HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR ILLUMINATES INTERNATIONAL FINANCE IN NEW BOOK
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| Associate Professor Mihir Desai Photo: Stuart Cahill |
BOSTON - Much of the finance taught in textbooks and classrooms implicitly assumes that borders do not exist, but the fact is that most real-world financial decisions include cross-border transactions. Managers must therefore consider the effects of different exchange rates, tax rules, country risk factors, and legal regimes as they undertake the basic financing and investment decisions of corporate finance in a cross-border setting. In his new casebook, International Finance, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Harvard Business School Associate Professor Mihir A. Desai provides the foundations for learning how finance works in this intricate cross-border setting.
The cases included in the book – which constitute the bulk of the second-year international finance elective Desai teaches at HBS – provide managers with a detailed and analytic look at the major financial decisions and issues that managers confront in an international setting: How do I value a firm with assets in multiple places around the world? What is the appropriate way to think about the cost of capital for the worldwide operations of a single firm? How should I evaluate managers operating in very different economic and financial settings?
International Finance is organized into four major parts.
- Exchange Rates, Markets and Firms focuses on what managers need to know about global markets in currencies and assets, and how changes in exchange rates affect firms.
- Multinational Finance provides cases that consider the many complex financial decisions that arise when firms have operations and investments outside a home country.
- Cross-Border Financing features cases that emphasize the opportunities created by global financial markets and the financing mechanisms firms use to exploit these opportunities.
- Institutions and Finance examines the interactions among firms and legal and regulatory regimes and how institutional environments influence firm financial decisions.
Although the case studies are the centerpiece of this volume, readers are also provided with several additional resources to make the most of them. Each section starts with a brief introduction, followed by a detailed overview of the case studies and suggestions for additional reading.
About the Author
Mihir A. Desai is the Rock Center Associate Professor in the Finance and Entrepreneurial Management units, as well as the MBA Class of 1961 Fellow, at Harvard Business School. His research focuses on international corporate and public finance, and his academic publications have appeared in many journals, including the Review of Financial Studies, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, and the National Tax Journal. Desai is also a Faculty Research Fellow in the National Bureau of Economic Research's Public Economics and Corporate Finance Programs and he, is co-director of the NBER’s India program. His research has been cited in The Economist, BusinessWeek, The New York Times, and other publications. Desai received his Ph.D. in political economy from Harvard University; his MBA as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School; and a bachelor’s degree in history and economics from Brown University. In 1994, he was a Fulbright Scholar in India. His professional experiences include working at Credit Suisse and McKinsey & Co., and advising a number of firms and governmental organizations.
About Harvard Business School
Founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University, Harvard Business School (www.hbs.edu), is located on a 40-acre campus in Boston. Its faculty of more than 200 offers full-time programs leading to the MBA and doctoral degrees, as well as more than 40 Executive Education programs. For almost a century, HBS faculty have drawn on their research, their experience in working with organizations worldwide, and their passion for teaching to educate leaders who have shaped the practice of business around the globe.