Publications

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2018
Working Paper

Corporate Refinancing, Covenants, and the Agency Cost of Debt

By: Daniel Green

How valuable are restrictive debt covenants in reducing the agency costs of debt? I exploit the revealed preference decision to refinance fixed-coupon bonds, which weighs observable interest rate savings against the unobservable costs of a change in restrictive... View Details

Keywords: Covenants; Refinancing; Corporate Bonds; Agency Costs; Debt Policy; Borrowing and Debt; Bonds; Interest Rates

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January 2019 (Revised November 2020)
Case

Ribbon Home: iBacking for Real Estate

By: Marco Di Maggio and Sarah Gulick

In November 2018, Shaival Shah, the founder and CEO of Ribbon Home had to decide on the next steps for the company. Ribbon had introduced a program that backs consumers with cash offers without creating a loan structure in order to help them compete with iBuyers, such... View Details

Keywords: Consumers; Real Estate; Property; Finance; Digital Platforms; Business Model; Decision Making; Real Estate Industry; Technology Industry

October 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Background Note

Note on Managing Workforce Reductions

By: Ethan Bernstein and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Each individual who enters an organization will, at some point, leave. And yet most future leaders spend significantly more effort learning about recruiting than departures, despite the sensitivity and challenges associated with the latter. This note is intended to... View Details

Keywords: Layoffs; Downsizing; Workforce; Workforce Reductions; Delayering; Human Resources; Employees; Resignation and Termination; Management; Organizations; Reputation

June 2015
Article

Standard-Essential Patents

By: Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole

A major policy issue in standard setting is that patents that are ex-ante not that important may, by being included into the standard, become standard-essential patents (SEPs). In an attempt to curb the monopoly power that they create, most standard-setting... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Policy; Standards

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December 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Ebro Puleva

By: David E. Bell, Antonio Garcia de Castro, Rocio Reina Paniagua and Mary Louise Shelman

Once Spain's largest sugar company, Ebro Puleva has been transformed through a series of international acquisitions into the world's largest package rice company and second largest pasta company. In 2009, Chairman Antonio Hernandez Callejas must decide how to proceed... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Crisis; Globalized Firms and Management; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry; Spain

June 2008 (Revised July 2008)
Case

How Serial Entrepreneurs Build and Manage a Board of Directors in a Venture-Backed Start Up

By: Michael J. Roberts, William A. Sahlman and Sasha Novakovich

This case includes structured interviews with four serial entrepreneurs about the way in which they built and used their boards in each of their companies and what they have learned through that process. These entrepreneurs were asked similar questions, such as "How do... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards

February 2003 (Revised May 2003)
Case

Accel Partners' European Launch

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Josh Lerner

In spring 2001, with the venture market crashing all around, the London office of Accel Partners, a major west coast venture capital firm, needs to make a decision about investing in an Irish software company. As the first investment of the new European operation, the... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Growth and Development Strategy; Venture Capital; Global Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Expansion; Management Practices and Processes; Partners and Partnerships; Financial Services Industry; London; United States

March 2002 (Revised July 2004)
Case

RWE and the Proposal for a German Electricity Regulator

In April 2001, Dietmar Kuhnt, CEO of the German energy giant RWE, had to make a decision that would affect his company's future. Profits in the electricity sector depended heavily on regulatory rules that influenced industry structure and pricing. RWE had emerged... View Details

Keywords: Energy Generation; Governance Compliance; Business Strategy; Energy Industry; Germany

April 1992 (Revised September 1993)
Case

Poland--1989

By: Debora L. Spar

Describes the political and economic situation in Poland in 1989, following the country's first democratic elections and the subsequent establishment of a Solidarity-led government. After examining the legacies left by 40 years of Communist rule, the case lays out the... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Finance; Economic Systems; Government and Politics; Poland

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23 Nov 2021
News

TEC Members Interview the Authors of the Books That Have Influenced Them

2016
Working Paper

Financing Payouts

By: Joan Farre-Mensa, Roni Michaely and Martin Schmalz

We study the extent to which firms rely on the capital markets to fund their payouts. We find that 42% of firms that pay out capital also initiate debt or equity issues in the same year, resulting in 32% of aggregate payouts being externally financed. Most firms with... View Details

Keywords: Payout Policy; Financing Decisions; Debt Issues; Equity Issues; Capital Structure; Decision Making; Financing and Loans; Corporate Finance

SSRN

Research Summary

The Ownership of Deep Metaphors

By: Gerald Zaltman

Deep metaphors are basic orienting structures of human thought. They guide in subtle and overt ways how customers and managers process information about any product, service, or activity and event. It is essential for a firm to understand deep metaphors as they are... View Details

February 2025
Case

Managing EPS at Stanley Black & Decker?

By: Jonas Heese, Joseph Pacelli, Yuan Zou and James Barnett

The case explores Stanley Black and Decker’s (SBD) 2022 financial restatement announcement, which related to how SBD accounted for certain equity issuances in 2019. These transactions had a minimal effect on earnings but significantly reduced shares outstanding, and... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Financial Reporting; Ethics; Finance; Accounting Industry; Construction Industry; Manufacturing Industry

2023
Working Paper

The Equity Market Implications of the Retail Investment Boom

By: Philippe van der Beck and Coralie Jaunin

This paper quantifies the impact of Robinhood traders on the US equity market. Within a structural model, we estimate retail and institutional demand curves and derive aggregate pricing implications via market clearing. The inelastic nature of institutional demand... View Details

Keywords: Institutional Investing; Financial Markets; Price; Financial Instruments

SSRN

Article

The Value of Intermediation in the Stock Market

By: Marco Di Maggio, Mark Egan and Francesco Franzoni

We estimate a structural model of broker choice to quantitatively decompose the value that institutional investors attach to broker services. Studying over 300 million institutional equity trades, we find that investors are sensitive to both explicit and implicit... View Details

Keywords: Financial Intermediation; Institutional Investors; Research Analysts; Broker Networks; Equity Trading; Institutional Investing