Publications

March 2025
Case

Silicon Valley Bank: Gone in 36 Hours

By: Jung Koo Kang, Krishna G. Palepu, Charles C.Y. Wang and David Lane

This case examines factors contributing to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in March 2023, an event as unpredicted as it was quick. SVB funded nearly half of all U.S. venture-backed startups and at the end of 2022 held $173 billion in deposits, largely... View Details

December 2007
Case

Ruling the Modern Corporation: The Debate over Limited Liability in Massachusetts

By: David A. Moss and Eugene Kintgen

In 1830, Governor Levi Lincoln, Jr. urged the Massachusetts state legislature to introduce a limited liability regime for manufacturing corporations similar to that adopted in neighboring states. At least since 1809, shareholders in the state's manufacturing... View Details

Keywords: Capital; Debt Securities; Legal Liability; Production; Business and Shareholder Relations; Manufacturing Industry; Massachusetts

January 2008 (Revised July 2010)
Case

Wal-Mart's Use of Interest Rate Swaps

"Wal-Mart's Use of Interest Rate Swaps" recounts Wal-Mart's use of interest rate swaps to hedge the fair value of its fixed-rate debt against changing interest rates. This case provides students with a foundation for understanding the use of and accounting for more... View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Financial Statements; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Financial Strategy; Interest Rates; Corporate Disclosure

31 Oct 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Do Measures of Financial Constraints Measure Financial Constraints?

Keywords: by Joan Farre-Mensa & Alexander Ljungqvist

16 Jun 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Does Diversification Create Value in the Presence of External Financing Constraints? Evidence from the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis

Keywords: by Venkat Kuppuswamy & Belén Villalonga

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

February 1991
Case

Burlington Northern: The ARES Decision (B)

By: Julie H. Hertenstein and Robert S. Kaplan

The ARES team formally proposes that Burlington Northern implement the ARES system. The project meets resistance. In light of financial restructuring and high level of debt, executives wonder whether the company can afford ARES. Weak links during the ARES development... View Details

Keywords: Accounting Audits; Restructuring; Cost vs Benefits; Decision Choices and Conditions; Borrowing and Debt; Capital Budgeting; Projects; Technology Adoption; Service Industry

September 2007
Case

Tetra Pak Argentina

By: Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Gustavo A. Herrero

Deals with the hands-on management of a difficult situation facing the subsidiary of a multinational corporation (Tetra Pak) in a developing country (Argentina). The situation arises from a major economic, social, and institutional breakdown that jeopardizes the... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Crisis; Currency Exchange Rate; Sovereign Finance; Multinational Firms and Management; Crisis Management; Business and Government Relations; Argentina

03 Jul 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, July 3, 2018

forthcoming IMF Economic Review Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation By: Alfaro, Laura, and Fabio Kanczuk Abstract—In the past decade, foreign participation in local-currency bond markets in emerging countries increased dramatically.... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

28 Feb 2012
First Look

First Look: Feb. 28

result higher cost of capital. However, this result is not mitigated by the presence of long-term investors, consistent with these investors requiring a risk premium for holding the stock of short-term oriented firms. Overall, our evidence suggests that View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

27 Dec 2010
Research & Ideas

HBS Faculty on 2010’s Biggest Business Developments

where I sit as an economist, it's still all about the economy and the long-term impact of the problems laid bare by the Great Recession. During the financial crisis, the world came to the apparently shocking realization that debt... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

24 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 24

and discrepancies can emerge as a result. Effective Auditing for Corporates provides you with proactive advice to help you safeguard core value within a corporation and to ensure that auditing processes and... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

April 2010
Case

Groupe Ariel S.A.: Parity Conditions and Cross-Border Valuation

By: Timothy A. Luehrman and James Quinn

Groupe Ariel evaluates a proposal from its Mexican subsidiary to purchase and install cost-saving equipment at a manufacturing facility in Monterrey. The improvements will allow the plant to automate recycling and remanufacturing of toner and printer cartridges, an... View Details

Keywords: Exchange Rates; Securities Analysis; Project Evaluation; International Finance; Debt Securities; Currency Exchange Rate; Cash Flow; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Capital Budgeting; Europe; Mexico

September 2010 (Revised December 2010)
Case

Santander Consumer Finance

By: J. Gunnar Trumbull, Elena Corsi and Andrew Barron

A Spanish company has to decide if they should expand into the fragmented European consumer finance market and has to make important organizational strategy decisions in the midst of the world economic downturn that followed the 2007 U.S. credit crunch. Since 2002, the... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Financial Markets; International Finance; Personal Finance; Consolidation; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Financial Services Industry; European Union; Spain

October 2012
Article

Securitization without Adverse Selection: The Case of CLOs

By: Effi Benmelech, Jennifer Dlugosz and Victoria Ivashina

In this paper, we investigate whether securitization was associated with risky lending in the corporate loan market by examining the performance of individual loans held by CLOs. We employ two different datasets that identify loan holdings for a large set of CLOs and... View Details

Keywords: Personal Finance; Performance; Markets; Banks and Banking; Debt Securities; Investment Portfolio; Financing and Loans

September 2013
Case

United Rentals (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch, Kathleen Durante and Emily McTague

In December 1997 United Rentals (URI) went public on the NYSE. Ten years later, during the peak of the economic meltdown, the company's performance was in decline. United Rentals had experienced its share of problems in the prior years and was still struggling to... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Board Dynamics; Accounting Fraud; Governance; Board Committees; Merger; Corporate Governance; Construction Industry; United States

September 1997 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Bankruptcy and Restructuring at Marvel Entertainment Group

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Jason Auerbach

Marvel Entertainment Group is the leading comic book publisher in the United States, with superheros like Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, and Captain America. It is also one of the leading manufacturers of sports and entertainment trading cards under the... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Decision Choices and Conditions; Borrowing and Debt; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governance Controls; Courts and Trials; Planning; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

2009
Article

Empirical Capital Structure: A Review

By: Christopher Parsons and Sheridan Titman

This survey provides a synthesis of the empirical capital structure literature. Our synthesis is divided into three parts. The first part examines the evidence that relates to the cross-sectional determinants of capital structure. This literature identifies and... View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Corporate Finance