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    • COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      Cold Call
      A podcast featuring faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.
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      • 05 Jan 2021
      • Cold Call Podcast

      Using Behavioral Science to Improve Well-Being for Social Workers

      For child and family social workers, coping with the hardships of children and parents is part of the job. But that can cause a lot of stress. Is it possible for financially constrained organizations to improve social workers’ well-being using non-cash rewards, recognition, and other strategies from behavioral science? Assistant Professor Ashley Whillans describes the experience of Chief Executive Michael Sanders’ at the UK’s What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care, as he led a research program aimed at improving the morale of social workers in her case, “The What Works Centre: Using Behavioral Science to Improve Social Worker Well-being.”  Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

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      Financial InstrumentsRemove Financial Instruments →

      Page 1 of 26 Results →
      • 24 Nov 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Accounting for Product Impact in the Consumer Finance Industry

      by George Serafeim and Katie Trinh

      A framework and method for measuring and monetizing product impact across industries, applying it to two competitors in the consumer finance space.

      • 29 Jun 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Measuring the Perceived Liquidity of the Corporate Bond Market

      by Sergey Chernenko and Adi Sunderam

      The liquidity of corporate bond markets is crucial to their functioning. This paper proposes a novel measure of bond market liquidity based on portfolio holdings instead of transaction data. The measure can be applied to asset-backed securities, syndicated loans, and municipal securities for which publicly available data on transactions are not available.

      • 26 Jun 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Weak Credit Covenants

      by Victoria Ivashina and Boris Vallée

      Prior to the 2020 pandemic, the leveraged loan market experienced an unprecedented boom, which came hand in hand with significant changes in contracting terms. This study presents large-sample evidence of what constitutes contractual weakness from the creditors’ perspective.

      • 09 Jun 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Aggregate and Firm-Level Stock Returns During Pandemics, in Real Time

      by Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari, Andrew Greenland, and Peter K. Schott

      This paper explains the seemingly conflicting narratives from the stock and labor market about the underlying state of the economy. We show that day-to-day changes in the predictions of standard models of infectious disease forecast changes in aggregate stock returns in pandemics.

      • 27 Apr 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Corporate Leadership and Creditor Recovery Rates: Evidence from Executive Gender

      by Clarissa Hauptmann and Anywhere Sikochi

      This paper examines the relationship between executive gender and creditor recovery rates, showing that creditors to female-run firms have higher recovery rates in the event of default.

      • 19 Nov 2019
      • Op-Ed

      Gender Bias Complaints against Apple Card Signal a Dark Side to Fintech

      by Karen G. Mills

      The possibility that Apple Card applicants were subject to gender bias opens a new frontier for the financial services sector in which regulators are largely absent, argues Karen Mills. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 10 Apr 2019
      • HBS Case

      How Entrepreneurs Can Turn Lead Into Gold

      by Michael Blanding

      Innovative about creating new products, entrepreneurs often lose imagination when it comes to funding their dreams. Andy Wu reveals alternatives beyond friends and family. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 29 Jan 2019
      • Research & Ideas

      'Green Bonds' May Be Our Best Bet for Environmental Damage Control

      by Michael Blanding

      The popularity of green bonds as a way to finance environmentally friendly projects is on the upswing, say Malcolm Baker and George Serafeim. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 15 Jan 2019
      • Working Paper Summaries

      The Creation and Evolution of Entrepreneurial Public Markets

      by Shai Bernstein, Abhishek Dev, and Josh Lerner

      Since 1990, new stock exchanges geared toward fast-growing, entrepreneurial companies have proliferated around the world. This analysis shows that exchanges in countries with better shareholder protection allowed younger and less profitable companies to raise more capital. These markets alone cannot boost entrepreneurial activity but need enabling institutions.

      • 03 Jan 2019
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Financing the Response to Climate Change: The Pricing and Ownership of US Green Bonds

      by Malcolm Baker, Daniel Bergstresser, George Serafeim, and Jeffrey Wurgler

      Green bonds are used for environmentally friendly purposes like renewable energy. Complementing previous research, this paper explores the US corporate and municipal green bond and shows that a subset of investors is willing to give up some return to hold green bonds.

      • 04 Sep 2018
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Investing Outside the Box: Evidence from Alternative Vehicles in Private Capital

      by Josh Lerner, Jason Mao, Antoinette Schoar, and Nan R. Zhang

      Private equity vehicles that differ from the traditional structure have become a major portion of investors’ portfolios, especially over the past decade. This study identifies differences in performance across limited and general partners participating in such vehicles, as well as across the two broad classes of alternative vehicles.

      • 26 Jun 2018
      • Working Paper Summaries

      The Impact of Pensions and Insurance on Global Yield Curves

      by Robin Greenwood and Annette Vissing-Jorgensen

      The global financial crisis and its aftermath had a dramatic impact on the solvency of pension funds and insurance companies. Drawing on a large cross-section of countries, this paper shows the importance of pension and insurance companies in determining the yields on long maturity bonds around the world.

      • 14 Jun 2018
      • Cold Call Podcast

      How Chase Sapphire Made Credit Cool for Millennials

      Re: Shelle M. Santana

      The Chase Sapphire Reserve card was one of the hottest product launches in 2016. But what would be its next act, now that the introductory offer of 100,000 points was reduced? Shelle Santana discusses JP Morgan's strategy. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 11 Jan 2018
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Brokers and Order Flow Leakage: Evidence from Fire Sales

      by Andrea Barbon, Marco Di Maggio, Francesco Franzoni, and Augustin Landier

      This study finds that brokers tend to reveal the occurrence of a fire sale to their best clients, allowing them to generate significant profits by predating on the liquidating fund. Such information leakage comes at the expense of higher price impact, and leads to a more costly liquidation for the fire sale originator.

      • 31 Oct 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Mutual Funds as Venture Capitalists? Evidence from Unicorns

      by Sergey Chernenko, Josh Lerner, and Yao Zeng

      Larger mutual funds and those having more stable funding are more likely to invest in privately held startups known as unicorns. Mutual funds are less involved in corporate governance, especially boards of directors, but have more protections when it comes to liquidating their stakes.

      • 15 Sep 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation

      by Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

      This study examines how reserve accumulation affects governments’ decisions to default. The analysis assumes that countries can accumulate reserves and borrow internationally using their own currency. Results suggest that the optimal level of international reserves is fairly large because their cost is mitigated by valuation-smoothing gains. The model matches some features of Brazil’s economic fluctuations.

      • 31 May 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Stock Price Synchronicity and Material Sustainability Information

      by Jody Grewal, Clarissa Hauptmann, and George Serafeim

      This paper seeks to understand and provide evidence on the characteristics of emerging accounting standards for sustainability information. Given that a large number of institutional investors seek sustainability data and have committed to using it, it is increasingly important to develop a robust accounting infrastructure for the reporting of such information.

      • 12 May 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Equality and Equity in Compensation

      by Jiayi Bao and Andy Wu

      Why do some firms such as technology startups offer the same equity compensation packages to all new employees despite very different cash salaries? This paper presents evidence that workers dislike inequality in equity compensation more than salary compensation because of the perceived scarcity of equity.

      • 20 Mar 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Bubbles for Fama

      by Robin Greenwood, Andrei Shleifer, and Yang You

      Nobel laureate Eugene F. Fama has famously claimed that there is no such thing as a bubble, which he defines as a large price run-up that predictably crashes. Analyzing industry data for the US and internationally, the authors find that Fama is mostly right that a sharp price increase of an industry portfolio does not, on average, predict unusually low returns going forward. Yet the authors show that there is much more to a bubble than merely increases in prices; they show a number of characteristics that predict an end to the bubble.

      • 07 Feb 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Rainy Day Stocks

      by Niels Gormsen and Robin Greenwood

      Niels Gormsen and Robin Greenwood identify characteristics of stocks that an investor who is worried about bad times should buy— a “rainy day” portfolio. They also propose a simple methodology that places greater weight on performance achieved during bad times than performance achieved during good times, essentially evaluating returns under a risk-neutral probability measure.

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