Publications

November 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Teaching Note

Paul Thomson: Walker Insurance

By: Jim Sharpe

Keywords: Crisis Management; Acquisitions; Search Funds; Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurs; Insurance; Turnarounds; Boards Of Directors; Sales Force Management; Entrepreneurship; Insurance Industry; Florida

June 2014 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Kathy Giusti and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Joshua D. Margolis and Matthew G. Preble

What do you do when your rising professional career is cut short by an unexpected cancer diagnosis? Kathy Giusti shifted careers, built a new organization that transformed how cancer research is done, and now faces the challenge of sustaining the organization and its... View Details

Teaching Interest

Business Opportunties in Climate Adaptation

By: John D. Macomber

This is a Short Intensive Program or SIP at Harvard Business School. It’s an optional student offering prior to the formal start of the Spring semester the following week. SIPs tend to cover new material on current topics, to be less formal than the HBS Case Study... View Details

Keywords: Resilience; Climate Risk; Climate Impact; Fire Protection; Insurance Risk Exposure; Hedge Fund; Public Health; Public Health Measures; Climate Change; Adaptation; Infrastructure; Real Estate Industry; Transportation Industry; Insurance Industry; United States; Africa; Latin America

March 2013
Case

NovaStar Financial: A Short Seller's Battle

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Amy Kaser

The NovaStar case describes the challenges faced by short seller Marc Cohodes of hedge fund Rocker Partners as he tried to expose what he thought was widespread fraud in mortgage lender NovaStar Financial. The case is set in the time period from 2001 to 2007 and tracks... View Details

2012
Case

Robert Whelan and the Student Loan Crisis (A)

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Olivia Leskinen

Robert Whelan and the Student Loan Crisis (A) 2009 AL Fellow Bob Whelan developed an idea with partners that was a seed before his fellowship year and seemed to address a significant national challenge - college financing - with a creative concept and experience from... View Details

June 2022
Article

A New Initiative to Track HIV Resource Allocation and Costs

By: Ryan McBain, AK Nandakumar, Michael Ruffner, Carlyn Mann, Mai Hijazi, Susanna Baker, Linden Morrison, Kalipso Chalkidou, Shufang Zhang, Iris Semini, Fern Terris-Prestholt, Steven Forsythe, Sarah Byakika, Joshua Musinguzi and Robert S. Kaplan

In early 2020, several global health institutions – including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS); United States Agency for International Development; and Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator at... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing; HIV; Cost; Health Care; Healthcare; Health Care and Treatment; Activity Based Costing and Management; Resource Allocation; Health Industry; Africa

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Working Paper Summaries

How do Private Equity Fees Vary Across Public Pensions?

Keywords: by Juliane Begenau and Emil Siriwardane; Financial Services

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Where Main Street Meets Wall Street

years, the mutual fund would shake up established norms of wealth creation and distribution in the United States. Indeed, it would help reshape America by uniting Wall Street and Main Street, two disparate worlds that previously had... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Financial Services

2014
Working Paper

Lobbying Behavior of Governmental Entities: Evidence from Public Pension Accounting Rules

By: Abigail Allen and Reining Petacchi

We examine the lobbying behavior of state governments in the development of recently issued public pension accounting standards GASB 67 and 68. Consistent with opportunistic motivations, we find that states' opposition to the liability increasing provisions embedded in... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Accounting Industry; United States

SSRN

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18 Apr 2020
Working Paper Summaries

How Are Small Businesses Adjusting to COVID-19? Early Evidence From a Survey

Keywords: by Alexander Bartik, Marianne Bertrand, Zoë B. Cullen, Edward L. Glaeser, Michael Luca, and Christopher Stanton

December 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Cann: High Hopes for Cannabis Infused Beverages

By: Ayelet Israeli and Anne V. Wilson

Founded in 2018 by Jake Bullock and Luke Anderson, Cann sold “social tonics,” or cannabis-infused beverages. By 2022, the company had several notable celebrity investors and talent partners, had sold over 10 million beverages to consumers, was distributing in six... View Details

April 2014 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Texas Teachers and the New Texas Way

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Luis M. Viceira, John D. Dionne and Nathaniel Burbank

In 2011 Britt Harris, the Chief Investment Officer for the $107.4 billion Teachers Retirement System of Texas (TRS), was considering whether to pursue strategic partnerships with a group of large private equity firms. After spending four years aggressively moving the... View Details

Keywords: Texas; TRS; Texas Teachers; Private Equity; Texas

08 Aug 2016
Working Paper Summaries

The Unintended Consequences of the Zero Lower Bound Policy

Keywords: by Marco Di Maggio and Marcin Kacperczyk; Banking

May 2004 (Revised May 2006)
Case

AsiaInfo: The IPO Decision

The cofounder and CEO of AsiaInfo, a Chinese system integrator that built 70% of China's Internet backbone, must decide whether to list equity in the United States to fund future growth. Describes the company and the decision. A rewritten version of a previous case. View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Initial Public Offering; Growth Management; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Equity; Information Technology Industry; China; United States

May 2013
Supplement

Paul Thomson: Walker Insurance

This is the Spreadsheet Supplement for Walker Insurance: Paul Thomson (HBS Case 813057). Includes Exhibit 1a, Exhibit 1b, Exhibit 2, Exhibit 4, Exhibit 5, Exhibit 6, and Exhibit 7. View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Organizations; Entrepreneurs; Entrepreneurship; Search; Search Funds; Sales Force Management; Sales; Sales Channels; Insurance And Reinsurance; Insurance Companies; Acquisitions; Hiring; Service Management; Service; Insurance; Salesforce Management; Selection and Staffing; Insurance Industry; United States

06 May 2014
First Look

First Look: May 6

http://hbr.org/product/pepsico-india-performance-with-purpose/an/512041-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 614-039 A Note on Funding Digital Innovation Startups This note provides information on the state... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 2008 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Sovereign Wealth Funds: For Profits or Politics?

By: Laura Alfaro and Renee Kim

On March 21, 2008, the U.S. government secured an agreement from two leading sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) to adopt a new set of investment principles to govern the Funds' activities. SWFs, broadly defined as an investment fund owned by a national or a government, were... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Investment Funds; Sovereign Finance; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; International Relations; State Ownership; United States

January 2014 (Revised January 2014)
Case

Showdown at Cracker Barrel

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Tim Gray

In the fall of 2011, activist investor, Sardar Biglari, has acquired nearly 10% ownership in the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain. He believes that the board and senior management have failed and the company has underperformed relative to its peers. When he is denied a... View Details

January 2020 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Governing PG&E

By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz

The five commissioners of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) listened intently at a public forum in April 2019 as PG&E Corporation’s out-going chairman Richard Kelly described the company’s proposed new board. PG&E, which provided electricity and natural... View Details