This course covers the foundations of finance with an emphasis on applications that are vital for corporate managers. We will discuss many of the major financial decisions made by corporate managers, both within the firm and in their interactions with investors. Essential in most of these decisions is the process of valuation, which will be an important emphasis of the course. Topics include criteria for making investment decisions, valuation of financial assets and liabilities, relationships between risk and return, capital structure choice, payout policy, the use and valuation of derivative securities, and risk management. This course is targeted to those students who are new to finance and for those with little quantitative background.
This course provides an introduction to empirical research in corporate finance, with an emphasis on the application of cross-sectional and panel data econometric techniques for causal inference. Topics include investment policy, entrepreneurship and innovation, financing decisions, firm ownership, corporate governance, managerial incentives, financial contracting, and the structure and internal organization of firms. The course assumes knowledge of econometrics at the level of MGTECON 603.