Showing results 1 - 10 of 12
| Shawn Cole | Vikram Gandhi
June 16, 2021, Video: "Impact investing, and sustainable investing more broadly, has been making significant strides not only in capital markets and in the world of philanthropy, but in higher education as well. Increasing numbers of graduate and undergraduate schools, often led by intrepid pioneers located in business schools, are establishing courses that introduce students to the many aspects of the triple bottom line — from democratizing…
| Shawn Cole
December 22, 2020, Audio: "The numbers prove that the rising popularity of impact investing isn’t just anecdotal. According to an industry report, the size of the market grew by an astonishing 42.4% in the last year — from $502 billion to $715 billion in assets under management. Searching for a way to let their dollars make a difference in the world, a growing number of asset owners and managers have turned to impact investing, which is the…
| Shawn Cole
August 2020, Paper: "There is growing interest in impact investing, the idea of deploying capital to obtain both financial and social or environmental returns. Examination of every equity investment made by one of the largest and longest-operating impact investors across 130 emerging market and developing economies shows this portfolio has outperformed the S&P 500 by 15 percent. Investments in larger economies have higher returns, and…
| Shawn Cole | Josh Lerner
May 2020, Paper, "Impact investing has grown significantly over the past 15 years. From a niche investing segment with only $25 billion AUM in 2013 (WEF 2013), it experienced double-digit growth and developed into a market with an estimated $502 billion AUM (Mudaliapar and Dithrich 2019). Despite the growth and maturation of impact investing, gathering complete and accurate data on the characteristics of this industry continues to be a challenge…
| Shawn Cole
2020, Paper, "This note describes results from a survey of “anchor investors” in impact funds. Anchor investors are described as “generally the first investor to make a substantial capital commitment to a fund,” (according to the Global Impact Investing Network, “GIIN”) and their role is often thought to be an important determinant of the fund’s ultimate ability to raise meaningful amounts of investable capital. We survey 13 fund managers, who…
| Shawn Cole
2019, Paper, "We have each experienced thrills and pain while supporting the mission of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which facilitated many of the experiments described in the 2019 Nobel Prize citation. J-PAL in many ways seeks to fulfill what Angrist and Pischke called the “Credibility Revolution in Empirical Economics.” Even though (or perhaps because) we have conducted many RCTs, we share many of the concerns that critics have…
| Shawn Cole
Understanding and Overcoming Roadblocks to Environmental Sustainability. Past Roads and Future Prospects. Shawn Cole, 2019, Paper, "This working paper examines key barriers to business sustainability discussed at a multidisciplinary conference held at the Harvard Business School in 2018. Drawing on perspectives from both the historical and business literatures, speakers debated the historical success and future opportunities for voluntary…
| Shawn Cole
Understanding and Overcoming Roadblocks to Environmental Sustainablity. Past Roads and Future Prospects. Shawn Cole, January 15, 2019, Paper, "This working paper examines key barriers to business sustainability discussed at a multidisciplinary conference held at the Harvard Business School in 2018. Drawing on perspectives from both the historical and business literatures, speakers debated the historical success and future opportunities for…
| Shawn Cole
Smart Money? The Effect of Education on Financial Outcomes. Shawn Cole, August 2013, Paper. "Household financial decisions are important for household welfare, economic growth and financial stability. Yet, our understanding of the determinants of financial decision-making is limited. Exploiting exogenous variation in state compulsory schooling laws in both standard and two-sample instrumental variable strategies, we show education increases…
| Shawn Cole
Improving Financial Access for Entrepreneurs in Developing Countries. Shawn Cole, March 2011 , Paper, "Providing incentives for loan officers is difficult as banks seek to both increase lending volume whilst minimizing risk. Incentives play an important role in emerging markets where high information costs and the limited enforceability of debt contracts means that risk management relies on the expertise of the bank’s front-line employees."…