Faculty & Research
Shawn A. Cole

Shawn A. Cole

John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration

John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration

Finance
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Shawn A. Cole
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Featured Work Publications Teaching Awards & Honors

Shawn Cole is a professor in the Finance Unit at Harvard Business School, where he teaches and conducts research on financial services, social enterprise, and impact investing.

Much of his research examines corporate and household finance in emerging markets, with a focus on insurance, credit, and savings. He has also done extensive work on financial education in the US and emerging markets. His recent research focuses on designing and delivering advice and education over mobile phones, with an emphasis on agricultural and financial management.

He has worked in China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Vietnam. He is an affiliate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development. He is on the board of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab, as the co-chair for research.

At HBS, he has taught FIN1 and FIN2 in the core curriculum, Business at the Base of the Pyramid, and courses on impact investing, as well various executive education courses. He currently teaches the PhD development sequence in the department of Economics.

Before joining the Harvard Business School, Professor Cole worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the economic research department. He has served on the Boston Federal Reserve's Community Development Research Advisory Council, served as an external advisor to the Gates Foundation, and was the chair of the endowment management committee of the Telluride Association, a non-profit educational organization. He is a cofounder and board chair of a non-profit, Precision Agriculture for Development.

He received a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005, where he was an NSF and Javits Fellow, and an A.B. in Economics and German Literature from Cornell University. His work on insurance earned the 2015 "Shin Research Excellence Award;" in 2015 he was also named given a “Faculty Pioneer Award” from the Aspen Institute.

Featured Work
Long-run Returns to Impact Investing in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies
There is growing interest in impact investing, the idea of deploying capital to obtain both financial and social or environmental returns. Examination of every equity investment made by the International Finance Corporation, one of the largest and longest-operating impact investors, across 130 emerging market and developing economies shows that this portfolio has outperformed the S&P 500 by 15 percent. Investments in larger economies have higher returns, and returns decline as banking systems deepen and countries relax capital controls. These results are consistent with imperfect integration of international capital markets, and a core thesis of impact investing that some eligible markets do not receive sufficient investment capital.
The Value of Advice: Evidence from Mobile-Phone Based Agricultural Extension

This paper evaluates the role of mobile phone-based advice in improving managerial practices of small-scale cotton farmers in Gujarat, India.  Demand for the service, “Avaaj Otalo,” is strong, even among farmers with very low levels of education. The service dramatically alters farmers information acquisition behavior, with connected farmers relying less on other farmers and agricultural input dealers. Management practices improve: we observe an increase in the adoption of more effective and less toxic pesticides, and farmers plant cumin, a profitable but risky crop, earlier in the season. Farmers appear willing to follow advice without understanding why the advice is correct: the average respondent does not demonstrate improved agricultural knowledge

Incentivizing Calculated Risk-Taking: Evidence from an Experiment with Commercial Bank Loan Officers

This paper uses a series of experiments with commercial bank loan officers to test the effect of performance incentives on risk-assessment and lending decisions. We first show that, while high-powered incentives lead to greater screening effort and more profitable lending, their power is muted by both deferred compensation and the limited liability typically enjoyed by credit officers. Second, we present direct evidence that incentive contracts distort judgment and beliefs, even among trained professionals with many years of experience. Loans evaluated under more permissive incentive schemes are rated significantly less risky than the same loans evaluated under pay-for-performance.

Do Voters Demand Responsive Governments? Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief

Using rainfall, public relief, and election data from India, we examine how governments respond to adverse shocks and how voters react to these responses. The data show that voters punish the incumbent party for weather events beyond its control. However, fewer voters punish the ruling party when its government responds vigorously to the crisis, indicating that voters reward the government for responding to disasters. We also find evidence suggesting that voters only respond to rainfall and government relief efforts during the year immediately preceding the election. In accordance with these electoral incentives, governments appear to be more generous with disaster relief in election years.  These results describe how failures in electoral accountability can lead to suboptimal policy outcomes.

Books
Journal Articles
Book Chapters
  • Anagol, Santosh, Shawn A. Cole, and Shayak Sarkar. "Comparative Regulation of Market Intermediaries: Insights from the Indian Life Insurance Market." Chap. 12 in Modernizing Insurance Regulation, edited by John H. Biggs and Matthew P. Richardson. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2014. View Details
  • Cole, Shawn, Thomas Sampson, and Bilal Zia. "Valuing Financial Literacy." Chap. 12 in Banking the World: Empirical Foundations of Financial Inclusion, edited by Robert Cull, Asli Demirguc-Kunt, and Jonathan Morduch. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. View Details
  • Cole, Shawn A., and Anh Tran. "Evidence from the Firm: A New Approach to Understanding Corruption." Chap. 14 in International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption, Volume 2, edited by Susan Rose-Ackerman and Tina Soreide, 408–427. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012. View Details
  • Cole, Shawn A., Peter Tufano, and John Thompson. "Where Does It Go? Spending by the Financially Constrained." Chap. 2 in Borrowing to Live: Consumer and Mortgage Credit Revisited, edited by Nicolas P. Retsinas and Eric S. Belsky, 65–91. Brookings Institution Press, 2008. View Details
  • Cole, Shawn A., A. Banerjee, and E. Duflo. "Bank Financing in India." In India's and China's Recent Experience with Reform and Growth, edited by Wanda Tseng and David Cowen. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. View Details
  • Cole, Shawn A., A. Banerjee, and E. Duflo. "Banking Reform in India." In India Policy Forum. Vol. 1, edited by Arvind Panagariya, Barry Bosworth, and Suman Bery, 277–323. Brookings Institution Press, 2004. View Details
Working Papers
Cases and Teaching Materials
Other Publications and Materials
Teaching
Development Economics (PhD)

This course, intended for second-year PhD students in economics and related fields, is taught by Michael Kremer, Phillippe Aghion, and Shawn Cole.

Part I (Kremer) of the course will cover macro-economic topics including aggregate and non-aggregate growth models, models of technology diffusion and choice, and population growth, as well as cultural factors (e.g. reputation, trust, and social norms) affecting economic development.

Part II (Aghion) will be a selection of topics related to economic growth, among them club convergence, trade, competition, volatility, education, health, and the environment.

Part III (Cole) of the course is intended to bring students to the forefront of research on finance in emerging markets. Topics will include the relationship between financial development and economic growth, consumer finance; small and medium enterprise finance; debt and equity markets; the role of management and corporate governance; the political economy of finance, and corruption.

Related Link: http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k76287
Investing: Risk, Return and Impact (MBA)

This is an investing/finance course, designed to build on skills introduced in the RC finance course, but with an emphasis on how and whether investors should incorporate what have traditionally been considered “non-financial” criteria in their decisions: for example, climate risk, environmental sustainability, minority representation on boards, and even the potential to create social good. Covering both public and private markets, the course will present rigorous approaches to business model assessment, valuation, transaction structuring and exits, as well as equity selection and portfolio construction. The course also explores incentives, decision-making, and the crucial problems and opportunities within the industry itself.

This course is geared toward students interested in working in the investment industry - whether directly, as an asset manager/investor, advisor or private individual, or indirectly as an entrepreneur or operator receiving investment capital. We will emphasize practical skills, including pitching stocks, performing diligence, measuring impact, and evaluating portfolio performance.

This course will be differentiated from other excellent offerings at HBS by focusing on the intersection of investing/finance and key global challenges, guided for example by the Sustainable Development Goals, including climate, gender equality, and poverty reduction. Emphasis will be placed on the analytical tools needed to understand the financial perspective and make investing decisions; however, students will also be learn to rigorously assess investments in the context of non-financial objectives. Investing - Risk, Return, and Impact is a finance course, which could be taken on a stand-alone basis or as a complement to Private Equity Finance, VC/PE, and Entrepreneurial Finance, Investment Management or Investment Strategies.

Related Link: http://www.people.hbs.edu/scole/teaching.html
Awards & Honors
Winner of the 2015 Shin Research Excellence Award from The Geneva Association and the IIS (International Insurance Society) for his work on insurance.
Winner of the 2021 Teaching Recognition Award for Excellence in Sustainable Finance Education from the Financial Times and the Impact and Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium for the course, "Investing for Risk, Return, and Impact," developed with Vikram Gandhi.
Won the 2015 Faculty Pioneer Award from The Aspen Institute for work on Business and Society.
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