Publications

13 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

How Government can Discourage Private Sector Reliance on Short-Term Debt

For the last decade or so financial institutions have relied increasingly and excessively on short-term financing, risky business that could quickly go south when a souring economy made it impossible for firms to roll over their... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Financial Services

12 Apr 2017
Research & Ideas

Why Productivity Suffers When Employees Are Allowed to Schedule Their Own Tasks

working paper Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services by María R. Ibáñez, a doctoral candidate at Harvard Business School; Jonathan R. Clark , an assistant professor at the University of Texas at San... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

18 May 2010
First Look

First Look: May 18

role of the American Economic Association (AEA) in the market and focuses in particular on two mechanisms adopted in recent years at the suggestion of our committee. First, job market applicants now have a signaling service to send an... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2015
Working Paper

Misconduct in Financial Services: Differences across Organizations

By: Jennifer Brown and Dylan Minor

We examine misconduct in financial services. We propose a theory in which experts extract surplus based on the value of their firm's brand and their own skills. Using sales complaint data for insurance agents, we find that agents working exclusively for large branded... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Insurance; Sales; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

SSRN

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October 2020 (Revised December 2020)
Case

AfricInvest: A Pan-African Investment Platform

By: Victoria Ivashina and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case is set in December 2018, when Ziad Oueslati, co-managing director and co-founder of AfricInvest, a leading pan-African private equity firm headquartered in Tunisia, was reflecting on the future direction of his firm. AfricInvest started as a traditional small... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Strategy; Governance; Financial Services Industry; Tunisia; Africa; Middle East

André Perold is a Founder, Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of HighVista Strategies, a Boston-based investment firm. HighVista focuses on investing in structurally inefficient public and private markets, including in life sciences, lower middle market private... View Details

Keywords: financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services

17 Aug 2010
First Look

First Look: August 17

a unique aspect of the research setting allows tests of who is responsible for the earnings management. While firms appear unable to increase the frequency of aisle display promotions in the short run, they can reallocate these promotions... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Web

Case Research & Writing Group - Faculty & Research

Research Services Case Research & Writing Group 15ms Established in November 1999, the Case Research & Writing Group (CRG) grew out of Harvard Business School’s commitment to increase the diversity, impact, and visibility of its... View Details

February 1994
Case

Fremont Financial Corporation

Fremont Financial is an asset-based lender to middle-market companies. The firm has three options to raise capital to finance its loan portfolio. Fremont can (1) extend its existing bank line of credit, (2) issue commercial paper through a special purpose-conduit, or... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Capital; Corporate Finance; Financial Services Industry

05 Dec 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, December 5, 2017

S. Fader, Sunil Gupta, Bruce Hardie, Aurelie Lemmens, Barak Libai, David T. Neal, Foster Provost, and Rom Schrift Abstract—In today’s turbulent business environment, customer retention presents a significant challenge for many service... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

19 Sep 2011
Research & Ideas

Doomsday Coming for Catastrophic Risk Insurers?

much harder to predict. Because of this, it becomes very expensive for insurance firms to hold the capital necessary to cover catastrophic losses. So they turn to reinsurance firms, paying them a fee to assume that risk. Ideally,... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Financial Services

Article

What Do Nongovernmental Organizations Do?

By: Eric D. Werker and Faisal Z. Ahmand

Nongovernmental organizations are one group of players who are active in the efforts of international development and increasing the welfare of poor people in poor countries. Nongovernmental organizations are largely staffed by altruistic employees and volunteers... View Details

Keywords: Non-Governmental Organizations; Growth and Development; Welfare or Wellbeing; Poverty; Service Delivery; Crime and Corruption; Social Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Resource Allocation; Product Development; Framework

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February 2002 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Battery Ventures

By: Josh Lerner, G. Felda Hardymon, Ann Leamon, Nitin Gupta and Sameer Bharadwaj

Todd Dagres, general partner of Battery Ventures, reflects on his firm's organization and its effectiveness in one particular deal. One of the perennial challenges of venture capital is the scaling of the firm. Usually regarded as a craft industry, venture firms tend... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Measurement and Metrics; Performance Effectiveness; Organizational Structure; Financial Services Industry