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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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      Financing and LoansRemove Financing and Loans →

      Page 1 of 18 Results
      • 25 Oct 2020
      • Research & Ideas

      The Dark Side of Fintech Borrowing

      by Rachel Layne

      Fintechs have revolutionized the banking industry, but some customers end up worse for the experience, according to research by Marco Di Maggio and colleagues. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 19 Oct 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Bankruptcy and the COVID-19 Crisis

      by Jialan Wang, Jeyul Yang, Benjamin Iverson, and Ray Kluender

      Analyzing the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on bankruptcy filing rates in the United States, this study finds that large businesses, small businesses, and consumers experience very different effects of the crisis.

      • 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.

      • 08 Jun 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Loan Types and the Bank Lending Channel

      by Victoria Ivashina, Luc Laeven, and Enrique Moral-Benito

      Practitioners commonly refer to four distinct loan types: asset-based loans, cash flow loans, trade financing, and leasing. It is important to account for these differences in loan type in order to analyze the economic significance of credit market disruptions.

      • 11 May 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Targeting High Ability Entrepreneurs Using Community Information: Mechanism Design in the Field

      by Reshmaan Hussam, Natalia Rigol, and Benjamin N. Roth

      Based on a field experiment involving 1,345 microentrepreneurs in India, this study provides insight into the depth and breadth of social knowledge contained in rural and peri-urban social networks. Harnessing community information directly from a microentrepreneur’s peers helps to identify high-growth microentrepreneurs and predict their returns to capital.

      • 23 Apr 2020
      • Research & Ideas

      This Crisis Loan Program Preserved Jobs—and Made Money

      by Rachel Layne

      Following the 2008 financial crisis, France offered a business loan program that helped firms, employees, and even the government, says Boris Vallee. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 14 Apr 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Contractual Restrictions and Debt Traps

      by Ernest Liu and Benjamin N. Roth

      Microfinance has failed to catalyze entrepreneurship in developing countries, despite abundant evidence of high return on investment opportunities. What can account for this? This study presents a theory in which firms that borrow from an informal lender may see their growth stalled and remain in the relationship indefinitely, even though they would have continued to grow in the absence of a lender.

      • 13 Apr 2020
      • Research & Ideas

      Small Businesses Are Worse Off Than We Thought

      by Kristen Senz

      A survey of small-business owners shows that lack of liquidity and skepticism of government programs are compounding COVID crisis recovery efforts. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 24 Mar 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Free Riding in Loan Approvals: Evidence From SME Lending in Peru

      by Irani Arraiz, Miriam Bruhn, Benjamin N. Roth, Claudia Ruiz-Ortega, and Rodolfo Stucchi

      Using data from a large Peruvian bank trying to expand credit access to small and medium enterprises, this study shows that competing lenders use one another’s loan approvals as an input into their own approval process. Such “free riding” has great impact on market outcomes and might warrant policy intervention.

      • 03 Apr 2019
      • Book

      Fintech's Game-Changing Opportunities for Small Business

      by Martha Lagace

      In the new book Fintech, Small Business, & the American Dream, Karen Mills describes how technology is opening up new capital for entrepreneurs. Around the corner: The transformative benefits of AI and big data. 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.

      • 20 Dec 2018
      • Cold Call Podcast

      Using Fintech to Disrupt Eastern Bank from Within

      Re: Karen Mills

      When Eastern Bank decided to battle a threat from new competitors, it hired a fintech executive to set up Eastern Labs and start innovating. Karen Mills discusses her case study on what happened next. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 12 Oct 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      The Decline of Big-Bank Lending to Small Business: Dynamic Impacts on Local Credit and Labor Markets

      by Brian S. Chen, Samuel G. Hanson, and Jeremy C. Stein

      Between 2008 and 2014, the Top 4 banks sharply decreased their lending to small business. This paper examines the lasting economic consequences of this contraction, finding that a credit supply shock from a subset of lenders can have surprisingly long-lived effects on real activity.

      • 26 Jun 2017
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Inventory Management for Mobile Money Agents in the Developing World

      by Karthik Balasubramanian, David F. Drake, and Douglas Fearing

      Mobile money agents in the developing world face a key inventory management challenge: How much cash and e-float should be held to minimize both stockouts and excess working capital? The authors develop two inventory models and show substantial inventory cost reduction with a large dataset of East African mobile money transactions.

      • 22 Dec 2016
      • Op-Ed

      The Small Business Administration is a Model for How to Drive Economic Growth

      by Karen Mills

      Responding to a recent editorial in the Washington Post, Karen Mills argues that the Small Business Administration is an effective public-private partnership model that fuels economic growth, access, and opportunity for all Americans. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 15 Jun 2016
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Slack Time and Innovation

      by Ajay Agrawal, Christian Catalini, Avi Goldfarb, and Hong Luo

      This study combines data about projects posted on Kickstarter with the timing of school breaks of top US colleges to find that slack time can lead to an increase in creative projects, particularly those that are relatively complex and high quality. Managers in corporations that emphasize innovation should consider providing their employees with coordinated slack time particularly to advance development of novel ideas.

      • 13 Aug 2012
      • Research & Ideas

      When Good Incentives Lead to Bad Decisions

      by Carmen Nobel

      New research by Associate Professor Shawn A. Cole, Martin Kanz, and Leora Klapper explores how various compensation incentives affect lending decisions among bank loan officers. They find that incentives have the power to change not only how we make decisions, but how we perceive reality. Closed for comment; 10 Comment(s) posted.

      • 04 Apr 2012
      • Research & Ideas

      When Founders Recruit Friends and Family as Investors

      by Noam Wasserman

      In his new book, The Founder's Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup, HBS Associate Professor Noam Wasserman tells readers how to anticipate, avoid, and, if necessary, recover from the landmines that can destroy a nascent company before it has the chance to thrive. In this excerpt, he discusses the pros and cons of recruiting friends and family members as investors. Open for comment; 7 Comment(s) posted.

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