As entrepreneurs, global leaders, and change agents tasked with developing transformative solutions of tomorrow, you will need certain skills and tools to interact with and navigate the complex and ever-changing financial landscape. This course focuses on the development of these skills and tools through the analysis of concise real-world financial situations around the globe. Topics include valuation of cash flows and control; the capital structure, payout policy and governance of both mature and entrepreneurial firms; restructuring and managing financial distress; the use of public markets to obtain liquidity and multiple share classes to retain control; financing and governance in venture capital and private equity; the rise of activism; and social responsibility and debates about the objectives of the firms of the present and future. This course is taught jointly by Professors Rauh and Seru.

This course discusses empirical aspects of major topics in corporate finance, household and consumer finance, housing, banking, financial regulation as well as political economy. The course is designed for students doing their PhD in finance, economics and accounting. The class is very interactive..

The focus of this course is to apply the fundamental ideas and tools of corporate finance to real-world investment and financing decisions. This course is designed to be the second course in a standard finance sequence; that is, it is designed to be the natural follow-up to the Winter Managerial Finance course. We will develop and extend standard tools and techniques of valuation, and model-building, as well as frameworks and apply these to a wide range of cases. Case topics will include valuation, capital structure choice, financial distress and bankruptcy, agency conflicts and governance, payout policy (and cash management), leveraged buyouts, private equity, mergers and acquisitions, staying private versus going public decision, and valuing control in firms through dual shares and pyramids/keiretsu structure in global settings. Students will be expected to develop detailed model-based analyses for the cases using the tools and techniques we develop in this course, and to employ their analyses to reach and defend specific recommendations for these cases.