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- 2021
- Working Paper
What Drives Variation in Investor Portfolios? Estimating the Roles of Beliefs and Risk Preferences
We document new patterns in investment behavior using a comprehensive dataset of 401(k) plans from 2009 through 2019. We show that there is substantial heterogeneity in asset allocations across plans, which is not explained by differences in available investment...
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- October 2021
- Background Note
How to Write an Action-Planning Memo
By: Ryan Raffaelli and Akshaya Varghese
The ability to communicate an action plan through writing is essential for advancing ideas, earning credibility, and garnering support. Research has shown that leaders who write formal plans are more likely to execute successfully—written plans help members of an...
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- August 2021
- Teaching Note
Yale University Investments Office: November 2020
By: Josh Lerner
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 821-074.
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- July 2021
- Article
Augmenting Markets with Mechanisms
By: Samuel Antill and Darrell Duffie
We explain how the common practice of size-discovery trade detracts from overall financial market efficiency. At each of a series of size-discovery sessions, traders report their desired trades, generating allocations of the asset and cash that rely on the most recent...
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- March 2021
- Case
Yale Investments Office: November 2020
By: Josh Lerner, Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo
David Swensen and the Investments Office staff must decide whether to continue to allocate the bulk of the university's endowment to illiquid investments—hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, real estate, natural resources—given the impact of the COVID-19...
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Keywords:
University Endowment;
Asset Allocation;
Real Estate;
Equities;
Fixed Income;
COVID-19;
Asset Management;
Private Equity;
Venture Capital;
Natural Resources;
Resource Allocation;
Investment;
Investment Portfolio;
Health Pandemics;
Financial Crisis;
Financial Services Industry;
Real Estate Industry;
Energy Industry;
Connecticut
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Allocation of Socially Responsible Capital
By: Daniel Green and Benjamin N. Roth
Portfolio allocation decisions increasingly incorporate social values. We develop a tractable framework to study how competition between investors to own socially valuable assets affects social welfare. Relative to the most common social-investing strategies, we...
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- July 2020
- Case
Mortgage Backed Securities and the Covid-19 Pandemic
By: Emil N. Siriwardane, Luis M. Viceira and Dean Xu
In April 2020, global financial markets were still reeling as the COVID-19 pandemic spread rapidly across the world. Global equity markets had initially fallen by 30% in response to the pandemic, and high-yield credit markets had dropped by nearly 20%. In contrast,...
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- May 2020
- Article
Sales Leadership During and After the Crisis
Because customer acquisition and retention are the lifeblood of a for-profit enterprise, sales activities establish foundational conditions for a business. In turn, sales managers’ responsibilities in a crisis extend beyond keeping the lights on. Their leadership makes...
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- 2019
- White Paper
Impact-Weighted Financial Accounts: The Missing Piece for an Impact Economy
By: George Serafeim, T. Robert Zochowski and Jennifer Downing
Reimagining capitalism is an imperative. We need to create a more inclusive and sustainable form of capitalism that works for every person and the planet. Massive environmental damage, growing income and wealth disparity, stress, and depression within developed...
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- June 2019
- Case
ClearLife: From Prospect to Platform
By: Alexander Braun, Lauren Cohen, Mauro Elvedi and Jiahua Xu
ClearLife’s first product was a trading and analytics platform for participants in the U.S. life settlement market, the secondary market for life insurance. ClearLife played a key role in facilitating transactions and devising a common language for expressing value and...
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- December 2018
- Supplement
Asset Allocation at the Cook County Pension Fund
- December 2018 (Revised March 2020)
- Teaching Note
Asset Allocation at the Cook County Pension Fund
Teaching Note for HBS No. 218-030.
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- November 2018 (Revised December 2018)
- Case
CalSTRS Takes on Gun Violence
By: Vikram S Gandhi and Caitlin Reimers
In Spring of 2018, Chris Ailman, CIO of the $200 billion pension plan for California public school teachers (CalSTRS) was mandated by his board to “prioritize engagement with makers and retailers of firearms in California” following a series of gun-related tragedies in...
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- Fourth Quarter 2017
- Article
Optimal Tilts: Combining Persistent Characteristic Portfolios
By: Malcolm Baker, Ryan Taliaferro and Terry Burnham
We examine the optimal weighting of four tilts in U.S. equity markets from 1968 through 2014. We define a “tilt” as a characteristic-based portfolio strategy that requires relatively low annual turnover. This is a continuum, with small size (a very persistent...
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- September 2017 (Revised September 2022)
- Supplement
Asset Allocation at the Cook County Pension Fund
- September 2017 (Revised July 2021)
- Case
Asset Allocation at the Cook County Pension Fund
By: Emil Siriwardane, Juliane Begenau and Yuval Gonczarowski
Nickol Hackett, chief investment officer of the Cook County Pension Fund, is responsible for investing the fund’s $9 billion worth of assets on behalf of the employees of Cook County, Illinois. Like many other defined-benefit pensions at the time, the Cook County...
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- August 2017 (Revised January 2020)
- Case
PFA Pension: Expansion of Alternatives Portfolio
By: Victoria Ivashina, Federica Gabrieli and Jérôme Lenhardt
PFA Pension was the biggest commercial pension provider in Denmark. At the end of 2015, the company had decided to boost its investments into the alternative asset class, an area where it was lagging behind its competitors. The aim was to privilege direct investments...
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- November 2016 (Revised December 2016)
- Module Note
Strategy Execution Module 7: Designing Asset Allocation Systems
By: Robert Simons
This module reading provides tools and analyses for acquiring and allocating resources. The module begins by reviewing the importance of setting strategic boundaries as a basis for asset acquisitions. Next, a distinction is made between new assets acquired to meet...
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- November 2016
- Article
Corporate Sustainability: First Evidence on Materiality
By: Mozaffar Khan, George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon
Using newly available materiality classifications of sustainability topics, we develop a novel dataset by hand-mapping sustainability investments classified as material for each industry into firm-specific sustainability ratings. This allows us to present new evidence...
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