Publications

25 Jan 2010
Research & Ideas

A Macroeconomic View of the Current Economy

there's in fact no alternative to foreigners buying our assets, either debt or equity. As I said, if you're earning $100,000 and you're spending $106,000, you're going to have to borrow or draw down your assets to make up the difference.... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

December 2010 (Revised June 2018)
Case

The Pecora Hearings

By: David Moss, Cole Bolton and Eugene Kintgen

In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, the Senate Banking Committee began a much-publicized investigation of the nation's financial sector. The hearings, which came to be known as the Pecora hearings after the Banking Committee's lead counsel Ferdinand Pecora,... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Fairness; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Institutions; Debt Securities; Stocks; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Government Legislation; History; Financial Services Industry; United States

12 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

Enron’s Lessons for Managers

Some events mark a generation. If a marker is a source of deep learning about ourselves, as Malcolm Salter believes it is, then the Enron crisis is exactly that for business people. Political scientists have the Bay of Pigs; engineers... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

04 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Predictions, Prophets, and Restarting Your Business

hard decisions about returning to the market. Here’s a common prediction: Social distancing forces people to do more buying online and communicating through social media, thus accelerating a permanent, big shift after the crisis to more... View Details

Keywords: by Frank V. Cespedes

20 Jan 2009
Research & Ideas

Risky Business with Structured Finance

In the wake of the financial crisis, many once-esoteric investment terms have become a familiar part of our vocabulary. The role of structured finance securities such as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), for example, and the part... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Banking; Financial Services

28 Jul 2009
Research Event

Business Summit: Real Estate

The crisis may have started with residential real estate but it is also affecting commercial real estate. Asset prices have fallen and are expect to decline further; there are likely to be massive defaults; and View Details

Keywords: Re: Howard H. Stevenson; Construction; Real Estate

11 Feb 2015
Research & Ideas

Politicians Benefited From Using Toxic Loans

Talk of the recent financial crisis often falls into a simplistic narrative of villainous banks, marketing toxic financial products to innocent customers who did not understand their risks. Among the storied victims are municipal... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

June 2013
Article

Are There Too Many Safe Securities? Securitization and the Incentives for Information Production

By: Samuel G. Hanson and Adi Sunderam

We present a model that helps explain several past collapses of securitization markets. Originators issue too many informationally insensitive securities in good times, blunting investor incentives to become informed. The resulting endogenous scarcity of informed... View Details

Keywords: Information; Debt Securities; Financial Crisis

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24 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

Financial Meltdowns Are More Predictable Than We Thought

increased the odds of a crisis to 40 percent." “Previous authors had shown that there was some ability to predict financial crises,” says Hanson, a professor of business administration in the HBS Finance Unit. “But we were surprised by... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Financial Services

20 Nov 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, November 20, 2018

forthcoming Review of Financial Studies Private Equity and Financial Fragility During the Crisis By: Bernstein, Shai, Josh Lerner, and Filippo Mezzanotti Abstract—Do private equity firms contribute to financial fragility during economic... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

September 1998 (Revised December 1998)
Case

Infinity Carpets, Inc.

By: Ronald W. Moore and Thomas R. Piper

A turnaround expert must determine whether a firm in distress is worth more as a going concern than its liquidation value. If so, the finances of the firm must be restructured in a way consistent with the bargaining power of the holders of the various securities. The... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Liquidity; Crisis Management; Value; Apparel and Accessories Industry

13 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 13

capital flows—both debt and equity—into public and private components and study their relationship with productivity growth. This exercise reveals that international capital flows are mainly shaped by government decisions and sovereign to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Lehman Brothers Plus Five: Have We Learned from Our Mistakes?

In September 2008, Lehman Brothers went under—the largest bankruptcy in American history. But that was just the beginning of the story. What followed was the Great Recession, a gargantuan financial crisis that affected the entire world... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Banking; Financial Services; Construction; Real Estate

05 Oct 2010
First Look

First Look: October 5, 2010

and recovery to be associated with increases in orders from Hugo Boss's retailer customers Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-034.pdf A Comparative-Advantage Approach to Government Debt Maturity Authors:Robin... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2010 (Revised March 2011)
Case

The Euro in Crisis: Decision Time at the European Central Bank

By: J. Gunnar Trumbull, Dante Roscini and Diane Choi

This case traces the origins and evolution of the European Central Bank, with attention to its 2010 decision concerning the purchase of Greek sovereign debt. View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Currency; Central Banking; Financial Management; Sovereign Finance; Policy; Crisis Management; Europe; Greece

April 2012
Article

Corporate Ownership Structure and Bank Loan Syndicate Structure

By: Chen Lin, Yue Ma, Paul Malatesta and Yuhai Xuan

Using a novel data set on corporate ownership and control, we show that the divergence between the control rights and cash-flow rights of a borrowing firm's largest ultimate owner has a significant impact on the concentration and composition of the firm's loan... View Details

Keywords: Ownership; Financing and Loans; Cash Flow; Borrowing and Debt; Accounting; Crisis Management; Relationships; Law; Contracts; Banking Industry