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    • HBS Book

    Private Equity

    By: Paul A. Gompers and Steven N. Kaplan

    This Advanced Introduction provides an illustrative guide to private equity, integrating insights from academic research with examples to derive practical recommendations. Paul Gompers and Steven Kaplan begin by reviewing the history of private equity then exploring the evidence on performance of private equity investments at both the portfolio company level and fund level, documenting the creation of economic value. The book then presents a set of actionable frameworks for driving value creation in private equity investments. It concludes by examining how private equity investors raise funds and how they successfully manage their private equity firms.

    • HBS Book

    Private Equity

    By: Paul A. Gompers and Steven N. Kaplan

    This Advanced Introduction provides an illustrative guide to private equity, integrating insights from academic research with examples to derive practical recommendations. Paul Gompers and Steven Kaplan begin by reviewing the history of private equity then exploring the evidence on performance of private equity investments at both the portfolio...

    • Journal of Financial Economics 148, no. 2 (May 2023): 150-173.

    Political Ideology and International Capital Allocation

    By: Elisabeth Kempf, Mancy Luo, Larissa Schäfer and Margarita Tsoutsoura

    Does investors' political ideology shape international capital allocation? We provide evidence from two settings—syndicated corporate loans and equity mutual funds—to show ideological alignment with foreign governments affects the cross-border capital allocation by U.S. institutional investors. Ideological alignment on both economic and social issues plays a role. Our empirical strategy ensures direct economic effects of foreign elections or government ties between countries are not driving the result. Ideological distance between countries also explains variation in bilateral investment. Combined, our findings imply ideological alignment is an important, omitted factor in models of international capital allocation.

    • Journal of Financial Economics 148, no. 2 (May 2023): 150-173.

    Political Ideology and International Capital Allocation

    By: Elisabeth Kempf, Mancy Luo, Larissa Schäfer and Margarita Tsoutsoura

    Does investors' political ideology shape international capital allocation? We provide evidence from two settings—syndicated corporate loans and equity mutual funds—to show ideological alignment with foreign governments affects the cross-border capital allocation by U.S. institutional investors. Ideological alignment on both economic and social...

    • Business & Environment Initiative

    Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'

    By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney

    Patagonia’s change of ownership from a privately held company to a perpetual purpose trust and 501(c)(4) nonprofit in order to use the company’s profit to fight the environmental crisis and be a model for future businesses.

    • Business & Environment Initiative

    Patagonia: 'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder'

    By: Brian Trelstad, Nien-hê Hsieh, Michael Norris and Susan Pinckney

    Patagonia’s change of ownership from a privately held company to a perpetual purpose trust and 501(c)(4) nonprofit in order to use the company’s profit to fight the environmental crisis and be a model for future businesses.

    • Featured Case

    Inclusion and Diversity at Mars Petcare

    By: Katherine Coffman and Tom Quinn

    In 2020, the Mars Petcare Leadership Team found themselves dealing with critically important inclusion and diversity issues. Social unrest, including unprecedented protests for racial justice in the U.S. and across the globe, generated an urgency for substantive action. Mars Petcare's 100,000 employees were ready for visible signs of progress. How could they build on their existing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts and effectively capitalize on the energy for change?

    • Featured Case

    Inclusion and Diversity at Mars Petcare

    By: Katherine Coffman and Tom Quinn

    In 2020, the Mars Petcare Leadership Team found themselves dealing with critically important inclusion and diversity issues. Social unrest, including unprecedented protests for racial justice in the U.S. and across the globe, generated an urgency for substantive action. Mars Petcare's 100,000 employees were ready for visible signs of progress. How...

    • Featured Case

    Walmart’s Live Better U

    By: Boris Groysberg, Annelena Lobb and Kerry Herman

    Walmart’s Live Better U (LBU) program, which allowed its frontline employees and managers to attend college at Walmart’s expense, had expanded and changed over the course of five years. How could Walmart better develop the program for its associates and use it to meet the company’s own talent needs?

    • Featured Case

    Walmart’s Live Better U

    By: Boris Groysberg, Annelena Lobb and Kerry Herman

    Walmart’s Live Better U (LBU) program, which allowed its frontline employees and managers to attend college at Walmart’s expense, had expanded and changed over the course of five years. How could Walmart better develop the program for its associates and use it to meet the company’s own talent needs?

    • HBS Working Paper

    Using GPT for Market Research

    By: James Brand, Ayelet Israeli and Donald Ngwe

    Large language models (LLMs) have quickly become popular as labor-augmenting tools for programming, writing, and many other processes that benefit from quick text generation. In this paper we explore the uses and benefits of LLMs for researchers and practitioners who aim to understand consumer preferences. In contrast to prior work, we focus on the distributional nature of LLM responses, and query GPT to generate hundreds of survey responses to each prompt. We offer two sets of results to illustrate our approach and assess it. First, we show that the Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3) model, a widely-used LLM, responds to sets of survey questions in ways that are consistent with economic theory and well-documented patterns of consumer behavior, including downward-sloping demand curves and state dependence. Second, we show that estimates of willingness-to-pay for products and features generated by GPT-3 are of realistic magnitudes and match estimates from a recent study that elicited preferences from human consumers.

    • HBS Working Paper

    Using GPT for Market Research

    By: James Brand, Ayelet Israeli and Donald Ngwe

    Large language models (LLMs) have quickly become popular as labor-augmenting tools for programming, writing, and many other processes that benefit from quick text generation. In this paper we explore the uses and benefits of LLMs for researchers and practitioners who aim to understand consumer preferences. In contrast to prior work, we focus on...

    • HBS Working Paper

    Complexity and Time

    By: Maya Balakrishnan, Jimin Nam and Ryan W. Buell

    Companies are facing increased pressure to “walk the talk” on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in their operations. One specific call-to-action from stakeholders is the public disclosure of EEO-1s. Companies with 100+ employees are federally mandated to annually report the intersectional diversity data of their workforce in the EEO-1. We examine how consumers perceive the strategic decision companies make regarding whether to disclose workforce diversity information. We find no evidence that a company’s disclosure of its workforce diversity data negatively affects attitudes or perceived company commitment to diversity, even when it reveals racial disparities across job categories. Instead, we find that consumers perceive firms that disclose their workforce data more positively and to be more committed to DEI initiatives, relative to firms that choose not to disclose, particularly when these disclosures reveal diversity within the workforce.

    • HBS Working Paper

    Complexity and Time

    By: Maya Balakrishnan, Jimin Nam and Ryan W. Buell

    Companies are facing increased pressure to “walk the talk” on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in their operations. One specific call-to-action from stakeholders is the public disclosure of EEO-1s. Companies with 100+ employees are federally mandated to annually report the intersectional diversity data of their workforce in the EEO-1. We...

Initiatives & Projects

Business History

The Business History Initiative seeks to facilitate learning from the past through innovative research and course development, employing global and interdisciplinary perspectives.
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Seminars & Conferences

Jun 05
  • 05 Jun 2023

Information, Markets, and Organizations (IMO)

Jul 18
  • 18 Jul 2023

Early-Career Behavioral Economics Conference

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Recent Publications

The High Cost of Neglecting Low-Wage Workers

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Manjari Raman
  • May–June 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Harvard Business Review
Citation
Related
Fuller, Joseph B., and Manjari Raman. "The High Cost of Neglecting Low-Wage Workers." Harvard Business Review (May–June 2023).

Should Your Start-up Be For-profit or Nonprofit?: A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs

By: Cait Brumme and Brian Trelstad
  • May–June 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Harvard Business Review
Years ago the line between nonprofit and for-profit enterprises was clear, but that has changed. Nonprofits now offer products that compete with those of the best for-profits, and for-profits can deliver as much social value as charities. Despite the blurred distinction, all mission-driven start-ups will eventually face a stark choice about which legal structure to adopt, and they need to make it carefully, because it’s hard to undo, say the authors, the CEO of a nonprofit accelerator and a partner in an impact investing fund. To guide their decision, social entrepreneurs should examine several questions: Is the market ready for a for-profit solution? Where is the available capital? And which structure would help the organization attract the talent and resources that it requires?
Citation
Related
Brumme, Cait, and Brian Trelstad. "Should Your Start-up Be For-profit or Nonprofit? A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs." Harvard Business Review 101, no. 3 (May–June 2023): 136–145.

Analytics for Marketers: When to Rely on Algorithms and When to Trust Your Gut

By: Fabrizio Fantini and Das Narayandas
  • May–June 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Harvard Business Review
Advanced analytics can help companies solve a host of management problems, including those related to marketing, sales, and supply-chain operations, which can lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. But as more data becomes available and advanced analytics are further refined, managers may struggle with when, where, and how much to incorporate machines into their business analytics, and to what extent they should bring their own judgment to bear when making data-driven decisions. In general, humans are better at decisions involving intuition and ambiguity resolution. Machines are far superior at decisions requiring deduction, granularity, and scalability. How can you find the right balance? There are three common approaches to analytics: descriptive, where decisions are made mainly by humans; predictive, which combines aspects of the other two; and prescriptive, which usually means autonomous management by machines. This article describes when and how to use each approach and examines the trade-offs and limitations. Although the focus is on marketing and sales, the principles may be applied more broadly.
Citation
Related
Fantini, Fabrizio, and Das Narayandas. "Analytics for Marketers: When to Rely on Algorithms and When to Trust Your Gut." Harvard Business Review 101, no. 3 (May–June 2023): 82–91.

The High Cost of Neglecting Low-Wage Workers: Six Mistakes That Companies Make—and How They Can Do Better

By: Joseph Fuller and Manjari Raman
  • May–June 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Harvard Business Review
Many companies blame outside factors for the trouble they’ve been having in finding and retaining frontline workers: the pandemic, the government’s stimulus checks, the intrinsic nature of low-wage work. The authors argue that in fact the real problem lies in six big mistakes companies themselves have long been making, in such basic areas as hiring, career development, and mentoring. They offer some practical suggestions for how leaders can do better, for their workers and their organizations.
Citation
Related
Fuller, Joseph, and Manjari Raman. "The High Cost of Neglecting Low-Wage Workers: Six Mistakes That Companies Make—and How They Can Do Better." Harvard Business Review 101, no. 3 (May–June 2023): 40–48.

Why Is Dollar Debt Cheaper? Evidence from Peru

By: Bryan Gutiérrez, Victoria Ivashina and Juliana Salomao
  • June 2023 |
  • Article |
  • Journal of Financial Economics
In emerging markets, a significant share of corporate loans are denominated in dollars. Using novel data that enables us to see currency and the cost of credit, in addition to several other transaction-level characteristics, we re-examine the reasons behind dollar credit popularity. We find that a dollar-denominated loan has an interest rate that is 2% lower per year than a loan in Peruvian Soles. Expectations of exchange rate movements do not explain this difference. We show that this interest rate differential for lending rates is closely matched by the differential in the deposit market. Our results suggest that the preference for dollar loans is rooted on the local household preference for dollar savings and a banking sector that is closely matching its foreign assets and liabilities. We find that borrower competitive pressure increases the pass-through of this differential.
Citation
SSRN
Related
Gutiérrez, Bryan, Victoria Ivashina, and Juliana Salomao. "Why Is Dollar Debt Cheaper? Evidence from Peru." Journal of Financial Economics 148, no. 3 (June 2023): 245–272.

ESG: From Process to Product

By: George Serafeim
  • 2023 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
ESG measurement, analysis, management, and communication is a process that the financial industry has turned into a product, resulting in many investment funds using the ESG label. This has caused confusion, generating demand for a framework that defines the objectives and characteristics of ESG investment products. The main objective is to intentionally allocate capital and influence investees with measurable financial, environmental and/or social outcomes. The key characteristics are those of intentionality and measurability with the additional characteristics of materiality and additionality serving to enhance their overall significance.
Citation
Related
Serafeim, George. "ESG: From Process to Product." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-069.

How to Build a Life: Think About Your Death and Live Better

By: Arthur C. Brooks
  • May 25, 2023 |
  • Article |
  • The Atlantic
Citation
Related
Brooks, Arthur C. "How to Build a Life: Think About Your Death and Live Better." The Atlantic (May 25, 2023).

Procedural Burden and Patterns in the Monetization of Regulatory Benefits Across the Federal Regulatory State

By: Elliott Stoller
  • 2023 |
  • Working Paper |
  • Faculty Research
When do federal agencies provide monetized estimates of regulatory benefits during the regulatory development and review process? Using an original dataset with information on nearly all major rules and their respective regulatory impact assessments between 1996–2016 (n = 713), this paper presents the first empirical analysis of the associations between policy issue areas and the monetization and non-monetization of regulatory benefits across the federal regulatory state. The results demonstrate systemic differences in whether or not federal agencies monetize the benefits of major regulatory proposals based on regulatory policy topics. The paper further introduces the concept of procedural burden—defined as the extent of barriers facing interest groups and citizens in wielding power over regulatory policy formation. The empirical findings combined with this theoretical concept suggest that the patterns in the monetization of regulatory benefits can constitute a form of procedural inequality that weakens pluralist democracy in regulatory rulemaking.
Citation
Related
Stoller, Elliott. "Procedural Burden and Patterns in the Monetization of Regulatory Benefits Across the Federal Regulatory State." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-068, May 2023.
More Publications

In The News

    • 26 May 2023
    • Harvard Business School

    Harvard Business School Professors Win Wyss Awards for Excellence in Mentoring Doctoral Students

    Re: Michael Norton, Alison Wood Brooks, Feng Zhu & Alexandra Feldberg
    • 26 May 2023
    • Harvard Business School

    Harvard Business School's MBA Class of 2023 Celebrates Class Day

    • 26 May 2023
    • Harvard Business School

    Harvard Business School Celebrates 113th Commencement

    • 26 May 2023
    • Harvard Business School

    Faculty Recognition

    Re: Vincent Pons
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The Case Method

Introduced by HBS faculty to business education in 1925, the case method is a powerful interactive learning process that puts students in the shoes of a leader faced with a real-world management issue and challenges them to propose and justify a resolution.
Today, HBS remains an authority on teaching by the case method. The School is also the world’s leading case-writing institution, with HBS faculty members contributing hundreds of new cases to the management curriculum a year via the School’s unique case development and writing process.
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Harvard Business School seeks candidates in all fields for full time positions. Candidates with outstanding records in PhD or DBA programs are encouraged to apply.
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