Publications

11 Jan 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Does Shareholder Proxy Access Improve Firm Value? Evidence from the Business Roundtable Challenge

Keywords: by Bo Becker, Daniel B. Bergstresser & Guhan Subramanian; Financial Services

Web

Employment Data

3% Entertainment / Media 3% Health Care 6% Investment Banking 5% Investment Management / Hedge Fund 6% Manufacturing 5% Nonprofit / Government 5% Other Financial Services 4% Private Equity 19% Retail 2% Services 3% Technology 16% Venture... View Details

25 Mar 2013
Research & Ideas

How Chapter 11 Saved the US Economy

truth is anything but— "it's about reviving companies," says Gilson, author of the 2010 book Creating Value through Corporate Restructuring: Case Studies in Bankruptcies, Buyouts, and Breakups . Reviving The Economy Taking a look at the 2008 View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Financial Services

01 Dec 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Reversing the Null: Regulation, Deregulation, and the Power of Ideas

Keywords: by David Moss; Banking

15 Oct 2013
First Look

First Look: October 15

inventory turns and can be uniformly utilized by all stakeholders to assess whether a retailer is carrying too much or too little inventory. We explain applications of the metric with examples and lay out prescriptions for retailers. August 2013 Review of View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

July 2010
Technical Note

Note on the Banking Industry

By: Clayton S. Rose and Scott Waggoner

This note provides an overview of the structure and function of the banking industry, with a primary focus on the U.S. It was designed to support the HBS MBA course "Managing the Financial Firm." View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Business or Company Management; Industry Structures; Banking Industry; United States

July 2013 (Revised January 2014)
Case

Experience! The Finger Lakes: The Groupon Partnership Decision

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Chekitan S. Dev, Gabriele Piccoli and Arnold B. Peinado

In 2010, Experience! The Finger Lakes (ExperienceFLX), a tour operator offering guided tours and concierge services in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, was at a crossroads. The business was poised for growth, and its owners, Laura and Alan Falk, were... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; United States

2015
Working Paper

Staggered Boards and Shareholder Value: A Reply to Amihud and Stoyanov

By: Alma Cohen and Charles C.Y. Wang

In a paper published in the Journal of Financial Economics in 2013, we provided evidence that market participants perceive staggered boards to be on average value-reducing. In a recent response paper, Amihud and Stoyanov (2015) “contest” our results. They... View Details

Keywords: Staggered Boards; Takeover Defense; Antitakeover Provision; Firm Value; Agency Costs; Delaware; Chancery Court; Airgas; Governing and Advisory Boards; Acquisition; Corporate Governance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Delaware

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2022
Working Paper

High-Yield Debt Covenants and Their Real Effects

By: Falk Bräuning, Victoria Ivashina and Ali Ozdagli

High-yield debt including leveraged loans is characterized by incurrence financial covenants, or “cov-lite” provisions. A traditional loan agreement includes maintenance covenants, which require continuous compliance with the covenant threshold, and their violation... View Details

Keywords: Debt Covenants; Incurrence Covenants; Borrowing and Debt; Banks and Banking

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03 Mar 2008
First Look

First Look: March 4, 2008

and largely unregulated securities market was William Duer, who ultimately became a major player on the Street. As it turned out, however, Duer's financial dealings proved unsustainable, and his View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

December 2004 (Revised February 2005)
Case

Cheetah Conservation Fund Bush Project, The

Laurie Marker, head of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, is trying to form a for-profit institution, the Bush Project, to control the bush encroachment problem in Namibia. Bush encroachment not only destroys the general ecosystem, but it also has a harmful impact on the... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; For-Profit Firms; Emerging Markets; Environmental Sustainability; Financial Strategy; Africa

August 2000 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Dell's Working Capital

By: Richard S. Ruback and Aldo Sesia

Dell Computer Corp. manufactures, sells, and services personal computers. The company markets its computers directly to its customers and builds computers after receiving a customer order. This build-to-order model enables Dell to have much smaller investment in... View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Working Capital; Manufacturing Industry; Computer Industry

January 2018
Technical Note

The Scope of Business at the Base of the Pyramid: Middle and Lower Income Countries

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Tricia Gregg

Using World Bank data, the note defines the Base of the Pyramid population as the 4.76 billion people living on less than $10/day. It briefly reviews the perspectives of key business articles that address this market, notably C.K. Prahalad’s work on Bottom of the... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Poverty; Social Issues; Human Needs; Segmentation

12 Feb 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

‘UpTick’ Brings Wall Street Pressure to Students

In a Harvard Business School classroom, students in the Dynamic Markets class may have one minute to make a decision in a pressure cooker one called "the most stress I've experienced in ten years." It's margin call time in a... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Financial Services; Financial Services

October 2021 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Ant Group (A)

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Feng Zhu, Susie L. Ma and Kerry Herman

In 2004, Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba created Alipay, an app to facilitate payments on its e-commerce sites. As Alibaba grew, so did Alipay, until Alipay spawned its own ecosystem of financial technology products and services under the name of Ant Group. By 2020,... View Details

Keywords: Payment Systems; Information Technology; Value Creation; Network Effects; Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Initial Public Offering; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; China

November 2009 (Revised October 2010)
Case

AME Learning Inc.

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Ann Leamon

Justin Joffe is about to graduate from HBS in Spring 2009. He must decide whether to join his father's company, Toronto-based AME Learning, as president working alongside his father who will be CEO. AME has been in business for 12 years, mostly as a small consulting... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Family Business; Age; Private Equity; Financing and Loans; Growth and Development Strategy; Family and Family Relationships

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March 1998 (Revised July 1998)
Case

Boston Duck Tours,1996: Has Boston Gone Quackers?

By: Myra M. Hart and Stephanie Dodson

While on vacation in Memphis, former investment manager Andy Wilson discovers a unique "tour bus" that travels over land and through water. He decides to transplant the concept to Boston and to add both historical and theatrical features to the amphibious tour. As he... View Details

Keywords: Opportunities; Creativity; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Problems and Challenges; Business Startups; Tourism Industry; Tennessee; Boston

2009
Book

Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed and What to Do About It

By: Josh Lerner

In response to the financial crisis, governments are being far more aggressive in intervening to promote economic activity, a trend that shows little tendency of alleviating. This book looks at the experiences of governments in encouraging entrepreneurs and venture... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Financial Crisis; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Policy; Business and Government Relations