47649 - Corporate Governance

Learning outcomes

At the completion of the course, students will have a basic knowledge of concepts and analytical techniques in finance, and they will be able to apply them to nowadays financial market transactions. This includes the ability to understand the decisions taken by economic agents and their interaction in the markets, and specifically to analyze economic and financial outcomes when taking decisions within a multinational corporation.

Course contents

Corporate Governance will specialize to some of the theory and practice of decision-making within the corporation. Investment and financing decisions will be analyzed. Special attention will be devoted to the impact of the corporate governance on the perspective of value maximization to shareholders.

Readings/Bibliography

The main textbook for the course is:

• Peterson Drake, P. and F. J. Fabozzi, The Basics of Finance: An Introduction to Financial Markets, Business Finance, and Portfolio Management, John Wiley & Sons, 2010.

  The following book is a good alternative.

• Pilbeam, K., Finance and Financial Markets, 3/e, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Additional readings may be assigned by the instructor as the course progresses.

Assessment methods

Course attendance is mandatory. 70 percent of the lectures is the minimum attendance rate to be granted the access to the 90 minutes final class test (encompassing both modules of the course) that will take place after the class ending, within the official exam sessions. It will include 8 multiple-choice questions (8 points), 1 short answer question (8 points) and 2 problems (14 points, i.e. 7 points each). Moreover, students will be asked to present and critically discuss a topic in finance (team work) in the last scheduled meeting (about 15-20 minutes for each presentation, depending on the number of students). This will provide the participants with a maximum of 4 points (to be added to the final written exam mark). Please note that these additional extra-points will be only valid in the official exam session right after the course ending.

All positive grades will be automatically registered within 1 week from grading (registration date), unless the candidate asks not to proceed sending an email to the instructor before the registration date.

Office hours

See the website of Massimiliano Barbi