Publications

January 2010 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Aubrey McClendon's Special Incentive Compensation at Chesapeake Energy (A)

By: Paul Healy, Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia

Aubrey McClendon, founder and CEO of Chesapeake Energy, was, according to Fortune Magazine, the highest paid U.S. CEO in 2008 receiving over $100 million in total compensation. McClendon received this compensation despite a significant drop in the company's stock price... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Financial Reporting; Price; Stock Options; Valuation; Joint Ventures; Business Growth and Maturation; Economic Growth; Growth and Development Strategy; Change Management; Energy Industry; United States

December 2010
Compilation

VCPE Strategy Vignettes II

By: Josh Lerner, G. Felda Hardymon, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Ann Leamon and Lisa Strope

These three vignettes present various issues around the strategy and management of venture capital and private equity firms. In one, a senior partner must decide how to manage an over-extended colleague and how to reduce the risk of the firm's portfolio; the second... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Private Equity; Cost vs Benefits; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Investment Portfolio; Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Risk Management; Stocks; Problems and Challenges; United States

12 Apr 2023
News

Step Change

2018, implementation has been slow. Dawi aims to meet primary care needs for Egypt's highly fragmented middle market. When Habib started fundraising seriously, Enan urged her to reach out to the EAEF. "Amal was really instrumental in... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; entrepreneurship; women; venture capital; Egypt; developing economies; Finance

24 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 24

Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard. Using matching methods, panel data, and instrumental variables, we find that government procurement rules produce spillover effects that stimulate both... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Nov 2011
First Look

First Look: November 15

and third-party content (complements or substitutes). As a result, first-party content is a strategic instrument that plays a dual role. On the one hand, it enables platforms facing unfavorable expectations to compensate for their... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2001 (Revised November 2001)
Case

Merrill Lynch HOLDRS

By: Andre F. Perold and Simon E. Brown

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and HOLDRS (Holding Company Depositary Receipts) represent recent and highly successful capital market innovations. HOLDRS closely approximates a buy-and-hold strategy, and Merrill Lynch believes the product has significantly lower taxes... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Cost; Stocks; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Taxation; Innovation and Invention; Product; Success; Expansion

22 Apr 2014
First Look

First Look: April 22

decision-making is limited. Exploiting exogenous variation in state compulsory schooling laws in both standard and two-sample instrumental variable strategies, we show education increases financial market participation, measured by... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

07 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: Sept. 7

Abstract Using a sample of U.S. financial institutions, we exploit recent mandatory disclosures of financial instruments designated as fair value level 1, 2, and 3 to test whether greater information risk in financial View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2025
Supplement

Negotiating a Legacy at Sustainable Harvest (B)

By: Jillian Jordan, Julian Zlatev, Alicia Dadlani and Martha Hostetter

The specialty coffee importer Sustainable Harvest was the first certified B Corp in the coffee industry due to its investments in building coffee farmers’ capacity and livelihood. But in 2022, after coffee prices plummeted and the company’s bank declined to extend its... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Trust; Ethics; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Volatility; Futures and Commodity Futures; Social Enterprise; Valuation; Business Model; Credit; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Europe

September 2024
Case

InfraCredit and the Project Inception Facility

By: John Macomber, Namrata Arora and Maagatha Kalavadakken

Around the world, large infrastructure projects are frequently stymied by the high cost and high uncertainty of the project inception phase: the research and engineering and planning prior to financial close and start of construction. Could there be a new kind of... View Details

November 2003 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Dow Chemical's Bid for the Privatization of PBB in Argentina

By: Mihir A. Desai and Alexandra de Royere

What price should Dow Chemical bid for PBB, a petrochemical complex that is being privatized by the Argentine government? To answer this question, students are forced to consider the role of country risk, the underlying currency exposure of the business, and how to... View Details

Keywords: Bids and Bidding; Privatization; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Cash Flow; Emerging Markets; Valuation; Business and Government Relations; Multinational Firms and Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Energy Industry; Argentina

26 Jul 2006
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way to Go to Market

"What should I do? I sell to Wal-Mart" question. The book provides strategic guidelines, but now I am working on developing an instrument to calibrate power, trust, and transparency issues so that we can bring the strategic... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

14 Aug 2007
First Look

First Look: August 14, 2007

facilitates the design of new instruments and contracts to control or transfer sovereign risk. Business Methods Patents as Real Options: Value and Disclosure as Drivers of Litigation. Authors:Atul Nerkar, Srikanth Paruchuri, and Mukti... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

12 Sep 2005
Research & Ideas

The Broadband Explosion: Thinking About a Truly Interactive World

lines creating this kind of technology. As you probably know, Jeremy was instrumental in creating Macromedia's Flash technology, so he really knows what he's talking about. This is the "rich media" component of our argument. You... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant; Technology; Communications; Telecommunications

Article

Marketing Complex Financial Products in Emerging Markets: Evidence from Rainfall Insurance in India

By: Sarthak Gaurav, Shawn A. Cole and Jeremy Tobacman

Recent financial liberalization in emerging economies has led to the rapid introduction of new financial products. Lack of experience with financial products, low levels of education, and low financial literacy may slow adoption of these products. This article reports... View Details

Keywords: Literacy; Insurance; Marketing; Decisions; Demand and Consumers; Financial Instruments; Emerging Markets; Education; Personal Finance; Agribusiness; Developing Countries and Economies; Innovation and Invention; Gujarat

Find at Harvard

September 2006 (Revised January 2008)
Case

Providian Financial Corporation

By: John R. Wells

On October 3, 2005, Washington Mutual acquired Providian Financial Corporation, the ninth-largest credit card issuer in the U.S., for $6.5 billion. At the time, Providian had approximately 10 million customer relationships and a balance of $18.6 billion. For some... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Restructuring; Customer Relationship Management; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Credit Cards; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Services Industry; United States

June 2025
Case

TfL Pension Fund and the 2022 Gilt Market Crisis

By: Emil N. Siriwardane, Vincent Dessain, Emer Moloney and Carlota Moniz

On September 27, 2022, Padmesh Shukla, CIO of the Transport for London (TfL) Pension Fund, was keeping a careful eye on the turmoil in the U.K. sovereign bond (or gilt) market. When the new government announced the largest tax cuts the U.K. had seen in half a century,... View Details