Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,713)
- Faculty Publications (510)
- January 2018 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
Capital Allocation at HCA
By: W. Carl Kester and Emily R. McComb
In early 2017, HCA Holdings, an investor-owned hospital management company, faced a strategically important capital allocation decision. After the exit of its private equity sponsors in 2016, HCA had to determine how best to allocate its substantial annual free cash... View Details
Keywords: Capital Allocation; Cash Distribution Policy; Dividends; Share Repurchases; Growth Strategy And Execution; Growth Investing; Capital Expenditures; Debt Management; Debt Reduction; Debt Policy; Hospital Management; Investor-owned Hospital Chains; Capital Budgeting; Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Corporate Finance; Decision Choices and Conditions; Health Industry; United States
- November 2017
- Teaching Note
Generating Higher Value at IBM (A) and (B)
By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield
Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 215-058 and 215-059. View Details
- September 2017
- Article
The Real Effects of Capital Controls: Firm-Level Evidence from a Policy Experiment
By: Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari and Fabio Kanczuk
Emerging-market governments adopted capital control taxes to manage the massive surge in foreign capital inflows in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Theory suggests that the imposition of capital controls can drive up the cost of capital and curb... View Details
- July 2017 (Revised September 2017)
- Case
GM's Capital Allocation Framework
By: C. Fritz Foley, F. Katelynn Boland and Michael Lemm
In March of 2015, General Motors announced the details of a newly established capital allocation framework. This framework provided a target for return on invested capital, guidelines for capital structure choices, and policies related to payouts. Senior managers face... View Details
- July 2017 (Revised November 2017)
- Case
Media Markets Down South: Goldman Sachs' Investment in Grupo Clarín
By: Rafael Di Tella, Jose Liberti and Sarah McAra
Founded in 1945, Grupo Clarín expanded over several decades to become Argentina’s largest media conglomerate. With leading positions in newspapers, broadcast television, broadcast radio, cable television, and Internet services, Grupo Clarín caught the attention of... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
The Role of Taxes in the Disconnect Between Corporate Performance and Economic Growth
By: Urooj Khan, Suresh Nallareddy and Ethan Rouen
We investigate the relation between the growth in corporate profits and the overall U.S. economy, focusing on the impact of the U.S. corporate tax regime on this relation. We document that the growth of corporate profits, on average, has outpaced the growth of the... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Opportunistic Returns and Dynamic Pricing: Empirical Evidence from Online Retailing in Emerging Markets
By: Chaithanya Bandi, Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and Zhiji Xu
We investigate how dynamic pricing can lead to higher operational costs through more product returns in the online retail industry. Dynamic pricing has been widely applied by many online retailers. Research has shown that, in response to dynamic pricing, some customers... View Details
- April 2017 (Revised March 2024)
- Case
Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu
Through the challenges facing Target, the case examines ways in which corporations can become involved in political and legislative debates and processes, ranging from campaign contributions to lobbying to political activism. In 2016, Target CEO Brian Cornell must... View Details
Keywords: Boycott; Corporate Political Activity; Lobbying; LGBTQ; Campaign Contributions; Campaign Finance; Retail; Shareholder Activism; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Problems and Challenges; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Media; Political Elections; Taxation; Corporate Accountability; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Diversity; Customers; Communication; Business and Government Relations; Retail Industry; United States
- March 2017
- Supplement
Microfinance in India 2010-2016: Crisis and Recovery
By: Shawn Cole, Vikram Gandhi, Caitlin Reimers and Yannick Saleman
SKS, India's leading microfinance firm, is challenged when politicians declaim microfinance as exploitation of the poor and severely restrict business practices. View Details
- 2016
- Article
The Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet as a Financial-Stability Tool
By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel Gregory Hanson and Jeremy C. Stein
We argue that the Federal Reserve should use its balance sheet to help reduce a key threat to financial stability: the tendency for private-sector financial intermediaries to engage in excessive amounts of maturity transformation—i.e., to finance risky assets using... View Details
- January 2017 (Revised January 2019)
- Case
The Rise and Fall of Lehman Brothers
By: Stuart C. Gilson, Kristin Mugford and Sarah L. Abbott
With nearly $700 billion in assets, Lehman was the largest U.S. bankruptcy in history. In 2007, Lehman achieved record earnings of over $4 billion on revenues of $60 billion. By September 2008 the fourth largest investment bank in the world was bankrupt. How had a... View Details
Keywords: Bankruptcy; Financial Distress; Accounting Policies; Business Ethics; Financial Reporting; Volatility; Judgments; Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financial Liquidity; Investment Banking; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Disclosure; Corporate Governance; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Failure; Business and Government Relations; Ethics; Banking Industry; New York (city, NY)
- December 2016 (Revised December 2018)
- Case
From Start-Up to Grown-Up Nation: The Future of the Israeli Innovation Ecosystem
By: Elie Ofek and Margot Eiran
In June 2016, Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, wrestled with how to sustain Israel’s strong innovation track record and the country’s reputation as the “startup nation.” Despite the economic miracle the country had wrought since its founding, he... View Details
Keywords: Israel; Israeli Start-up Nation; Innovation Economy; Entrepreneurial Mindset; Scaling-up; Unicorns; Innovation Clusters; High-tech; Innovation Management; Multinational Corporation R＆D Centers; Social Equality; Two-tier Economy; Liberalizing An Economy; Foreign Investment; Military Service; Quality Of Human Capital; Socioeconomic Gaps; Labor Force Participation; Government Initiatives; Innovation and Management; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Government and Politics; Economy; Equality and Inequality; Education; Resource Allocation; Globalization; Israel
- December 2016
- Article
Selective Regulator Decoupling and Organizations' Strategic Responses
By: Jonas Heese, Ranjani Krishnan and Frank Moers
Organizations often respond to institutional pressures by symbolically adopting policies and procedures but decoupling them from actual practice. Literature has examined why organizations decouple from regulatory pressures. In this study, we argue that decoupling... View Details
- Article
Undermining Value-Based Purchasing — Lessons from the Pharmaceutical Industry
By: Leemore S. Dafny, Christopher Ody and Matt Schmitt
The analogy between value-based purchasing in pharmaceuticals and the new frontier of alternative payment models for health care providers is relatively straightforward. Insurers are increasingly demanding steep discounts from providers in exchange for inclusion in... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised September 2016)
- Case
The Tavistock Group and the Australian Agricultural Company
By: Dante Roscini and Matthew Preble
In late 2015, Dr. Shehan Dissanayake, a managing director and board member of Bahamian investment firm The Tavistock Group (Tavistock), the largest shareholder in the Australian Agricultural Company (AACo), one of the country's largest agribusinesses, faces a... View Details
- July 2016
- Article
Do Prices Determine Vertical Integration?
By: Laura Alfaro, Paola Conconi, Harald Fadinger and Andrew F. Newman
What is the relationship between product prices and vertical integration? While the literature has focused on how integration affects prices, this paper provides evidence that prices can affect integration. Many theories in organizational economics and industrial... View Details
- July–August 2016
- Article
Minimum Advertised Pricing: Patterns of Violation in Competitive Retail Markets
By: Ayelet Israeli, Eric Anderson and Anne Coughlan
Manufacturers in many industries frequently use vertical price policies, such as minimum advertised price (MAP), to influence prices set by downstream retailers. Although manufacturers expect retail partners to comply with MAP policies, violations of MAP are common in... View Details
- June 2016 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
FANUC Corporation: Reassessing the Firm's Governance and Financial Policies
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno
In February 2015, Daniel Loeb (a U.S.–based activist investor) announced his firm had a large investment in FANUC Corporation, a leading producer of industrial robots and software for machine tools. Loeb was demanding that the Japanese firm change its financial and... View Details
Keywords: Hedge Funds; Economic Policy; Investments; Government Policy; Deregulation; Financial Management; Valuation; Investment Funds; Policy; Corporate Governance; Macroeconomics; Investment Activism; Change Management; Financial Strategy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan; United States
- June 2016
- Supplement
FANUC Corporation: Reassessing the Firm's Governance and Financial Policies Spreadsheet Supplement
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Akiko Kanno
In February 2015, Daniel Loeb (a US-based activist investor) announced his firm had a large investment in FANUC Corporation, a leading producer of industrial robots and software for machine tools. Loeb was demanding that the Japanese firm change its financial and... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Fiscal Rules and Sovereign Default
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
Recurrent concerns over debt sustainability in emerging and developed nations have prompted renewed debate on the role of fiscal rules. Their optimality, however, remains unclear. We provide a quantitative analysis of fiscal rules in a standard model of sovereign debt... View Details