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- December 2022
- Technical Note
Risks and Opportunities from the Transition to a Low Carbon Economy: A Business Analysis Framework
By: George Serafeim
The transition to a low carbon economy introduces many risks and opportunities for businesses. Risks emerge from regulatory actions, such as carbon taxes and cap and trade systems, technological innovation that develop alternatives for customers making existing...
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Keywords:
Risk Assessment;
Opportunities;
Environmental Sustainability;
Carbon Footprint;
Risk Management;
Competitive Dynamics;
Business Analysis;
Climate Change;
Accounting;
Finance;
Valuation;
Business and Shareholder Relations;
Technological Innovation;
Transition;
Product Positioning;
Renewable Energy;
Analysis
- December 2022 (Revised February 2023)
- Case
Daniel Defense: Responding to the Shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
At 11:33am on May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old man from Uvalde, Texas walked into the Robb Elementary School carrying a semi-automatic "AR-15-style” rifle manufactured by Daniel Defense and killed 19 children and two adults. Three days later, Representative Carolyn Maloney...
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Keywords:
Gun Violence;
Gun Policy;
Second Amendment;
Legal Liability;
Government Legislation;
Marketing Strategy;
Business or Company Management;
Product Marketing;
Ethics;
Corporate Accountability;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Moral Sensibility;
Crime and Corruption;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Manufacturing Industry;
Advertising Industry;
United States
- 2023
- Working Paper
Ethical Blindspots of Autonomous Products: The Case of Mental Health Crises on AI Companion Applications
By: Julian De Freitas, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp and Zeliha Uğuralp
Some products do not merely automate some piece of our lives but act as consumer-facing
autonomous agents. When these technologies are not yet perfected, what are their risks? Here
we explore the case of ‘AI companion’ apps. Although these apps are designed...
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- Article
To Drive Efforts...Don't Tiptoe Around Your Legal Risk
By: Edward Chang and Bonnie Levine
Many Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are scuttled because DEI leaders and legal teams feel themselves to be at odds over questions of acceptable risk. DEI leaders see lawyers as guardians of the status quo, whereas legal experts, trained to...
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- May 2022
- Article
When Does Product Liability Risk Chill Innovation? Evidence from Medical Implants
By: Alberto Galasso and Hong Luo
Liability laws designed to compensate for harms caused by defective products may also affect innovation. We examine this issue by exploiting a major quasi-exogenous increase in liability risk faced by U.S. suppliers of polymers used to manufacture medical implants....
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- April 2022
- Article
AI Insurance: How Liability Insurance Can Drive the Responsible Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in Health Care
By: Ariel Dora Stern, Avi Goldfarb, Timo Minssen and W. Nicholson Price II
Despite enthusiasm about the potential to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to medicine and health care delivery, adoption remains tepid, even for the most compelling technologies. In this article, the authors focus on one set of challenges to AI adoption: those...
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- May 2021
- Article
Risk-Mitigating Technologies: The Case of Radiation Diagnostic Devices
By: Alberto Galasso and Hong Luo
We study the impact of consumers’ risk perception on firm innovation. Our analysis exploits a major surge in the perceived risk of radiation diagnostic devices following extensive media coverage of a set of over-radiation accidents involving CT scanners in late 2009....
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- April 2015
- Article
Incentivizing Calculated Risk-Taking: Evidence from an Experiment with Commercial Bank Loan Officers
By: Shawn Cole, Martin Kanz and Leora Klapper
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...
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- October 2014 (Revised March 2015)
- Case
Integrated Reporting at Aegon
By: Robert G. Eccles, George Serafeim, Sydney Ribot and Michael Krzus
In 2011, Aegon adopted integrated reporting—a corporate reporting approach that sought to present company performance in a holistic light by considering medium- to long-term issues, stakeholder opinions, and the relationship between material financial and nonfinancial...
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- December 2012 (Revised November 2014)
- Case
W.R. Grace & Co.: Dealing with Asbestos Torts
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott
A manufacturer of building products and specialty chemicals, W. R. Grace & Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001 in response to a flood of lawsuits alleging that its products contained asbestos, and had caused hundreds of thousands of people to contract...
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Keywords:
Bankruptcy Reorganization;
Business Failures;
Environmental Regulations;
Class Action Lawsuits;
Natural Environment;
Valuation;
Health Disorders;
Capital Structure;
Restructuring;
Lawsuits and Litigation;
Chemicals;
Crisis Management;
Insolvency and Bankruptcy;
Legal Liability;
Construction Industry;
Chemical Industry;
United States
- 2010
- Working Paper
Integrity: A Positive Model That Incorporates the Normative Phenomena of Morality, Ethics, and Legality Abridged
By: Werner H. Erhard, Michael C. Jensen and Steve Zaffron
We present a positive model of integrity that, as we distinguish and define integrity, provides powerful access to increased performance for individuals, groups, organizations, and societies. Our model reveals the causal link between integrity and increased...
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- January 2009 (Revised October 2009)
- Case
GLOBALGAP: Food Safety and Private Standards
By: David E. Bell and Mary Louise Shelman
In response to new laws governing liability and several food safety scares in the 1990s, European retailers drove the creation of a universal production standard based on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) for fresh fruit and vegetables and a third-party certification...
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- December 2007
- Case
Ruling the Modern Corporation: The Debate over Limited Liability in Massachusetts
By: David A. Moss and Eugene Kintgen
In 1830, Governor Levi Lincoln, Jr. urged the Massachusetts state legislature to introduce a limited liability regime for manufacturing corporations similar to that adopted in neighboring states. At least since 1809, shareholders in the state's manufacturing...
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- June 2003 (Revised August 2003)
- Case
Pension Policy at The Boots Company PLC
By: Luis M. Viceira and Akiko M. Mitsui
In early 2000, the trustees of the pension scheme at Boots considered a proposal to move 100% of the pension assets into a bond portfolio, which would be passively managed. The Boots Co. PLC was a leading retailer of cosmetics and toiletries in the United Kingdom, and...
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- March 2001 (Revised April 2002)
- Case
Ginzel et al v. Kolcraft Enterprises et al (A)
Examines the wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of an infant who died after a portable crib collapsed. The manufacturer, Kolcraft, licensed the Playskool brand name from the co-defendant, Hasbro Industries. Raises difficult questions about what the two...
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- May 1995
- Background Note
Note on Product Liability
By: Willis M. Emmons III, Monica Brand and Greg Keller
This note provides an overview to the evolution and current state of product liability law in the United States.
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- November 1994
- Case
Dow Corning and the Breast Implant Controversy (A)
By: Willis M. Emmons III, Monica Brand and Greg Keller
In early 1994, Dow Corning Corp. debates whether to participate in a proposed $4.2 billion product liability settlement. Specifically, the firm must decide whether to contribute $2 billion to end a class action suit filed by women suffering from connective tissue...
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- March 1993 (Revised July 2008)
- Case
Liability Management at General Motors
By: Peter Tufano
An analyst at General Motors charged with managing the structure of the automaker's debt must decide whether and how to modify the interest rate exposure of the firm's most recent debt offering. The analyst must take into consideration GM's liability management policy...
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- February 1979 (Revised December 1983)
- Case
Allied Chemical Corp. (A)
Describes Allied, the chemical industry, and the effects of the Kepone problem (a toxic pesticide dumped into the James River) as of 1976. The executive in the case must decide whether the company should support the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act and an...
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- Forthcoming
- Article
Regulatory Limits to Risk Management
By: Ishita Sen
Variable annuities, the largest liability of U.S. life insurers, are investment products containing long-dated minimum return guarantees. I show that guarantees with similar economic risks are treated differently by regulation and these differences impact insurers’...
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