Publications

Luis M. Viceira is the George E. Bates Professor in the Finance Unit and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research, course development, and teaching focus on the areas of investment management... View Details

Keywords: banking; education industry; financial services; nonprofit industry; retail financial services

2014
Chapter

Promoting Corporate Sustainability through Integrated Reporting: The Role of Investment Fiduciaries and the Responsibilities of the Corporate Board

By: Robert G. Eccles, J. Herron and George Serafeim

This book is a comprehensive reference work exploring recent changes and future trends in the principles that govern institutional investors and fiduciaries. A wide range of contributors offer new perspectives on dynamics that drive the current emphasis on short-term... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Institutional Investing; Financial Services Industry

Find at Harvard

2023
Working Paper

Avoiding Idiosyncratic Volatility: Flow Sensitivity to Individual Stock Returns

By: Marco Di Maggio, Francesco Franzoni, Shimon Kogan and Ran Xing

Despite positive and significant earnings announcement premia, we find that institutional investors reduce their exposure to stocks before earnings announcements. A novel result on the sensitivity of flows to individual stock returns provides a potential explanation.... View Details

Keywords: New Trading; Mutual Funds; Fund Flows; Limits To Arbitrage; Financial Constraints; Earnings Announcements; Institutional Investing; Stocks

SSRN

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February 1994 (Revised September 1995)
Case

Leland O'Brien Rubinstein Associates, Inc.: Portfolio Insurance

By: Peter Tufano

Leland O'Brien Rubinstein Associates, a small financial advisory firm founded in 1980, has created a successful business by selling a product commonly known as portfolio insurance. Portfolio insurance is a trading strategy that institutional investors use to establish... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Insurance; Product; Financial Services Industry

April 2003 (Revised December 2003)
Background Note

Winning the Influence Game: Corporate Diplomacy and Business Strategy

Provides a framework for influencing key outside players--businesses, governments, and NGOs--in support of business strategy. This could mean negotiating contracts with major customers and suppliers, concluding acquisitions and alliances, and securing financing from... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Business Strategy; Power and Influence

31 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

Beyond the 'Business Case' in DEI: 6 Steps Toward Meaningful Change

Williams, a visiting fellow at Harvard Business School’s Institute for the Study of Business in Global Society (BiGS). And perhaps even worse, DEI efforts based on the business case usually fail to address the root causes of inequality.... View Details

Keywords: by Katherine Hutt Scott and Barbara DeLollis

07 Feb 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Which Does More to Determine the Quality of Corporate Governance in Emerging Economies, Firms or Countries?

Keywords: by Andrea Hugill & Jordan Siegel

March 2025
Background Note

Getting to Net Zero: The Role of the Financial Sector

By: Shawn Cole, Jonah Zahnd, Karina Chung and Jack Cenovic

In early 2025, momentum towards the goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 continued in many parts of the world, even as it appeared to face a set-back following the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Financial institutions... View Details

Paul Gompers, Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, specializes in research on financial issues related to start-up, high growth, and newly public companies. Professor Gompers has an appointment in both the View Details

Keywords: electronics; health care; high technology; information technology industry; investment banking industry; pharmaceuticals; semiconductor; venture capital industry

Ramana Nanda

Ramana Nanda is Professor of Entrepreneurial Finance and Academic Lead of the Institute for Deep Tech Entrepreneurship at Imperial College London. His research examines financing frictions facing new ventures, with an aim to help entrepreneurs with fundraising and... View Details

Keywords: banking; biotechnology; energy; financial services; green technology; microfinance; nonprofit industry; venture capital industry

March 2024
Case

Ava DuVernay's Array: Disrupting the Hollywood Film Industry

By: Anita Elberse and Morgan Brewton-Johnson

In February 2023 acclaimed filmmaker Ava DuVernay is filming her latest movie, Origin, a daring adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. With Origin, DuVernay is pioneering a method to finance the endeavor—through a combination of... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Intellectual Property; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Disruption; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

October 2020 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Divesting Harvard's Endowment

By: Daniel Green, Luis M. Viceira and Holly Fetter

By early 2020 Harvard University was facing growing pressure from students, faculty, and alumni to divest its $40 billion endowment of financial stakes in fossil fuel producers. Its previous policy of avoiding the issue was quickly becoming outdated—$21 trillion of... View Details

Keywords: Divestment; Harvard University; ESG; Higher Education; Investment Portfolio; Environmental Sustainability; Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact

Teaching Interest

Information in Financial Markets (Econ 970, Spring 2016)

Second-year undergraduate course covering various aspects of information propagation in financial markets. The course is divided into four units. We begin by covering canonical pricing anomalies that illustrate the importance of information distribution and... View Details

Research Summary

Analyst Disagreement, Forecast Bias and Stock Returns

We present evidence of inefficient information processing in equity markets by documenting that biases in analysts' earnings forecasts are reflected in stock prices. In particular, investors fail to account for analysts' tendency to withhold negative views and to issue... View Details

January 2009 (Revised May 2010)
Case

Altoona State Investment Board: December 2008

By: Josh Lerner

Rod Calhoun, the head of the Altoona State Investment Board's private equity investment program, considered the communication he had just received. It was from Permira, the leading European buyout fund, and concerned its fourth fund, to which Altoona had made a £ 100... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Partners and Partnerships

14 Oct 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The Cost of Capital for Alternative Investments

Keywords: by Jakub W. Jurek & Erik Stafford

Research Summary

Comparative Corporate Governance

Dyck's research identifies the important role that institutions external to the firm play in determining corporate governance abuses, financial sector development, and the success of government policies such as privatization. In recent work Dyck develops an empirical... View Details

June 2015 (Revised May 2017)
Case

LOYAL3: Own What You Love™

By: Luis M. Viceira and Allison M. Ciechanover

This case features San Francisco–based financial technology startup, LOYAL3. Founded in 2008, the company seeks to disrupt the capital markets and democratize access to those markets for retail investors. By the fall of 2014, LOYAL3 had three products. In the first,... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Stocks; Strategic Planning