Finance

This course develops students’ financial expertise. The course focuses on financial management and corporate finance. Students learn accounting and financial concepts, principles, and methods for preparing, analyzing, and evaluating financial information, for the purpose of managing financial resources of a business enterprise and making investment decisions. Students are also introduced to the principles and methods of valuation. Students practice with the financial reporting system which enables data analysts to build queries for financial analyses and to forecast possible financial scenarios. Finally, this course focuses on financial strategy and planning to enable internal managerial decisions. Students will learn and apply budgeting techniques and manage working capital.

This course builds from Financial Information and Management, and extends closed-economy financial management to the international market environment. Drawing from theories based on culture, corporate finance, and investor protection laws, this course examines differences in corporate governance, financial information, and financial markets in global settings. The first focus is on accountability of financial resources, the implications of globalization on firms’ financial reporting and decision-making. The second focus is on international markets and institutions, how the access and exposure to different market environments can affect the firm’s financial and investment decisions. Major topics include the relationship between foreign exchange and other financial variables; measurement and management of the exchange risk exposure of the firm; international investment decisions by firms and investors; and financing the global operations of firms.

This course covers digital currencies and related topics in the FinTech area. The course begins with studying the nature of money, legacy payment, and banking systems. The course then examines the emergence of stateless, cloud-based digital currency systems since 2009. Students will also gain insight into the functioning of decentralized assets in today’s financial markets and the role of fintech assets such as cryptos in financial intermediation. Students will learn about central bank digital currencies and how they will help to improve banking by reducing the under- banked and un-banked population. The course will also emphasize the inherent risks and ethical dilemmas and regulatory compliance challenges (for example, Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer regulations) of this emerging asset class.

The course introduces advanced methodological tools required for conducting finance and investment analysis research. The course aims to equip students with a working knowledge of important econometric techniques used in financial economics, such as event study, advanced time series analysis, and survival analysis. Substantial emphasis will be placed on developing programming skills in computer programs. The course emphasizes understanding and learning how to apply practitioners' econometric tools in these areas. Students will also cover the basic theory of statistical inference with linear models, general linear models, Heteroskedasticity models, time series models, analysis of variance, discriminate analysis, factor analysis, and non-parametric tests

FIN 698 is administered by the Director of the financial technology program, with the support of faculty members who possess specialized expertise in their respective research fields. This Directed Research course is specifically designed for Ph.D. students aiming to expand their research skills and specialization along the lines of their dissertation research. It offers an exceptional opportunity for these students to conduct comprehensive, faculty-supervised research in various finance-related areas, thereby enhancing their grasp of advanced financial theories and their practical applications.