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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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      • 19 Jan 2021
      • Cold Call Podcast

      Engaging Community to Create Proactive, Equitable Public Safety

      Saint Paul, Minnesota Mayor Melvin Carter swept into office in 2018 promising equity. He wanted a new public safety framework that would be rooted in community. Then, with the COVID-19 pandemic wiping out much of the city’s budget and the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by a police officer in neighboring Minneapolis sparking calls to defund the police, how would Mayor Carter make these changes happen? Professor Mitch Weiss discusses the challenges and rewards of “possibility government” in his case, "Community-First Public Safety."  Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

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      InvestmentRemove Investment →

      Page 1 of 65 Results →
      • 13 Oct 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Fencing Off Silicon Valley: Cross-Border Venture Capital and Technology Spillovers

      by Ufuk Akcigit, Sina T. Ates, Josh Lerner, Richard Townsend, and Yulia Zhestkova

      This study of foreign corporate investment transactions from 32 countries between 1976 and 2015 finds these investments pose a trade-off: While they support young firms in pursuing innovations they could not otherwise afford, they also generate knowledge for the foreign investors.

      • 20 Aug 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Best Ideas

      by Miguel Antón, Randolph B. Cohen, and Christopher Polk

      The “best ideas” in investment managers’ portfolios generate statistically and economically significant risk-adjusted returns over time, and they systematically outperform other positions in the portfolios. Investors can gain substantially if managers choose less-diversified portfolios that tilt more towards their best ideas.

      • 12 Aug 2020
      • Research & Ideas

      Why Investors Often Lose When They Sue Their Financial Adviser

      by Danielle Kost

      Forty percent of American investors rely on financial advisers, but the COVID-19 market rollercoaster may have highlighted a weakness when disputes arise. The system favors the financial industry, says Mark Egan. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 29 Jul 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Two Case Studies on the Financing of Forest Conservation

      by Andrew Baxter, Connor Cash, Josh Lerner, and Ratnika Prasad

      Case studies about The Conservation Fund and Sonen Capital highlight three broad lessons about fresh approaches to the ownership and management of forestland.

      • 07 Jul 2020
      • Research & Ideas

      Market Investors Pay More for Resilient Companies

      by Kristen Senz

      During a market collapse, investors will pay up for companies considered resilient in their response, according to George Serafeim. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 12 Jun 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Corporate Resilience and Response During COVID-19

      by Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim, and Hui (Stacie) Wang

      Investors look for evidence during a market crisis that a company is resilient. This study includes findings that challenge the notion that companies need to adopt practices that hurt their employees because investors want them to do so.

      • 05 Jun 2020
      • Research & Ideas

      How Anchor Investors Help Impact Funds Succeed

      by Sean Silverthorne

      3Questions A startup fund's ability to attract a major first investor is a signal to others that the investment pool is just fine for entering. Shawn Cole and Rob Zochowski answer questions about anchor investors. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 09 Apr 2020
      • Research & Ideas

      How Social Entrepreneurs Can Increase Their Investment Impact

      by Rachel Layne

      Grants or investments? Philanthropic organizations have multiple funding tools available, but choosing the wrong one can dilute the benefits, according to research by Benjamin N. Roth. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 09 Mar 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Impact Investing: A Theory of Financing Social Entrepreneurship

      by Benjamin N. Roth

      The author provides a formal definition of organizational sustainability and characterizes the situations in which a social enterprise should be sustainable. The analysis then delineates when an investment in a social enterprise delivers superior impact to a grant.

      • 18 Feb 2020
      • Working Paper Summaries

      A Preliminary Framework for Product Impact-Weighted Accounts

      by George Serafeim, Katie Trinh, and Robert Zochowski

      Although there is growing interest in environmental, social, and governance measurement, the impact of company operations is emphasized over product use. A framework like this one that captures a product’s reach, accessibility, quality, optionality, environmental use emissions, and end of life recyclability allows for a systematic methodology that can be applied to companies across many industries.

      • 03 Dec 2019
      • Cold Call Podcast

      Why CalSTRS Chooses to Engage with the Gun Industry

      Should large institutional investors divest or engage if they have an issue with a company? In a recent case study, Vikram Gandhi discusses how CalSTRS, the $200 billion pension plan for California public school teachers, chose to engage with gun makers and retailers. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 13 Nov 2019
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Shareholder Activism and Firms’ Voluntary Disclosure of Climate Change Risks

      by Caroline Flammer, Michael W. Toffel, and Kala Viswanathan

      Shareholder resolutions typically fail, and often by a wide margin. So why do active investors bother? It turns out that resolutions nonetheless can influence corporate transparency. Specifically, after being targeted with shareholder resolutions on environmental topics, this research shows that companies are more likely to publicly disclose their climate change risks—and that such disclosure increases these companies’ valuation.

      • 23 Oct 2019
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Decarbonization Factors

      by Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim, David Turkington, and Hui (Stacie) Wang

      This paper contributes to a growing knowledge base about how climate change impacts investor expectations, capital allocations and thereby pricing and returns. It provides actionable insights into how to decarbonize portfolios and evaluate the likely performance and carbon exposure differences across strategies.

      • 20 Aug 2019
      • Cold Call Podcast

      Should a Pension Fund Try to Change the World?

      Re: Rebecca M. HendersonRe: George Serafeim

      Can inclusivity, sustainability, and better governance boost economies? Rebecca Henderson and George Serafeim discuss the impact investing efforts of GPIF, Japan’s government pension fund. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 10 Jun 2019
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Going Digital: Implications for Firm Value and Performance

      by Wilbur Chen and Suraj Srinivasan

      More and more nontechnology companies are adopting digital technologies like AI, data analytics, and machine learning. This study of the economic performance of nontech firms adopting new digital technologies finds a persistent future increase in valuation. However, investors only slowly incorporate the value implications of digital activities into prices. Nontech companies with senior executives with tech talent improve performance more than those without.

      • 07 Jun 2019
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Reflexivity in Credit Markets

      by Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson, and Lawrence J. Jin

      Investors’ biases and market outcomes affect each other in a two-way feedback loop. This study develops a model of a credit market feedback loop, finding that when investors become more bullish this can predict positive returns in the short run, even if expected returns become more negative at longer horizons.

      • 20 May 2019
      • Research & Ideas

      Activist CEOs Are Rising Up—and Their Customers Are Listening

      by Michael Blanding

      Are product sales affected by the CEO's stance on political and social issues? Michael Toffel and Aaron Chatterji study how consumers react to vocal chief executives. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

      • 18 Feb 2019
      • Working Paper Summaries

      Diagnostic Bubbles

      by Pedro Bordalo, Nicola Gennaioli, Spencer Yongwook Kwon, and Andrei Shleifer

      The financial crisis of 2007-2008 revived academic interest in price bubbles but many conceptual questions remain open. This paper generates insights into the structure of asset price bubbles by modeling beliefs from fundamental psychological assumptions, and combining this with standard neoclassical mechanisms, such as learning from prices and speculation.

      • 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.

      • 03 Dec 2018
      • Research & Ideas

      How Companies Can Increase Market Rewards for Sustainability Efforts

      by Rachel Layne

      There is a connection between public sentiment about a company and how the market rewards its corporate social performance, according to George Serafeim. Is your company undervalued? Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

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