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- November 2023
- Case
Gabon Special Economic Zone
By: John Macomber and Wale Lawal
Tropical rain forest covers about 80% of the West African nation of Gabon, part of the Congo Basin and the "lungs of the world." Gabon is one of the first nations to earn revenue from carbon sequestration...as long as the rain forest remains intact. There are...
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- August 2023
- Article
Do Rating Agencies Behave Defensively for Higher Risk Issuers?
By: Samuel B. Bonsall IV, Kevin Koharki, Pepa Kraft, Karl A. Muller III and Anywhere Sikochi
We examine whether rating agencies act defensively toward issuers with a higher likelihood of default. We find that agencies' qualitative soft rating adjustments are more accurate as issuers' default risk grows, as evidenced by the adjustments leading to lower Type I...
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- 2023
- Working Paper
Insufficiently Justified Disparate Impact: A New Criterion for Subgroup Fairness
By: Neil Menghani, Edward McFowland III and Daniel B. Neill
In this paper, we develop a new criterion, "insufficiently justified disparate impact" (IJDI), for assessing whether recommendations (binarized predictions) made by an algorithmic decision support tool are fair. Our novel, utility-based IJDI criterion evaluates false...
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- February 2023
- Article
OTC Intermediaries
By: Andrea L. Eisfeldt, Bernard Herskovic, Sriram Rajan and Emil Siriwardane
We study the effect of dealer exit on prices and quantities in a model of an over-the-counter (OTC) market featuring a core-periphery network with bilateral trading costs. The model is calibrated using regulatory data on the entire U.S. credit default swap (CDS) market...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
The Issuance and Design of Sustainability-linked Loans
By: Maria Loumioti and George Serafeim
Sustainability-linked loans (i.e., syndicated loans for which pricing is linked to a sustainability performance indicator) have rapidly evolved into a significant private debt product. We find that sustainability-linked lending has been available mostly to borrowers...
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- August 2022 (Revised March 2023)
- Case
Boston Impact Initiative: Investing in Local Change
By: Emily R. McComb, Amy Klopfenstein and Mel Martin
In fall 2021, Aliana Piñeiro, impact director at Boston Impact Initiative (BII) discovered that an entrepreneur the organization was considering for an investment had failed to disclose pre-existing debt with another lender. Although the business scored highly on BII’s...
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Keywords:
Entrepreneurship;
Social Entrepreneurship;
Finance;
Investment;
Investment Funds;
Investment Portfolio;
Relationships;
Business and Community Relations;
Society;
Social Issues;
Wealth and Poverty;
Wealth;
Poverty;
Risk Management;
Financial Services Industry;
North and Central America;
United States;
Massachusetts;
Boston
- 2022
- Article
Regulatory Treatment of Changes in Fair Value and the Composition of Banks' Investment Portfolios
By: Michael Iselin, Jung Koo Kang and Joshua Madsen
In their implementation of Basel III, U.S. bank regulators are again including changes in the fair value of available-for-sale (AFS) debt securities in Tier 1 capital, but only for the largest U.S. banks. This paper investigates a potential impact of expanding this...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Distributional Consequences of Monetary Policy Across Races: Evidence from the U.S. Credit Register
By: Laura Alfaro, Ester Faia and Camelia Minoiu
We examine the consequences of monetary policy on racial disparities, focusing on the role of bank lending to firms through collateral and selection channels. Leveraging comprehensive loan-level data from the U.S. credit register (Y-14Q) of the Federal Reserve, we show...
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- April 2022 (Revised May 2022)
- Case
Mastercard Labs (A)
When Ajaypal (Ajay) Banga became the CEO of Mastercard in 2010, he shifted the company’s competitive focus from card networks to cash itself. Mastercard’s new vision of a “World Beyond Cash” distilled into a three-pronged framework: Grow the core business, Diversify...
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Keywords:
Organizational Behavior;
Culture;
Culture Change;
Organizational Adaptation;
Organizational Effectiveness;
Alignment;
Leadership;
Leadership Development;
Innovation;
Innovation Ecosystems;
Ecosystem;
Diversity;
Collaboration;
Co-creation;
Learning Organizations;
Empowerment;
Globalization;
Agility;
Prototype;
Experiment;
Partnerships;
Operating Model;
Risk Management;
Metrics;
Payments;
Financial Inclusion;
Financial Industry;
Ambidexterity;
Corporate Innovation;
Innovation Lab;
Digital Transformation;
Digital Strategy;
Credit Cards;
Innovation Leadership;
Organizational Culture
- February 2022 (Revised May 2022)
- Case
Jaypee Infratech and the Indian Bankruptcy Code
By: Kristin Mugford, William Vrattos and Radhika Kak
In 2016, India passed a new bankruptcy law (IBC) to counter a brewing bank crisis and increased corporate distress. Homebuilder Jaypee Infratech, one of India largest distressed companies (the “dirty dozen”) began restructuring under the IBC in 2017. Two years later,...
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Keywords:
Restructuring;
Decisions;
Judgments;
Voting;
Developing Countries and Economies;
Financial Crisis;
Public Sector;
Asset Pricing;
Borrowing and Debt;
Corporate Finance;
Credit;
Insolvency and Bankruptcy;
Debt Securities;
Bonds;
Investment Return;
Price;
Government Legislation;
Laws and Statutes;
Bids and Bidding;
Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Valuation;
Real Estate Industry;
India;
Delhi
- 2022
- Working Paper
Transitory and Permanent Cash Flow Shocks in Debt Contract Design
By: Le Ma, Anywhere Sikochi and Yajun Xiao
We examine how lenders design contracts when borrowers are exposed to volatile transitory or permanent cash flow shocks. We find that volatile transitory shocks are associated with fewer liquidity covenants, indicating financial flexibility that can enable firms to...
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- July 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
Pershing Square's Pandemic Trade (A)
By: Emil N. Siriwardane, Luis M. Viceira, Dean Xu and Lucas Baker
This case explores the decision that Bill Ackman, CEO and founder of the hedge fund Pershing Square Capital, was considering in late February 2020 about hedging the exposure of the fund’s portfolio from the potential financial fallout ensuing from an extreme event like...
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- Article
The Economic Consequences of Bankruptcy Reform
By: Tal Gross, Ray Kluender, Feng Liu, Matthew J. Notowidigdo and Jialan Wang
A more generous consumer bankruptcy system provides greater insurance against financial risks but may also raise the cost of credit. We study this trade-off using the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), which increased the costs of...
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- March 2021
- Supplement
Making Impact Investing Markets: IFC (B)
By: Shawn A. Cole, John Masko and T. Robert Zochowski
In 2018, Thailand’s Bank of Ayudhya (known as Krungsri), was considering whether to participate in the first issue of a new financial instrument from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), known as a gender bond. Building on the success of the Green Bond program...
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Keywords:
Impact Investment;
Development Economics;
Developing Countries and Economies;
Borrowing and Debt;
Credit;
Equity;
Bonds;
Financing and Loans;
Growth and Development;
Emerging Markets;
Non-Governmental Organizations;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Financial Instruments;
Gender;
Financial Services Industry;
Thailand
- 2020
- Working Paper
Currency Hedging in Emerging Markets: Managing Cash Flow Exposure
By: Laura Alfaro, Mauricio Calani and Liliana Varela
Foreign currency derivative markets are among the largest in the world, yet their role in emerging markets in particular, is relatively understudied. We study firms' currency risk exposure and their hedging choices by employing a unique dataset covering the universe of...
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- January 2021 (Revised May 2021)
- Case
Delta Air Lines: Navigating the COVID-19 Storm
By: Ted Berk and Ryan Flamerich
This case examines Delta Air Lines’ response as demand for its services plummeted in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on the company’s funding needs and capital structure. Following a series of initial actions, the company’s cash “burn” had reduced from...
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- Article
Credit and Punishment: Are Corporate Bankers Disciplined for Risk-Taking?
By: Janet Gao, Kristoph Kleiner and Joseph Pacelli
We examine whether bankers face disciplining consequences for structuring poorly performing corporate loans. We construct a novel data set containing the employment histories and loan portfolios of a large sample of corporate bankers and find that corporate credit...
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- October 2020 (Revised June 2021)
- Case
Francisco Partners Private Credit Opportunity Fund
By: Luis M. Viceira, John D. Dionne, Soracha Prathanrasnikorn and Ari Sunshine
In April 2020, Scott Einsenberg, the Head of Credit at the private equity firm Francisco Partners, is deciding whether to go ahead with extending a private lending agreement to Eventbrite, Inc. (NYSE: EB), a leading global event management and online ticketing...
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- October 2020
- Article
Corporate Legal Structure and Bank Loan Spread
This study examines how a corporate legal structure may affect borrowing costs. Corporate legal structure refers to the legal fragmentation of a firm into multiple, separately incorporated entities. This fragmentation is bound to be a factor when lenders determine the...
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- October 2020
- Case
HOPE and Transformational Lending: Netflix Invests in Black Led Banks
By: John D. Macomber and Janice Broome Brooks
Following the killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day in 2020, the large US corporation Netflix elected to make a "transformational deposit" of $10 million into Hope Credit Union (HCU), a small Black led community development finance institution (CDFI) based in...
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