Publications

SSRN

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Article

Holdout in the Assembly of Complements: A Problem for Market Design

By: Scott Duke Kominers and E. Glen Weyl

Holdout problems prevent private (voluntary and self-financing) assembly of complementary goods—such as land or dispersed spectrum—from many self-interested sellers. While mechanisms that fully respect sellers' property rights cannot alleviate these holdout problems,... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Market Design; Property

August 2000 (Revised January 2006)
Case

Sears, Roebuck and Co. vs. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

This case is designed to familiarize students with the use of financial ratios. Two retailers, Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., have a very similar value for return on equity (ROE) in the 1997 fiscal year. Students use the information in the case and... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Financial Statements; Retail Industry; United States

November 2003
Article

The Maturity of Debt Issues and Predictable Variation in Bond Returns

By: Malcolm Baker, Robin Greenwood and Jeffrey Wurgler

The maturity of new debt issues predicts excess bond returns. When the share of long-term debt issues in total debt issues is high, future excess bond returns are low. This predictive power comes in two parts. First, inflation, the real short-term rate, and the term... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Bonds; Investment Return; Financial Markets; Forecasting and Prediction

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12 Oct 2017
News

The US and Israel to Quit Unesco

01 Mar 2013
Video

HBS at the Kumbh Mela

The Future of Cities Depends on Innovative Financing

Today’s mega-cities have a footprint problem. They are developing horizontally, not vertically, with vast areas of low sprawl reaching out for miles from Sao... View Details

August 2011 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Boardroom Battle Behind Bars: Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings—A Corporate Governance Drama

By: William C. Kirby and Tracy Yuen Manty

Despite widespread news of the incarceration of Gome Electronics' CEO, Huang Guangyu, Bain Capital felt they carefully undertook due diligence before making a significant investment in the company. The venture capital firm was confident that it and the current... View Details

Keywords: China; Legal Aspects Of Business; Corruption; Risk; Corporate Governance; Crime and Corruption; Power and Influence; Risk Management; Business and Shareholder Relations; Venture Capital; Ethics; Governing and Advisory Boards; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Values and Beliefs; Private Equity; China

October 2022
Exercise

Shanty Real Estate: Confidential Information for Homebuyer 1

By: Michael Luca, Jesse M. Shapiro and Nathan Sun

Shanty is a simulation in which students inhabit the role of either a traditional home buyer or an iBuyer, both bidding on the same condo. The traditional home buyer has access to a “comp sheet” of similar properties that have recently sold, and has done a walkthrough.... View Details

Keywords: Data-driven Decision-making; Decisions; Negotiation; Bids and Bidding; Valuation; Consumer Behavior; Real Estate Industry

August 2009 (Revised September 2009)
Case

Tenova: Mining for Growth in an Economic Crisis

By: Gary P. Pisano, Elena Corsi and Elisa Farri

In December 2008, Gianluigi Nova, CEO of Tenova SpA, a technology and equipment supplier to the metals and mining industry, had to choose between two options. The first was to continue growing in the company's core business: equipment for the steel production. The... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Leadership; Crisis Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Diversification; Industrial Products Industry; Mining Industry

December 2009
Article

Empire-Building or Bridge-Building? Evidence from New CEOs' Internal Capital Allocation Decisions

By: Yuhai Xuan

This article investigates how the job histories of CEOs influence their capital allocation decisions when they preside over multi-divisional firms. I find that, after CEO turnover, divisions not previously affiliated with the new CEO receive significantly more capital... View Details

Keywords: Business Divisions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Capital Budgeting; Financial Management; Managerial Roles; Resource Allocation

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May 1999 (Revised November 2000)
Case

AES Global Values

By: Lynn S. Paine

Members of the development team for the AES Corp.'s power plant project in India must decide what plant technology to specify in their application for techno-economic clearance from the government of India's Central Electric Authority. Their choice is between more... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Energy Generation; Technology Adoption; Energy Industry; India; United States

15 Dec 2016
News

Research: Why Americans Are So Impressed by Busyness

12 Oct 2022
Video

James Mickens: Why All Data Science is Political

Web

Initiatives & Projects - Faculty & Research

Research Initiatives & Projects Throughout the School’s history, a hallmark of HBS faculty research has been its power in practice. Increasingly, this impact extends beyond the management of firms to the large-scale, cross-disciplinary... View Details

13 Nov 2020
News

Global Ambition

helped us be successful, especially in this part of the world,” he says, citing the tight community of HBS and Harvard alumni in Asia as well as the power of the HBS brand to open doors. “HBS is what we have in common,” says Kao, noting... View Details

The Fading Light of Democratic Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 2024)

What are we to do about declining public trust and confidence in democratic capitalism, which many citizens consider a cornerstone of our national ideology and identity? In this short book, I address how we can rekindle the fading light of democratic capitalism as... View Details

2013
Book

Democracy and Its Elected Enemies: American Political Capture and Economic Decline

By: Steven Rosefielde and Daniel Quinn Mills

Democracy and Its Elected Enemies reveals that American politicians have usurped their constitutional authority, substituting their economic and political sovereignty for the people's. This has been accomplished by creating an enormous public service sector... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Government and Politics; Macroeconomics; Public Administration Industry; United States