COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 231-1

COURSE TITLE: Corporate Finance

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 Units

INSTRUCTOR: Ulrike Malmendier

E-MAIL ADDRESS: ulrike@econ.berkeley.edu

PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA203 Intro to Finance and preferably some accounting (EWMBA 202)

CLASS FORMAT: The class is based on case discussions and also comprised some lectures.   

REQUIRED READINGS:   

• J. Berk and P. DeMarzo, Corporate Finance, 4th ed., Pearson, 2017
• R.C. Higgins, Analysis for Financial Management, 9th or 10th ed., Irvin, McGraw-Hill
• Case studies and additional reading material will be distributed through Study.net and bCourses

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE:  

• Class participation and professionalism: 30%
• Case memoranda: 20%
• Final exam: 50% 

SAMPLE SYLLABUS: bCourses Electives Forum

CAREER FIELD:
This course is relevant for anyone who is aiming for a position that requires an understanding of financing, whether it is how to obtain financing for a firm or for a start-up. The course will be taught from the perspective of a CFO. However, the skills that are taught in class and the problems discussed will be relevant whose managerial decisions interact with the financing options available. They are also directly relevant to students who will be working on the financing / lending side.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
Corporate Finance takes as its viewpoint the CFO of a firm.  We assume in this course that the CFO’s job is to maximize firm value and deal with three types of decisions:

• which projects to invest in,
• how to finance that investment, and
• how to manage the cash flows of the firm. 

This is an applied course that will primarily use case studies to introduce financial tools needed to make value-enhancing business decisions.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: 
Professor Ulrike Malmendier is the Edward and Mollie Arnold Chair Professor of Finance and Professor of Economics, with dual appointments at the Haas School of Business and the Department of Economics. She has been teaching at UC Berkeley since 2006. Prior to UC Berkeley, she was an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and had visiting positions at Princeton University and Chicago Booth School of Business among other places. Malmendier received her PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University in 2002, and her PhD in Law from the University of Bonn in 2000.  

Malmendier has received numerous honors and prizes, including the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, several Emerald Citations of Excellence by Emerald, Distinguish or Keynote Speaker engagements. She was also a selected speaker at the Review of Economic Studies European Tour. 

In 2013, Malmendier was awarded the prestigious Fisher Black Prize from the American Finance Association, given biennially to the top financial scholar under the age of 40. The award citation referred to Malmendier’s work in corporate finance, behavioral economics and finance, contract theory, and the history of the firm, particularly noting the originality and creativity of her research. Just recently, in October 2016, she has been inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS).

Malmendier’s area of focus is the intersection of economics and finance, and why and how individuals make decisions—specifically how individuals make mistakes and systematically biased decisions. Some of her work includes research on CEO overconfidence, the long-term frugality of Depression “babies”, and the decision-making behind gym membership.

Malmendier currently serves on the board of the American Finance Association and is a founding board member of AFFECT, the AFA’s American Female Finance Committee. She is an organizer of the leading two conferences in Behavioral Economics, the Behavioral Economic Annual Meeting (BEAM), which she also co-founded, and the SITE Psychology & Economics conference.