Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
  • Academic Units
    • Academic Units
    • Accounting & Management
    • Business, Government & the International Economy
    • Entrepreneurial Management
    • Finance
    • General Management
    • Marketing
    • Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
    • Organizational Behavior
    • Strategy
    • Technology & Operations Management
    →
  • Finance
    • Finance
    • Faculty
    • Curriculum
    • Seminars & Conferences
    • Awards & Honors
    • Doctoral Students
    →

Finance

Finance

  • Faculty
  • Curriculum
  • Seminars & Conferences
  • Awards & Honors
  • Doctoral Students
Overview Faculty Curriculum Seminars & Conferences Awards & Honors Doctoral Students
    • May 2022
    • Case

    What's Next

    By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

    • May 2022
    • Case

    What's Next

    By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

    • May 2022
    • Case

    Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?

    By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger

    Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank’s launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank’s mobile money app, Illico Cash literally promised “Fast Cash” for its users who also had a Rawbank account. Unlike most mobile money platforms on the African continent, Illico cash was backed by an established bank – not a technology or a telecommunications company. As he contemplated Rawbank’s next strategic move, the future of Illico Cash, and the bank’s future moves into digital payment systems in the DRC, he saw multiple challenges to Illico Cash’s adoption in several regions across the DRC. Seeing lower-than-anticipated usage rates, he wondered if local preferences for cash seemed just too powerful to overcome. Can the bank’s digital payments efforts overcome hurdles in local infrastructure, entrenched interests that favored cash, and currency instability? Would crafting a digital ecosystem be a worthwhile investment for Rawbank without a wholesale structural shift in beliefs?

    • May 2022
    • Case

    Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?

    By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger

    Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank’s launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank’s mobile money app, Illico Cash literally promised “Fast Cash” for its users who also had a Rawbank account....

    • Article

    Weak Corporate Insolvency Rules: The Missing Driver of Zombie Lending

    By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

    "Zombie lending"—lending to less-productive firms at subsidized rates—can help banks with misaligned incentives in the short run, but it prolongs economic downturns. We propose that inefficient resolution of insolvency is a significant contributor to this problem. We exploit variation in the efficiency of insolvency across countries to show that lack of formal bankruptcies, cheap (zombie) credit, and stickiness of existing creditors is more common in bad economic periods when insolvency works less well.

    • Article

    Weak Corporate Insolvency Rules: The Missing Driver of Zombie Lending

    By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina

    "Zombie lending"—lending to less-productive firms at subsidized rates—can help banks with misaligned incentives in the short run, but it prolongs economic downturns. We propose that inefficient resolution of insolvency is a significant contributor to this problem. We exploit variation in the efficiency of insolvency across countries to show that...

About the Unit

Our strategy is to assemble and nurture a faculty whose interests and skills complement each other, and who work well together:

a) to produce a broad range of finance-related research that is published in top-tier scientific and practitioner journals, and that addresses issues of present and future importance to managers (including regulators and policy makers);

b) to develop highly-relevant and intellectually rigorous MBA and executive education courses; and

c) to mentor future academics through the Business Economics doctoral program.

Our applied focus and access to business organizations are major advantages which are reinforced by our students and our case-based approach. We have a faculty with broad expertise, and we have resources, field contacts, and institutional support, all of which we can leverage to do richer work and be more productive than we could at other institutions.

Recent Publications

Red Hen Baking Company (Abridged)

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
  • May 2022 |
  • Supplement |
  • Faculty Research
Citation
Purchase
Related
Ruback, Richard S., and Royce Yudkoff. "Red Hen Baking Company (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 222-722, May 2022.

What's Next

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
  • May 2022 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Citation
Educators
Purchase
Related
Ruback, Richard S., and Royce Yudkoff. "What's Next." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Case 222-709, May 2022.

Valuing Yahoo! in 2013 (Abridged)

By: Luis M. Viceira
  • May 2022 |
  • Supplement |
  • Faculty Research
Citation
Purchase
Related
Viceira, Luis M. "Valuing Yahoo! in 2013 (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 222-717, May 2022.

Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?

By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger
  • May 2022 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank’s launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank’s mobile money app, Illico Cash literally promised “Fast Cash” for its users who also had a Rawbank account. Unlike most mobile money platforms on the African continent, Illico cash was backed by an established bank – not a technology or a telecommunications company. As he contemplated Rawbank’s next strategic move, the future of Illico Cash, and the bank’s future moves into digital payment systems in the DRC, he saw multiple challenges to Illico Cash’s adoption in several regions across the DRC. Seeing lower-than-anticipated usage rates, he wondered if local preferences for cash seemed just too powerful to overcome. Can the bank’s digital payments efforts overcome hurdles in local infrastructure, entrenched interests that favored cash, and currency instability? Would crafting a digital ecosystem be a worthwhile investment for Rawbank without a wholesale structural shift in beliefs?
Keywords: Fintech; Inflation; Deflation; Rural; Urban; Emerging Market; Mobile Technology; Finance; Money; Inflation and Deflation; Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Demographics; Developing Countries and Economies; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Behavioral Finance; Currency; Banks and Banking; Commercial Banking; Financial Strategy; Rural Scope; Urban Scope; Innovation Strategy; Emerging Markets; Network Effects; Consumer Behavior; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Adoption; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Congo, Democratic Republic of the
Citation
Educators
Related
Cohen, Lauren, and Grace Headinger. "Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?" Harvard Business School Case 222-084, May 2022.

From GOP to NFT: Anthony Scaramucci and the Launch of Flatter NFT

By: Lauren Cohen, Richard Ryffel and Grace Headinger
  • May 2022 |
  • Case |
  • Faculty Research
Anthony Scaramucci, Managing Director of SkyBridge Capital, considered whether he should officially greenlight the launch of SkyBridge’s own NFT platform – Flatter NFT. He had led the investment firm to push first into Bitcoin and then Ethereum to make SkyBridge a central node in the crypto industry. He further believed SkyBridge could differentiate itself from OpenSea and other platforms by tying non-fungible tokens with fungible experiences. The technology behind the platform was solidly proven. However, in his head he weighed the tradeoff between launching a full platform versus other ways of investing in the space. With a potential announcement of the platform pending for the September 2021 SALT NYC conference, Scaramucci believed now was the time to make a decision. The NFT space swelled in users and value by the day. Should SkyBridge jump in or move on to another venture?
Keywords: Business Startup; Fintech; Technology; Cryptocurrency; Web3; Business Startups; Volatility; Decision Making; Entertainment; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Strategic Planning; Adoption; Competitive Advantage; Technology Adoption; Finance; Currency; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; New York (city, NY)
Citation
Educators
Purchase
Related
Cohen, Lauren, Richard Ryffel, and Grace Headinger. "From GOP to NFT: Anthony Scaramucci and the Launch of Flatter NFT." Harvard Business School Case 222-085, May 2022.

Weak Corporate Insolvency Rules: The Missing Driver of Zombie Lending

By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina
  • Article |
  • AEA Papers and Proceedings
"Zombie lending"—lending to less-productive firms at subsidized rates—can help banks with misaligned incentives in the short run, but it prolongs economic downturns. We propose that inefficient resolution of insolvency is a significant contributor to this problem. We exploit variation in the efficiency of insolvency across countries to show that lack of formal bankruptcies, cheap (zombie) credit, and stickiness of existing creditors is more common in bad economic periods when insolvency works less well.
Keywords: Zombie Credit; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financing and Loans; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation
Citation
Find at Harvard
Register to Read
Related
Becker, Bo, and Victoria Ivashina. "Weak Corporate Insolvency Rules: The Missing Driver of Zombie Lending." AEA Papers and Proceedings 112 (May 2022): 516–520.

Crises and Collective Purpose: Distraction or Liberation?

By: P. Tufano
  • 2022 |
  • Chapter |
  • Faculty Research
Citation
Read Now
Related
Tufano, P. "Crises and Collective Purpose: Distraction or Liberation?" In Business School Leadership and Crisis Exit Planning: Global Deans' Contributions on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of EFMD, edited by Eric Cornuel. Cambridge University Press, 2022.

Can Gambling Increase Savings? Empirical Evidence on Prize-Linked Savings Accounts

By: Shawn A. Cole, Benjamin Iverson and P. Tufano
  • May 2022 |
  • Article |
  • Management Science
This paper studies the adoption and impact of prize-linked savings (PLS) accounts, which offer lottery-like payouts to individual account holders in lieu of interest. Using microlevel data from a bank in South Africa, we show that PLS is attractive to a broad group of individuals, with financially constrained individuals and those with no other deposit accounts particularly likely to participate. Individuals who choose to use PLS increase their total savings on average by 1% of annual income. Exploiting the random assignment of prizes, we present causal evidence that PLS substitutes for lottery gambling but is a complement to standard savings.
Keywords: Household Finance; Banking; Savings; Prize-linked Savings; Lottery; Household; Personal Finance; Saving; Banks and Banking
Citation
Find at Harvard
Purchase
Related
Cole, Shawn A., Benjamin Iverson, and P. Tufano. "Can Gambling Increase Savings? Empirical Evidence on Prize-Linked Savings Accounts." Management Science 68, no. 5 (May 2022): 3282–3308.
More Publications

In the News

    • 26 May 2022
    • Harvard Business School

    HBS MBA Class of 2022 Celebrates Class Day

    Re: Srikant Datar, Mattias Fibiger, David Moss, Nori Gerardo Lietz & Emily McComb
    • 23 May 2022
    • Harvard Business School

    Four HBS Faculty Members Receive Class of 2022 Faculty Teaching Award Honors

    Re: Mattias Fibiger, Nori Gerardo Lietz, Emily McComb & David Moss
    • 19 May 2022
    • Bloomberg

    Cratering Markets Blowing a Bigger Hole in Consumer Psychology

    Re: Marco Di Maggio
→More Faculty News

HBS Working Knowledge

    • 18 May 2022

    Are Banks the ‘Bad Guys’? Overdraft Fees Are Crushing Low-Income Customers

    Re: Marco Di MaggioRe: Emily Williams
    • 22 Feb 2022

    When Will the Hot Housing Market Finally Start to Cool?

    Re: Nori Gerardo Lietz
    • 07 Sep 2021

    Who Pays For Wildfire and Hurricane Damage? Everyone.

    Re: Ishita Sen
→More Working Knowledge Articles

Harvard Business Publishing

    • March 2012
    • Article

    How to Make Finance Work

    By: Robin Greenwood and David S. Scharfstein
    • May 2022
    • Case

    What's Next

    By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
    • 2017
    • Book

    HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company

    By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
→More Harvard Business Publishing

Seminars & Conferences

There are no upcoming events.

→More Seminars & Conferences

Faculty Positions

Harvard Business School seeks candidates in all fields for full time positions. Candidates with outstanding records in PhD or DBA programs are encouraged to apply.
→Learn More

Contact Information

Finance Unit
Harvard Business School
Baker Library | Bloomberg Center
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
financeunit@hbs.edu

ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College