COURSE NUMBER: MBA218A.1

Note: This course is dual-listed with the Evening-Weekend MBA program

COURSE TITLE: International Finance

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 Units

INSTRUCTOR: Richard Lyons

E-MAIL ADDRESS: lyons@haas.berkeley.edu

PREREQUISITE(S): 201B Macroeconomics, 203 Finance

CAREER FIELD: One-third of the course delivers skills for careers in international asset management: global asset allocation, international asset classes, managing portfolio exchange rate risk, and other key topics.

One third of the class delivers skills for international corporate finance for careers as a CFO or international banker: managing global operating exposures, critical topics in international accounting, using currency swaps to manage exchange-rate risk, and other key topics. 

One third of the course is material that anyone aspiring to do international business of any kind needs to know: How floating exchange rates are determined, international financial parity conditions, currency-related financial instruments (including cryptocurrencies, stable-coins, and tokenized assets), and other key topics.

CLASS FORMAT: We will do 4-5 cases, i.e., case intensity is moderate. My teaching style is quite interactive, so lectures will include a lot of participation. 

REQUIRED READINGS: I do my best to assign only readings that are most essential. The bargain is that I expect you to have done the reading, which makes the in-class participation more productive for all. There is a text, Multinational Financial Management, by Alan Shapiro. I augment that with more advanced, targeted readings.

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Problem sets (4) 30 percent; applied project (teams up to 3, topic your choice, and less than 10 pages) 30 percent; and final 40%.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: I included much of the topic specificity in my one-third/one-third/one-third description above. I would only add here that I do my best to keep the course as relevant and up-to-date as possible, e.g., by starting most every session by distributing a recent article from The Economist or similar publication that connects to course topics. My objective is to get you as excited about, and we’ll-prepared for, careers that will touch international finance in one way or another.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: My research focuses on how the trading of currencies aggregates information in setting market-determined exchange rates (i.e., floating exchange rates). I have been on the Berkeley Haas faculty since 1993. I served 11 years as dean of Haas and two years just prior to that as Chief Learning Officer at Goldman Sachs.