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This case describes the trials and tribulations that tested Yung Kee Restaurant, a Chinese roast goose restaurant in Hong Kong. The former Michelin-star eatery, founded by Kam Shui-fai, received several other accolades, including recognition by Fortune magazine as one of the world's best restaurants. Unfortunately, with the passing on of Kam Senior in 2004, a bitter feud over the ownership and management of Yung Kee erupted among his children; the public dispute tore the family apart. At one point, Kam family members refused to even acknowledge one another in social settings. In July 2010, the elder Kam brother, Kinsen, applied to the Hong Kong High Court to liquidate Yung Kee Holdings, if his younger brother, Ronald, refused to buy out his stake. In 2015, the court instructed Yung Kee Holdings to close its business, which could spell the end of the restaurant, which was its crown jewel and a culinary institution in the city. Fast forward to 2020, Yung Kee has survived the ordeal. A third-generation member of the Kam family became Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the restaurant and helms the family business. What could have been done better in terms of corporate governance? In what other ways could the family business be organised?

Unconventional monetary policy has become the norm since the 2008 financial crisis. Central bank balance sheets have swelled and new tools for interest rate control have now emerged. This technical note provides a framework to help students understand the nature of unconventional monetary policy and interpret recent changes in how short-term policy rates are controlled. It can serve as a technical supplement to an event-study case on monetary policy responses to the 2008 financial crisis and/or the COVID-19 pandemic. It would also complement a case on monetary policy in a world with central bank digital currency. Alternatively, it can form the basis of its own tool-building class ahead of such cases.

This case explores the role of deposit insurance in financial stability, including the importance of risk-adjusted insurance premiums and the complementarity between capital requirements and deposit insurance when risk is imperfectly measured by the insurer. The case is intended to follow a class on maturity transformation (e.g., as presented in ""The Economics of Maturity Transformation"" [UVA-GEM-0191]). It begins with a fictional cryptocurrency exchange, Koble, which proposes to conduct maturity transformation outside of the current purview of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The chair of the FDIC, Jelena McWilliams, now faces a huge normative question: should deposit insurance be extended to Koble? Her answer could change the trajectories of both the FDIC and the cryptocurrency market. The case reviews the history of deposit insurance in the United States and concludes with a series of questions for McWilliams to ponder, specifically questions that connect Koble to the historical lessons.

This case explores private and public proposals for digital forms of money that bypass the commercial banking system. A private proposal comes from Facebook's Libra. A public proposal comes from central bank digital currency (CBDC). The case begins with Mark Zuckerberg's vision for Libra and the ensuing pushback from policymakers. One of the main concerns-financial stability-is revisited during a tour of the arguments for and against a CBDC. The introduction of the first official CBDC by the Central Bank of the Bahamas is then discussed. The case closes with Zuckerberg pondering the economics of Libra in a bid to bring policymakers on board. The case is intended to follow a class on the economics of cryptocurrency (e.g., as presented in "The Economics of Cryptocurrency" [UVA-GEM-0190]). Prior exposure to the causes of and responses to the 2008 financial crisis is also strongly recommended to permit a substantive discussion of financial stability risks.

Few concepts are as important as maturity transformation for understanding financial crises. This technical note guides students through the key mechanisms in the theory using a representative investor, a long-term borrower, and an issuer of shorter-term claims. It then highlights the pervasiveness of maturity transformation in modern financial products. It works well before classes on deposit insurance, bank regulation, the 2008 financial crisis, and/or shadow banking generally.

Spreadsheet Supplement for Technical Note UV8332

What is monetary policy and what is the Federal Reserve's (Fed's) role in determining monetary policy in the United States? How are changes in monetary policy implemented and how do these changes affect firms, households, and other stakeholders? This technical note addresses these questions by outlining the Fed's legal mandate, the tools at its disposal to achieve that mandate, and the mechanisms through which the Fed's policy choices affect macroeconomic outcomes. This note is designed to follow a sequence on the IS/LM-AD/AS model of the macroeconomy (e.g., as presented in UVA-GEM-0125, UVA-GEM-0126, and UVA-GEM-0127). In particular, students are expected to approach this note with prior exposure to a formalization of an economy's potential level of output and how changes in the money supply affect GDP, employment, and the price level. This note expands on prior technical material by distinguishing between the monetary base and the money supply (and hence defining the money multiplier).

It was April 17, 2020, the night before the vote, and Kelsey Wirth, co-founder and board chair of Mothers Out Front, a non-profit climate justice organization, wondered if its Massachusetts chapter had garnered sufficient support from its members to ratify their proposed new charter. It is essential to have our members bought into this, thought Wirth. The members have to feel like they own this next step in our evolution of Massachusetts. The charter development team, dubbed Path to Power (P2P), had tried to address all the outstanding issues and concerns that had led to the initiative, but questions about decision-making authority, accountability, and representation remained unresolved. When each chapter's delegates gathered for the State Assembly, two-thirds must vote yes if the charter were to be adopted. It wasn't perfect, but if the charter did not pass, Wirth worried about how they would overcome the challenges facing the Mothers Out Front in Massachusetts. The case goes on to detail the challenges which led the organization to undergo a months-long effort to develop a charter-namely, the need for a clear decision-making and leadership structure. Mothers Out Front had grown organically from a Massachusetts-based grassroots effort into a national organization, but its structure had not evolved to keep pace and as a result, tension began to build within the organization. Members began to question decisions made by the leadership team; the leadership team felt disempowered and lacking the authority to make strategic decisions. Without a clear structure and process, the organization lacked coordinated, strategic thinking driving decisions. The lack of clarity around decision-making and structure made it difficult for its volunteers to carry out the work of the organization. Mothers Out Front leaders hired a team of consultants to guide them through the process of re-designing its structure in a way that engaged staff and volunteers throughout the organization.

This exercise explores customer transaction data generated from a business owner's website and illustrates the added benefit of basic data analytics practices used to uncover business insights. Students discover the business's purchase trends when they answer the provided questions by writing SQL queries. The questions guide students to determine which product offerings the business should promote and which customer segments to target. Additionally, the case discusses the common relational database design that is often associated with transactional data and its metadata.

Cryptocurrencies claim to be the future of money and payments, the lifelines of any business. An informed evaluation requires understanding both the economics and the computer science behind the technology. Designed for an MBA elective on money and banking, this technical note guides students through the building blocks of cryptocurrencies using the one that launched them all: Bitcoin. To provide a logically consistent framework for interpreting future innovations, the technical note digs deeper into the technological ingredients of Bitcoin than is typical in economics, while also connecting the technology back to a core set of economic principles, all in an accessible way.

Chicanery is common in the start-up world: With so much at stake, founders are apt to exaggerate, obfuscate, and otherwise stretch the truth when courting investors and other important stakeholders. Such deception locks up resources by prolonging the life of doomed ventures and makes it hard for VCs and employees to know where best to invest their money or labor. It also exacts a personal toll on founders themselves. The authors take a multidisciplinary approach to the problem. They argue that common justifications for such deception--the need to protect investors and employees, and the belief that all entrepreneurs engage in it--do not stand up to scrutiny. And they offer several pieces of advice to founders, drawn from moral philosophy: Dream big, but be forthcoming and honest about the evidence and assumptions underpinning your vision. And surround yourself with virtuous people who will help you be your best self.

In 2005, the faculty of the computer science department at Harvey Mudd College reviewed its statistics on gender matriculation. A long-time goal of the department had been to increase the number and proportion of women studying computer science at the school. To their consternation, they discovered that the number of women declaring computer science majors was declining. The case describes the steps the faculty took to redesign their core introductory course as well as the follow-up study that revealed a dramatic, sustainable increase in women's engagement: Harvey Mudd College raised the percentage of women computer science majors to over 50% in less than ten years. The case discusses the transformation of the culture and pedagogy-as well as specific actions taken by the faculty and school leadership-that fomented this change. The focus on the computer science program is set against the broader backdrop of Harvey Mudd College's efforts to attract and retain women students generally. HKS Case 2225.0

This case expounds on the operating model and achievements of Ant Forest. Ant Forest not only heralded a new model for protecting the environment but also generated unique business value for payments app Alipay and its parent company Ant Financial. Ant Forest is a classic example of how a business can create economic value by delivering social value. In just over three years of operations, Ant Forest chalked up two distinctive achievements: First, it functioned as a green initiative and public benefit platform accessible to any individual, company, public welfare organization, and public benefit corporation (PBC). It offered tangible incentives (planting new trees) to reward low-carbon lifestyles, creating a mutual incentive closed-loop system. Second, it encouraged users to use Alipay by rewarding them with green energy points. Therefore, it delivered a social networking function, a historic key competitive weakness of Alipay, helping to boost the app's usage frequency and user stickiness. It also enabled the creation of personal carbon accounts, a key step in the implementation of Ant Financial's green finance strategy. However, Ant Forest still relied primarily on investments from Ant Financial to survive until early 2020. Zu Wang, Ant Forest's product manager, was keen to overcome this dependence. So, how could Ant Forest become a self-sufficient entity, and how could it build a sustainable environmental protection platform?

Successful implementation is essential for achieving policymakers' goals and must be considered during both design and delivery. The mission of this monograph is to provide you with a framework and set of tools to achieve success. The starting point is a four-step framework for developing effective implementation plans: Architect, Pilot, Scale, Improve. A set of tools that support each of the framework stages are then profiled. Tools for change management and project management are also provided. HKS Case 2216.0

In 2019, Nike and other brands were accused by the media, human rights advocates and organizations, and members of the U.S. government of potentially having supply chain ties to human rights violations of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, China. Nike had spent decades investing in improving its supply chain reputation, building trusted partner relationships with suppliers, and taking bold steps to publicly act as a leader in corporate responsibility. But now the company was again being forced to respond to an accusation of failing to uphold human rights due to alleged forced labor. Were any of Nike's long-standing manufacturing partners willingly or unwillingly employing slave labor or using raw materials obtained through slave labor? Nike had oversight of its suppliers to adhere to the International Labor Organization standards, but how much influence did the company have over the Chinese government to follow them? If the accusations were true, should Nike leave China as a supply base and market?

André Hoffmann is a leader of one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. His exceptional tenure in philanthropy over the past several decades, including being president of the WWF and the vice-president of the MAVA Foundation, has allowed him access to a far broader scope of the field than most philanthropists can have in a lifetime. Through these experiences, he has indicated a set of key factors that cause philanthropy and social impact efforts to fail, both consistently and silently, and that threaten the future of the planet in the wake of such time-sensitive global issues as climate change, resource overuse, and ecological destruction. His plan to fix the system involved a fundamental restructuring of not only philanthropy, but of the broader business landscape itself, including a dramatic reframing of how we understand cash flows and profits across industries. The measures cannot come from one body alone, and will require immense cooperation of enterprises if the world is meant to ever stand a chance.

The longest corporate takeover battle in the history of Switzerland - and possibly the world - pitted Sika, a Swiss chemicals manufacturer, against Saint-Gobain, a French conglomerate. At the heart of the dispute was a family business. Sika was a very successful family-controlled firm whose fourth-generation descendants decided to sell their stake in the company. The sale created a quandary for Sika's board of directors, however. How could the board reconcile the wishes of the family owners with the interests of the other shareholders and the company itself? The case highlights the governance dilemma faced by Paul Hälg, the Chairman of Sika's board of directors, and discloses how all parties came to an agreement after a protracted legal dispute lasting 41 months.

Tom Hermans, CEO of EMMA Safety Footwear, is excited about the idea of developing the world's first circular safety shoe - one that adheres to the cradle-to-cradle design principles. This could be a transformational strategy, differentiating EMMA from the crowded safety shoe market in Europe and extending a long tradition of social responsibility since its establishment in 1931. Careful consideration and research are required because this would impact almost every aspect of EMMA's operation - the business model, internal operations, the global supply chain, and the company culture. Questions remain about whether this is the best way to differentiate EMMA. What kind of change management would EMMA and its suppliers need to deploy the circular initiative? How could the business model be reinvented to capture the economic benefits of circular shoes? Can Tom and his team push through this drastic change in a conservative company in a conservative market?

This case is the continuation of EMMA Safety Shoes (A): Designing a Circular Shoe. EMMA reached 100% circularity in shoe design at the end of 2019, but this impressive achievement did not mean its journey to the circular economy was over. EMMA Safety Footwear - Implementing the Circular Business maps out several milestones in the transition of its business model, recycling logistics, supply-chain management and internal culture to make the circular shoe a sustainable business. A series of events between 2019 and May 2020 push the company in the right direction, but to be truly successful means taking the lead for the entire safety footwear industry, getting stakeholders such as customers, dealers, business partners, and competitors on board.

The case follows Ziad Abi Chaker, founder and CEO of Cedar Environmental, as he weighs options for how to grow the company in the face of growing economic and political instability in Lebanon in 2019. Founded after the Lebanese civil war, Cedar Environmental was an engineering company whose primary business was designing, building and operating small-scale sorting and composting plants to recycle household waste. Refusing to participate in the political patronage and cronyism that were widespread in the industry (and had precipitated the garbage crisis in 2015), Abi Chaker found it difficult to expand his business. Following the garbage crisis, he had developed a new partnership model with a municipality to design, build and operate a recycling plant, but after a successful pilot project, he struggled to find another suitable partner. One option was to take the technology abroad in response to new opportunities that presented themselves, but Abi Chaker did not want to live outside Lebanon. Another option was to shift more into innovating new products, as he had with Eco-boards, a multipurpose building material made out of recycled plastics. Or should he be more flexible about dealing with corruption for the sake of realizing the dream of a zero-waste Lebanon?