Publications

08 Apr 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Multinational Strategies and Developing Countries in Historical Perspective

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

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Business, Government & the International Economy - Faculty & Research

for Geopolitical Risk Management By: Meg Rithmire and David Fagan 2025 | Report | Faculty Research This report provides a data-based assessment of how U.S. companies perceive geopolitical risk and... View Details

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Help - Alumni

to online accounts. It requires users verify their identity before allowing the login process to complete. This helps reduce risk when an account username/password is compromised. When would I need to use Two-Step Verification? Two-step... View Details

October 2021 (Revised November 2021)
Case

Bodega Aurrera: eCommerce at the Base of the Pyramid

By: Michael Chu, Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui, Carla Larangeira and Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago

Bodega Aurrera, serving the base of the pyramid and Walmart’s main Mexican format, is considering launching a full eCommerce channel as Covid-19 has erupted in the country. In 2019, Bodega Aurrera accounted for 45% of revenues and 2,748 of Walmex’s 3,416 stores. Having... View Details

Keywords: Ecommerce; Bottom Of The Pyramid; Digitalization; Omnichannel; Walmart; Business Model; Internet and the Web; Marketing Channels; Technology Adoption; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Latin America; Mexico

Article

Policies to Influence Perceptions about COVID-19 Risk: The Case of Maps

By: Claudia Engel, Jonathan Rodden and Marco Tabellini

Choropleth disease maps have become an important tool for informing the public about the risks posed by COVID-19. In a survey conducted in the U.S. state of Georgia in June 2020, we randomly assigned respondents to view either of two maps. The first one reported... View Details

Keywords: Disease Surveillance; Health Pandemics; Risk and Uncertainty; Perception; Policy

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2024
Article

Supply and Demand and the Term Structure of Interest Rates

By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel Hanson and Dimitri Vayanos

We survey the growing literature emphasizing the role that supply-and-demand forces play in shaping the term structure of interest rates. Our starting point is the Vayanos and Vila (2009, 2021) model of the term structure of default-free bond yields, which we present... View Details

Keywords: Demand and Consumers; Interest Rates; Bonds; Financial Markets

March 1986 (Revised July 1986)
Case

Applications for Financial Futures

Consists of a series of four brief descriptions of the use of financial futures as hedging vehicles: a savings and loan hedging the rollover of three-month money market certificates with T-bill futures, a corporate debt issuer hedging the cost of a future debt issue... View Details

Keywords: Financial Instruments

January 2023
Case

The END Fund: To Eliminate Neglected Tropical Diseases

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Courtney Han

Founded in 2012, the END fund focused on eliminating five Neglected Tropical Diseases that accounted for 80% of the tropical diseases affecting nearly 1.5 billion people worldwide. Its roughly $25 million/year annual budget was fully committed when it got news that the... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Resource Allocation; Global Range; Decisions; Investment Funds

2024
Working Paper

The Retail Habitat

By: Toomas Laarits and Marco Sammon

Retail investors trade hard-to-value stocks. Controlling for size, stocks with a high share of retail-initiated trades are composed of more intangible capital, have longer duration cash-flows and a higher likelihood of being mispriced. Consistent with retail-heavy... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Retail Trade; Intangible Capital; Mispricing; Investment; Valuation; Business Earnings

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September–October 2022
Article

Should Your Company Sell on Amazon?: Reach Comes at a Price

By: Ayelet Israeli, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Matt Higgins and Sabir Semerkant

Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers—but that exposure comes with costs. They include smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditization, and less knowledge about customers. In this article, the authors present a scorecard to... View Details

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December 2020
Supplement

France Télécom (B): A Wave of Staff Suicides

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery and Ashley V. Whillans

In the B case we learn that at least 19 France Telecom employees took their own lives between 2006 and 2009, 12 others attempted suicide, and eight suffered from serious depression for reasons reportedly related to work. Some of these deaths occurred in public places,... View Details

March 2021
Supplement

Making Impact Investing Markets: IFC (B)

By: Shawn A. Cole, John Masko and T. Robert Zochowski

In 2018, Thailand’s Bank of Ayudhya (known as Krungsri), was considering whether to participate in the first issue of a new financial instrument from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), known as a gender bond. Building on the success of the Green Bond program... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investment; Development Economics; Developing Countries and Economies; Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Equity; Bonds; Financing and Loans; Growth and Development; Emerging Markets; Non-Governmental Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Financial Instruments; Gender; Financial Services Industry; Thailand

05 Sep 2023
Book

Thriving After Failing: How to Turn Your Setbacks Into Triumphs

Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson experienced her first big-stakes professional failure when she was just starting out in her academic career, some 30 years ago, after a decade working in engineering and consulting. Little did she know at the time, but... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

09 May 2021
Blog Post

Meet the MoMBAs – Persisting Through a Difficult Year

similarly nuanced effect on Americans. For mothers, particularly student mothers, COVID-19 has brought about a host of new challenges, including childcare, isolation, a million decisions on risk tolerance, and increased burdens. It also... View Details

November 1997 (Revised May 2002)
Case

MicroAge, Inc.: Orchestrating the Information Technology Value Chain

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Kirk A. Goldman

MicroAge, Inc. started as a storefront in Tempe, AZ in 1976 selling personal computer kits to hobbyists. During their first year of operation, founders Jeff McKeever and Alan Hald sold $1.5 million worth of computer kits, priced at under $1,000 each. Twenty years... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Growth Management; Risk Management; Product; Opportunities; Horizontal Integration; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Technology Industry; Arizona

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August 2018
Case

BlackBuck (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

The case presents the challenges of scaling an asset-heavy company (that relies on its operations). It highlights how decisions on the early team impact a company’s ability to scale, linkage between growth and cash flows, as well the organizational impact of high... View Details

Keywords: Founders; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Delivery; Cash Flow; Growth Management; Truck Transportation; Online Technology; India

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Courses - Entrepreneurship

under conditions of profound uncertainty and do so while balancing great risks against potentially attractive rewards. Moreover, they operate without the benefit of well-defined processes for making such choices and with few resources. As... View Details

04 Mar 2009
Op-Ed

Credit is Not the Bogey

with a balance that they never pay off. For low-wage workers, credit has been the lifesaving crutch. So as we attempt to jump-start the economy of 2009, we should recognize both the risks and the advantages inherent in a robust credit... View Details

Keywords: by Nicolas P. Retsinas & Eric S. Belsky; Construction; Real Estate; Financial Services

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