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- 2022
- Working Paper
Perceptions about Monetary Policy
By: Michael D. Bauer, Carolin Pflueger and Adi Sunderam
We estimate perceptions about the Fed's monetary policy rule from micro data on professional forecasters. The perceived rule varies significantly over time, with important consequences for monetary policy and bond markets. Over the monetary policy cycle, easings are...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Can Finance Save the World? Measurement and Effects of Coal Divestment Policies by Banks
By: Daniel Green and Boris Vallée
We study whether divestment policies are an effective tool to address climate change, using coal lending bans by banks around the world as a laboratory. In contrast to theories arguing divestment is ineffective because capital is highly subsitutable, we find large...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Calling All Issuers: The Market for Debt Monitoring
By: Huaizhi Chen, Lauren Cohen and Weiling Liu
A substantial fraction of local governments refinance their long-term debt with significant delays—resulting in sizable losses. Using data from 2001 to 2018, we estimate that U.S. municipals lost over $31 billion from this delayed refinancing, whereas the entire U.S....
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- April–May 2021
- Article
Labor Mobility and Antitakeover Provisions
By: Aiyesha Dey and Joshua White
How do firms protect their human capital? We test whether firms facing an increased threat of being acquired strengthen their antitakeover provisions (ATPs) in order to bond with their employees. We use the adoption of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine (IDD) by U.S....
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- March 2021 (Revised April 2021)
- Case
Making Impact Investing Markets: IFC (A)
By: Shawn A. Cole, John Masko and T. Robert Zochowski
In 2017, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) faced the first big investment decision in its new Scaling Solar project. Founded in 1956, IFC was an international investment body with national governments as shareholders, whose mission was to promote economic...
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Keywords:
Impact Investing;
Development Economics;
Developing Countries and Economies;
Renewable Energy;
Climate Change;
Environmental Sustainability;
Borrowing and Debt;
Credit;
Equity;
Bonds;
Financing and Loans;
Growth and Development;
Emerging Markets;
Non-Governmental Organizations;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Investment;
Decision Making;
Financial Services Industry;
Energy Industry;
Zambia
- 2020
- Chapter
Reserve Accumulation, Sovereign Debt, and Exchange Rate Policy
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
In the past decade, foreign participation in local-currency bond markets in emerging countries increased dramatically. Additionally, emerging countries are increasingly deviating from inflation targeting regimes, managing their exchange rate and engaging in...
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- 2020
- Working Paper
Internal Models, Make Believe Prices, and Bond Market Cornering
By: Ishita Sen and Varun Sharma
Exploiting position-level heterogeneity in regulatory incentives to misreport and novel data on regulators, we document that U.S. life insurers inflate the values of corporate bonds using internal models. We estimate an additional $9-$18 billion decline in regulatory...
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- April 2019 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
Sears: The Demise of an American Icon
By: Kristin Mugford and Sarah L. Abbott
In 2019, ESL Investments’ $5.2 billion offer to purchase Sears Holdings out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, was accepted, despite opposition from the company's unsecured creditors and other parties. ESL, which was led by Eddie Lampert, had acquired a stake in Sears following...
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- February 2019 (Revised October 2022)
- Case
Scandal at Steinhoff
By: Kristin Mugford and Phil Caruso
- December 2018
- Case
CIR Group: Passing Wealth through the Generations
By: Lauren Cohen, Christopher J. Malloy and Elena Corsi
Rodolfo, Marco, and Edoardo De Benedetti had received from their father his controlling shares in COFIDE, a publicly listed holding company that held 45.8% of CIR Group, another publicly listed holding. The latter held majority shares in GEDI, Italy’s largest print...
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- November 2018 (Revised June 2019)
- Case
The Rise of Populism and Italy's Electoral 'Tsunami'
By: Rawi Abdelal, Dante Roscini and Elena Corsi
Italy’s March 2018 elections led to a populist government that included the right-wing League and the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement. To respect their electoral promises, the two parties came up with a budget plan that provided for a public deficit at 2.4%, a...
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- 2018
- Working Paper
The Impact of Pensions and Insurance on Global Yield Curves
By: Robin Greenwood and Annette Vissing-Jorgensen
We document a strong effect of pension and insurance company (P&I) assets on the long end of the yield curve. Using data from 26 countries, the yield spread between 30-year and 10-year government bond yields is negatively related to the ratio of pension assets (in...
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- June 2018
- Article
The Fed, the Bond Market, and Gradualism in Monetary Policy
By: Jeremy C. Stein and Adi Sunderam
We develop a model of monetary policy with two key features: (i) the central bank has some private information about its long-run target for the policy rate, and (ii) the central bank is averse to bond-market volatility. In this setting, discretionary monetary policy...
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- February 2018
- Case
Infrastructure in Nigeria: Unlocking Pension Fund Investments
By: John Macomber and Pippa Tubman Armerding
The so-called “infrastructure finance gap” was a problem in Nigeria as in many parts of the world. Infrastructure projects like power plants and dams were very large capital investments that could generate long-term consistent cash flows, but their financing and...
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- February 2018
- Article
Financial Repression in the European Sovereign Debt Crisis
By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina
By the end of 2013, the share of government debt held by the domestic banking sectors of Eurozone countries was more than twice its 2007 level. We show that this type of increasing reliance on the domestic banking sector for absorbing government bonds generates a...
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- August 2017 (Revised December 2017)
- Case
Accounting for Nuclear Power Provisions at RWE
By: Paul Healy and Jonas Heese
In early 2016, RWE, a utility that operates nuclear power plants in Germany, came under scrutiny from regulators and the media over the adequacy of its provisions for costs of decommissioning and dismantling (D&D) its nuclear power plants. Accounting standards required...
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- June 2017
- Article
The Social Trajectory of a Finance Professor and the Common Sense of Capital
By: Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana
This paper traces the career of Michael Jensen, a Chicago finance PhD turned Harvard Business School professor to reveal the intellectual and social conditions that enabled the emergence and institutionalization of what we call the “neoliberal common sense of capital,”...
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- April 2017 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Restructuring Ukraine
By: Kristin Mugford, Seema Amble and Tian Feng
In June 2015, Ukraine found itself struggling with a volatile and devalued currency, dramatically diminished foreign reserves, and a projected financing shortfall of $40 billion. Ukraine’s new government sought to return the nation to stability following political...
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Keywords:
Exchange Rates;
Politics;
Macroeconomics;
Financial Crisis;
Insolvency and Bankruptcy;
Restructuring;
Economy;
Currency Exchange Rate;
Banks and Banking;
Economic Slowdown and Stagnation;
Bonds;
Sovereign Finance;
Capital Markets;
Credit;
Debt Securities;
Financial Liquidity;
Financial Markets;
Government and Politics;
Ukraine
- September 2016
- Article
Disproportional Control Rights and the Bonding Role of Debt
By: Aiyesha Dey, Valeri Nikolaev and Xue Wang
We examine the governance role of debt in the context of U.S.-based dual class ownership structures. We hypothesize that the use of debt alleviates the conflict between shareholder classes by balancing the power of controlling insiders. We document that dual class...
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- March 2016 (Revised February 2019)
- Case
Central European Distribution Corporation: Hostile Takeover, Bankruptcy Makeover
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott
In early 2013, Central European Distribution Corporation (CEDC), a large publicly traded producer and distributer of vodka and spirits in Eastern and Central Europe, has suffered significant declines in its financial performance, is at risk of defaulting on its debt,...
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