Publications

02 Dec 2019
News

A Long-Standing Commitment to Global Understanding

motivated him and his wife Patricia to make an ongoing investment in HBS’s global efforts through their support of the HBS Fund, the School’s research outposts, and an endowed fellowship for international students. The View Details

June 2009
Teaching Note

Stryker Corporation: In-sourcing PCBs (TN)

By: Timothy A. Luehrman

Teaching Note for [207121]. View Details

Keywords: Investment; Capital Budgeting; Valuation; Investment Return; Mathematical Methods; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

14 May 2019
Research & Ideas

Ethics Bots and Other Ways to Move Your Code of Business Conduct Beyond Puffery

lengthy document expressed six broad core values including “Client Value Creation,” “Integrity,” and “Respect for the Individual.” They sounded great, but in reality made it hard for its 400,000 global... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

October 2011
Teaching Note

Bridging the GAAPs (TN)

By: Gwen Yu

Teaching Note for 111-114. View Details

Keywords: Equity; Financial Reporting; Investment Portfolio; Valuation; Framework; Adoption; Standards; Globalization

01 Jun 2005
News

Contrarian and Proud of It

investors. From the fund’s inception in 1985, he has posted annualized returns of 13.4 percent, nearly two percentage points higher than other large-cap value funds. “Invariably, we’re looking at companies where investors are concerned... View Details

Keywords: Securities, Commodities, and Other Financial Investments; Securities, Commodities, and Other Financial Investments

May 1968 (Revised January 1992)
Case

Graybar Syndications

By: William J. Poorvu

A potential investor evaluates a proposed offering—a major office building in downtown Manhattan. View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Investment; Construction; City; Valuation; Real Estate Industry; Construction Industry; New York (city, NY)

Profile

John Rogers

daily basis. It is in the moment when you recognize that an MBA from HBS is not just a degree, but a responsibility to create value in the world beyond what is expected of most. When I arrived at HBS, I wanted to serve society in a... View Details

Keywords: Other Financial Services; Manufacturing

June 2012 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Home Nursing of North Carolina

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Ari Medoff's (HBS '11) goal was to control his own professional destiny by owning his own company. His search identified a suitable acquisition in Home Nursing of North Carolina, and he had negotiated a purchase price of $3.5 million, or 4.2x trailing EBITDA. Medoff... View Details

Keywords: Search Funds; Small Companies; Acquisitions; Negotiation; Medical Services; Negotiation Process; Valuation; Investment; Acquisition; Health Industry

2025
Working Paper

Dynamic Personalization with Multiple Customer Signals: Multi-Response State Representation in Reinforcement Learning

By: Liangzong Ma, Ta-Wei Huang, Eva Ascarza and Ayelet Israeli

Reinforcement learning (RL) offers potential for optimizing sequences of customer interactions by modeling the relationships between customer states, company actions, and long-term value. However, its practical implementation often faces significant challenges.... View Details

Keywords: Dynamic Policy; Deep Reinforcement Learning; Representation Learning; Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment; Latent Variable Models; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Foreign Direct Investment; Analytics and Data Science

SSRN

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February 2001 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Ducati & Texas Pacific Group - A "Wild Ride" Leveraged Buyout

Describes the attempt of Texas Pacific Group (TPG), a buyout firm, to purchase a controlling stake in Ducati Motor, the world's leading high-performance motorcycle company, based in Bologna, Italy. Ducati is part of Cagiva Group, a family-controlled industrial group.... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Leveraged Buyouts; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Manufacturing Industry; Motorcycle Industry; Texas; Italy

March 2014 (Revised May 2014)
Teaching Note

The TELUS Share Conversion Proposal

By: Lucy White and Benjamin C. Esty

On February 21, 2013, TELUS announced a proposal to convert the firm's non-voting shares into voting shares on a one-to-one basis, thereby eliminating the firm's dual class structure. Shareholders were scheduled to vote on the proposal at the firm's annual general... View Details

01 Jun 2022
News

Making It Count

companies taking on these challenges. It’s been a steep ascent for ESG in recent years, from a fringy outlier straight to the mainstage, as investments increased tenfold from 2018 to 2020. And there’s no sign of that pace slowing. Some... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint

2025
Working Paper

Street Earnings: Implications for Asset Pricing

By: Sebastian Hillenbrand and Odhrain McCarthy

To address the excess volatility puzzle – the excessive movements in stock prices – researchers often study movements in valuation ratios. However, we demonstrate that movements in valuation ratios based on fundamental measures with high transitory volatility, such as... View Details

Keywords: Investment Return; Asset Pricing; Valuation; Measurement and Metrics; Stocks

SSRN

October 2002
Article

Differences of Opinion and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns

By: Karl B. Diether, Christopher J. Malloy and Anna Scherbina

We provide evidence that stocks with higher dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts earn lower future returns than otherwise similar stocks. This effect is most pronounced in small stocks, and stocks that have performed poorly over the past year. Interpreting... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Forecasting and Prediction; Price; Valuation; Investment Return

Find at Harvard

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August 2014 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Molycorp: Morgan Brothers' Reverse Convertible Notes (C)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield

In August 2011, Morgan Brothers Bank was issuing a $2.5 million reverse convertible note with payoffs linked to the price of Molycorp's common stock. These financially engineered securities were just one of many kinds of structured notes available in the retail market.... View Details

Keywords: Structured Products; Reverse Convertible Notes; Replication; Option Pricing; Bond Pricing; Financial Engineering; Valuation; Metals and Minerals; Debt Securities; Finance; Investment; Mining Industry; Financial Services Industry; Canada; California

December 2009
Article

Catering Through Nominal Share Prices

By: Malcolm Baker, Robin Greenwood and Jeffrey Wurgler

We propose and test a catering theory of nominal stock prices. The theory predicts that when investors place higher valuation on low-price firms, managers will maintain share prices at lower levels, and vice-versa. Using measures of time-varying catering incentives... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Stock Shares; Investment; Investment Return; Price; Theory; Valuation