Publications

Government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic have closed down a significant portion of the global economy, creating severe liquidity problems for many companies at a time when the corporate sector is historically highly leveraged across the…

Part I of III: Excerpted from the forthcoming book Stress in the American Workplace

In the opening chapter, Dr. Hans Selye first defined stress as the “non-specific” response of the body to any demand made upon it. With the…

Over the past decade, low interest rates attracted borrowers to leveraged credit markets, which have since reached an unprecedented size and risk. The collision of a highly leveraged corporate sector with the severe economic shock from COVID-19…

The coronavirus pandemic has left the corporate sector scrambling for cash. So far, a relatively robust financial system has been able to provide short-term funding, primarily through the revolving lines of bank credit available to most firms.…

The U.S. is facing a recession in which corporate cash flow is collapsing while credit spreads on corporate debt are surging. Yet, in significant ways, the current situation is markedly different than a typical recession. While in a typical…

This research sought to understand if physical activity recommendations — an integral component of many interventions aiming to promote physical activity — may have unexpected effects on individuals’ mindsets (in this case about the adequacy and…

In recent years, scholars have addressed the most important topics in corporate law based on a flawed assumption: that the ratio of the market value of a corporation’s securities to their book value is a valid measure of the value of the…

Culture is easy to sense but hard to measure. The workhorses of culture research—employee surveys and questionnaires—are often unreliable. Studying the language that employees use in electronic communication has opened a new window into…

Retirement investing in the United States has changed dramatically. The classic defined benefit (DB) plan has largely been replaced by the defined contribution (DC) plan. With the latter, individual employees’ decisions about how much to save for…

The debates about our economic system are sometimes framed as a stark choice between market-based capitalism and government-controlled socialism. But the actual choices are much more complicated. Corporations, which control much of our economic…

Stereotypes are often reinforced by the words we choose to use. And when those stereotypes don’t align with markers of success at work and further inaccuracies about gender, race, national origin, age or other status characteristics. New research…

This case is a setting to discuss “loan to own” investment strategy that is often pursued by distressed investors. The aftermath of the 2007 financial crisis left many companies with poor liquidity and limited ability to obtain credit. One of…

Blockchain technology has real potential to provide business value. While many technical, financial, and regulatory hurdles still remain, blockchain offers significant opportunity for innovation along the value chain. 

A three-tiered framework for making human-centered design more inclusive of people with disabilities can help organizations improve their own programs.

Nearly everywhere the population is getting older, and these swelling ranks of 55 and older people represent a massive and important market opportunity. Their purchasing power is already $7.6 trillion in the US alone. But there’s a big gap…

This case (A), and its related cases (B-E), establish a setting to discuss an M&A transaction and some of the key legal contracts that are associated with it. In 2010, private equity backed food manufacturer Pierre Foods is contemplating the…

Sports lifestyle company Quiksilver filed for bankruptcy in September 2015. Oaktree is considering an additional investment in the company to facilitate the restructuring. Students must consider whether Oaktree should invest given the risks of…

Political science is in large part the study of power, but power itself is difficult to measure. We argue that we can use newspaper coverage — in particular, the relative amount of space devoted to particular subjects in newspapers — to measure…

The majority of businesses in the UK report that Brexit is a source of uncertainty. This column uses survey responses from around 3,000 businesses to evaluate the level and impact of this uncertainty. It finds that Brexit uncertainty has…

Steadily rising housing rents in many of the US’s large, productive cities have reignited the discussion whether to expand or enact rent control provisions. Under pressure to fight rising rents, state lawmakers in Illinois, Oregon, and California…