The cornerstone of the Finance track is to provide training that facilitates innovations and provides tools for significant research grounded in the business realities of today. Complementing classroom study with field exposure will be key to developing the next generation of leaders in business and academics with the scientific background and skills required to innovate and conduct research to advance knowledge and practices in the financial industry.

BUS ADM 700: Business in Context: Markets, Technologies and Societies
Complex business dilemmas span the various disciplines. This course covers the range of theoretical approaches and methods that can be mobilized to understand and address these issues.

BUS ADM 710: Accounting for Finance I

This course covers the role of financial accounting in capital markets and reviews major classic and contemporary topics.  Through this course, students will learn how to develop skills in designing and executing research projects involving financial accounting.

BUS ADM 711: Accounting for Finance II

This course builds on CM 710 and further investigates topics in areas of value relevance of financial information, accounting anomalies and market efficiency, accounting choice, corporate disclosure, contracting theory, and corporate governance.

BUS ADM 720: Quantitative Financial Analysis I

This course covers mathematical techniques applied to expected utility maximization and consumer theory, profit and firm value maximization and producer theory, welfare change measures and revealed preference theory.  Emphasis will be placed on theories of barriers to entry, predatory pricing, R&D competition, and applications to trade theory.

BUS ADM 721: Quantitative Financial Analysis II

This course covers mathematical techniques applied to the foundations of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium modeling of the business cycle.  Attention will be placed on asset market behavior under complete and incomplete information sets and the consequences of agent heterogeneity.

BUS ADM 722: Cross Section Analysis of Financial Data

This course provides an understanding of the econometric theory that underlies common econometric models. The focus is on the single equation regression model and its many extensions. Topics include finite and asymptotic properties of estimators, specification issues, autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity, endogeneity and simultaneity, and nonlinear model estimators including maximum likelihood and the generalized method of moment.  Special attention is placed on applying the theoretical tools to the cross-sectional, longitudinal panel data analysis in financial accounting and finance.

BUS ADM 723: Time Series Analysis of Financial Data

This is a course in asymptotic theory for econometric estimation and inference, with emphasis on nonlinear, time series models. Topics include forms of convergence, consistency and limiting distribution theory, maximum likelihood, linear and nonlinear least squares, generalized method of moments, extremum estimators, nonparametric kernel estimators, and semi parametric estimators. The emphasis of this course will be to introduce students to time series data in financial accounting and finance.

BUS ADM 732: Seminar in Corporate Finance

This course aims to provide survey of both theory and empirical work in modern Corporate Finance. The primary topics of the course include: (i) Ability to raise cash in public securities markets and issuers’ choice of flotation method (ii) Capital structure and bankruptcy (iii) Valuation effects of takeover activity, sources of takeover gains, and empirical investigations of optimal bidding theories for competition preemption (iv) Evolution of governance systems around the world.

BUS ADM 731: Seminar on Financial Economics

The primary focus this course is to provide a clear understanding of risk, return and arbitrage – the underpinning of any investment strategy. The primary topics of the course include: (i) Capital market equilibrium and security pricing (ii) Combining risky assets: principles of portfolio management (iii) Pricing of bonds and the management of interest rate risk (iv) Pricing of derivative securities: options and forward contracts.

BUS ADM 732: Seminar in Investment and Asset Valuation

This seminar provides students with the basic theoretical paradigms of contemporary investments research and the modern theory of asset valuation. Topics covered include the relationship between no-arbitrage conditions and the existence of equilibrium prices. It also introduces the students to multi-period models in finance, mainly pertaining to optimal portfolio choice and asset pricing – including portfolio choice and security prices in a continuous-time setting. Topics covered include the Black-Scholes model of asset pricing, different models of the term structure of interest rates and valuation of corporate securities.

BUS ADM 775: Teaching and Professional Development
As an advanced student of business, skills are needed to effectively and persuasively disseminate knowledge. This course will provide knowledge needed to engage an audience (with specific applications on teaching), giving professional presentations, and being persuasive on policy matters informed by research.