Publications

23 Aug 2011
First Look

First Look: August 23

Course MaterialsBANEX and the ,,No Pago" Movement (A) Shawn Cole and Baily Blair KempnerHarvard Business School Case 211-092 This case examines Grassroots Capital's decision of whether or not to continue investing in a Bolivian microfinance View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Overview

Having grown up in a developing country, Professor Sikochi’s research focus is driven by a desire to understand how capital flows to firms and entrepreneurs with the ultimate goal to help build capital markets in the developing economies. To this end, he conducts... View Details

21 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Is a Gap in Small-Business Credit Holding Back the American Economy?

access to public institutional debt and equity capital markets and the uncertainty of small business profits makes retained earnings a necessarily less stable source of capital. About 48 percent of business owners report a major View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Manufacturing

May 1986 (Revised February 1991)
Case

Wilson Lumber Co.

By: Thomas R. Piper

The Wilson Lumber Co. is faced with a need for increased bank financing due to its rapid sales growth and low profitability. Students must determine the reasons for the rising bank borrowing, estimate the amount of borrowing needed, and assess the attractiveness of the... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Financing and Loans; Banks and Banking; Forecasting and Prediction; Sales; Financial Strategy

July 2013
Case

Jackson Automotive Systems

By: William E. Fruhan and Wei Wang

Jackson Automotive Systems produces automotive parts for advanced heating and air conditioning systems, engine cooling systems, fuel injection and transfer systems, and various other engine parts and it supplies them to the automotive industry primarily in Michigan.... View Details

Keywords: Production; Financial Crisis; Corporate Finance; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Michigan

2023
Working Paper

Applications or Approvals: What Drives Racial Disparities in the Paycheck Protection Program?

By: Sergey Chernenko, Nathan Kaplan, Asani Sarkar and David S. Scharfstein

We use the 2020 Small Business Credit Survey to study the sources of racial disparities in use of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Black-owned firms are 8.9 percentage points less likely than observably similar white-owned firms to receive PPP loans. About 55% of... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Small Business; Race; Financing and Loans

SSRN

October 2013 (Revised August 2016)
Case

NOWaccount

By: Ramana Nanda, William A. Sahlman and Lauren Barley

It was September 2013, and NOWaccount Network Corporation (NOW®) co-founders John Hayes and Lara Hodgson were putting the final touches on the presentation deck for their annual shareholders' meeting. Along with co-founder Stacey Abrams, the pair had designed NOW's... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Finance; Entrepreneurship

April 2023
Case

Burning the Sails to Save the Ship: The Pilati Family Dilemma

By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao, Jiawei Ye and Grace Headinger

Octavian Graf Pilati, rising generation member of an Austrian princely family, prepared to sell the palace his family had held for over three hundred years. In recent years, the Pilati family lands had been leveraged as loan collateral for an international venture that... View Details

Keywords: Family Office; Family; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Agribusiness; Family Business; Property; Identity; Culture; Ethics; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governance; Crisis Management; Family and Family Relationships; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Real Estate Industry; Austria

June 2018 (Revised February 2019)
Teaching Note

Home Nursing of North Carolina

By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld

In 2011, immediately after graduating HBS, Ari Medoff began a self-funded search for a small firm to buy and run as its CEO. After just three month of searching, he identified Home Nursing of North Carolina (HNNC), a home care agency based in Greensboro, NC, as a... View Details

Keywords: Small Firms Management; Acquisition; Negotiation Process; Investment; Small Business; Management; Personal Development and Career

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

February 1992 (Revised September 1995)
Case

Goldman, Sachs & Co.: Nikkei Put Warrants--1989

By: Peter Tufano

Japanese financial institutions' willingness to sell put options on the Nikkei Stock Average provides investment banks with the raw material from which to create a security that would allow U.S. investors to bet on falls in the Japanese Stock Market. The investment... View Details

Keywords: Debt Securities; Investment Banking; Product Design; Globalized Markets and Industries; Japan; United States

16 Jul 2013
First Look

First Look: July 16

Alan Morrison Abstract—Existing studies suggest that systemic crises may arise because banks either hold correlated assets or are connected by interbank lending. This paper shows that common regulation is also a conduit for interbank... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

15 Jun 2010
First Look

First Look: June 15

identifying the effects of bank credit supply. First, we focus on firms' choice between two close forms of external financing: bank debt and public bonds. By conditioning the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

08 Aug 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

Parmigiano-Reggiano, Jane Austen, and Other Things You Didn't Know About Finance

with a twist. They are swapping out investment advisers for financial robots, and passing along the savings. Research Papers A Bank That Takes Parmesan as Collateral: The Cheese Stands a Loan Italian regional View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services

August 2018
Case

BlackBuck (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

The case presents the challenges of scaling an asset-heavy company (that relies on its operations). It highlights how decisions on the early team impact a company’s ability to scale, linkage between growth and cash flows, as well the organizational impact of high... View Details

Keywords: Founders; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Delivery; Cash Flow; Growth Management; Truck Transportation; Online Technology; India

27 Jan 2011
Working Paper Summaries

A Brief Postwar History of US Consumer Finance

Keywords: by Andrea Ryan, Gunnar Trumbull & Peter Tufano; Banking

November 1994
Case

Electrical Distributors, Inc.

By: David F. Hawkins

The owner of a small electrical supply firm has grown beyond his ability to fund growth with internally generated funds. He seeks a bank loan, which falls short of his needs. View Details

Keywords: Financial Management; Private Equity; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financing and Loans; Borrowing and Debt; Corporate Finance; Apparel and Accessories Industry