Politics; Growth and Development Strategy; Power and Influence; United States

06 Nov 2000
Research & Ideas

The Determinants of Corporate Venture Capital Success

Corporate-sponsored venture funds first appeared in the 1960s, about two decades after the first flowering of the venture capital industry. Ever since, they have mirrored the cyclic nature of the industry as a whole. But there are... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Gompers & Josh Lerner

10 Nov 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Endowments, Fiscal Federalism, and the Cost of Capital for States: Evidence from Brazil, 1891-1930

Keywords: by André C. Martínez Fritscher & Aldo Musacchio

July 2009 (Revised July 2011)
Technical Note

Note on Capital in the U.S. Financial Industry

By: Clayton S. Rose, Scott Waggoner and Sally Canter Ganzfried

This note was created to supplement classroom discussion in the EC course "Managing the Financial Firm" and provides background for exploring issues general managers in financial firms face in considering appropriate capital levels. View Details

Keywords: Capital; Financial Institutions; Management; Financial Services Industry; United States