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- HBS Book
Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire
By: Caroline M. ElkinsDrawing on more than a decade of research on four continents, Legacy of Violence implicates all sides of Britain’s political divide in the creation, execution, and cover-up of imperial violence. By demonstrating how and why violence was the most salient factor underwriting Britain’s empire and the nation’s imperial identity at home, Elkins upends long-held myths and sheds new light on empire’s role in shaping the world today.
- HBS Book
Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire
By: Caroline M. ElkinsDrawing on more than a decade of research on four continents, Legacy of Violence implicates all sides of Britain’s political divide in the creation, execution, and cover-up of imperial violence. By demonstrating how and why violence was the most salient factor underwriting Britain’s empire and the nation’s imperial identity at home, Elkins upends...
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- Journal of Financial Economics 144, no. 2 (May 2022): 523–546.
Do the Right Firms Survive Bankruptcy?
By: Samuel AntillIn U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, firms are either reorganized, acquired, or liquidated. I show that decisions to liquidate often reduce creditor recovery, costing creditors billions of dollars every year. I exploit the within-district random assignment of bankruptcy judges to estimate a structural model of bankruptcy. I estimate that liquidation is frequently chosen when a reorganization would have maximized total creditor recovery. Liquidations involving "363 sales," in which managers sell assets without creditor approval, are especially harmful for creditors. I estimate that courts could dramatically improve creditor recovery by assigning liquidations using a statistical model.
- Journal of Financial Economics 144, no. 2 (May 2022): 523–546.
Do the Right Firms Survive Bankruptcy?
By: Samuel AntillIn U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, firms are either reorganized, acquired, or liquidated. I show that decisions to liquidate often reduce creditor recovery, costing creditors billions of dollars every year. I exploit the within-district random assignment of bankruptcy judges to estimate a structural model of bankruptcy. I estimate that...
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- Business & Environment Initiative
ReNew Power: Leading the Energy Transition in India
By: Gunnar Trumbull and Malini SenFounder-CEO of one of India’s largest clean energy companies, ReNew Power, which develops, builds, and operates utility-scale wind and solar energy projects, has to decide the way forward for the company as the country and the world stand poised at the cusp of an energy revolution. In 2021, at the COP26 summit, India’s Prime Minister had pledged that the country would achieve net-zero emissions by 2070 and raise renewable energy capacity fivefold by 2030. What role will ReNew Power play in this transition? Besides, with traditional power generators, which had focused on fossil fuel-based sources, finally taking notice of the renewables market, how can ReNew Power stay ahead of the competition?
- Business & Environment Initiative
ReNew Power: Leading the Energy Transition in India
By: Gunnar Trumbull and Malini SenFounder-CEO of one of India’s largest clean energy companies, ReNew Power, which develops, builds, and operates utility-scale wind and solar energy projects, has to decide the way forward for the company as the country and the world stand poised at the cusp of an energy revolution. In 2021, at the COP26 summit, India’s Prime Minister had pledged...
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- Featured Case
Unilever: Remote Work in Manufacturing
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Susie L. MaIn December 2021, Unilever—one of the world’s largest producers of consumer goods—was in the midst of a pilot project to digitize its manufacturing facilities and enable remote work for factory employees. This was possible because of an earlier project to retrofit a facility in Brazil with state-of-the art sensors on factory equipment to collect real-time data. The data was then analyzed using machine learning applications on the cloud so that key capabilities of the factory could be run remotely on a laptop in a technician’s kitchen. The company hoped expanding this effort would improve efficiency and performance across its network of factories, and result in cost savings and decreased energy consumption for the entire organization.
- Featured Case
Unilever: Remote Work in Manufacturing
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Susie L. MaIn December 2021, Unilever—one of the world’s largest producers of consumer goods—was in the midst of a pilot project to digitize its manufacturing facilities and enable remote work for factory employees. This was possible because of an earlier project to retrofit a facility in Brazil with state-of-the art sensors on factory equipment to collect...
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- Featured Case
Passing the Mic: Career and Firm Outcomes of Executive Interactions
By: Wei Cai, Ethan Rouen and Yuan ZouTo Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020. Within a year, the company had reached over 35 countries with many potential users pending on its waiting lists. A ‘for-profit with purpose’, Be Mobile Africa aimed to lift 100 million people out of poverty by extending financial services to previously unbanked populations across the African continent. Racing towards its goal, the company needed a longer-term expansion strategy to fulfill Jeannot’s mission.
- Featured Case
Passing the Mic: Career and Firm Outcomes of Executive Interactions
By: Wei Cai, Ethan Rouen and Yuan ZouTo Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020. Within a year, the company had reached over 35 countries with many potential users...
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- HBS Working Paper
Passing the Mic: Career and Firm Outcomes of Executive Interactions
By: Wei Cai, Ethan Rouen and Yuan ZouWe exploit a unique feature of conference calls to study one type of interaction among executives—directly inviting colleagues to respond to analysts’ questions. We find that the frequency of initiating interaction is positively associated with an executive’s ability, but not associated with firm performance. When new CEOs initiate more interactions than their predecessors, interaction among the rest of the executive team also increases, suggesting a learning effect. Turning to the outcomes of this practice, we find that executives who initiate more interactions than their peers are twice as likely as the average executive to be promoted to CEO.
- HBS Working Paper
Passing the Mic: Career and Firm Outcomes of Executive Interactions
By: Wei Cai, Ethan Rouen and Yuan ZouWe exploit a unique feature of conference calls to study one type of interaction among executives—directly inviting colleagues to respond to analysts’ questions. We find that the frequency of initiating interaction is positively associated with an executive’s ability, but not associated with firm performance. When new CEOs initiate more...
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- NBER Working Paper
High-Yield Debt Covenants and Their Real Effects
By: Falk Bräuning, Victoria Ivashina and Ali OzdagliHigh-yield debt including leveraged loans is characterized by incurrence financial covenants, or “cov-lite” provisions. A traditional loan agreement includes maintenance covenants, which require continuous compliance with the covenant threshold, and their violation shifts the control rights to creditors. Incurrence covenants preserve equity control rights but trigger pre-specified restrictions on the borrower’s actions once the covenant threshold is crossed. We show that the prevalence of incurrence covenants indirectly imposes significant constraints on investments as restricted actions become binding: Similar to the effects associated with the shift of control rights to creditors in traditional loans, the drop in investment under incurrence covenants is large and sudden.
- NBER Working Paper
High-Yield Debt Covenants and Their Real Effects
By: Falk Bräuning, Victoria Ivashina and Ali OzdagliHigh-yield debt including leveraged loans is characterized by incurrence financial covenants, or “cov-lite” provisions. A traditional loan agreement includes maintenance covenants, which require continuous compliance with the covenant threshold, and their violation shifts the control rights to creditors. Incurrence covenants preserve equity...
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Seminars & Conferences
- 31 May 2022
Governing Global Capitalism
Recent Publications
The Passionate Pygmalion Effect: Passionate Employees Attain Better Outcomes in Part Because of More Preferential Treatment by Others
- July 2022 |
- Article |
- Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Human Resource Management and Abuse in Global Supply Chains
- 2022 |
- Chapter |
- Faculty Research
Multitasking While Driving: A Time Use Study of Commuting Knowledge Workers to Assess Current and Future Uses
- Article |
- International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
The Use and Misuse of Patent Data: Issues for Finance and Beyond
- June 2022 |
- Article |
- Review of Financial Studies
Are Experts Blinded by Feasibility?: Experimental Evidence from a NASA Robotics Challenge
- 2022 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
Red Hen Baking Company (Abridged)
- May 2022 |
- Supplement |
- Faculty Research
Volkswagen and Suzuki: A Match Made in Heaven (A)? and An Alliance Breaks Down (B1, B2)
- May 2022 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Deborah Quazzo at GSV Ventures
- May 2022 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research