Corporate Finance

Course Description

The course is for pre-graduate students with elementary knowledge of investment analysis, money markets and microeconomics. It consists of two units and its objective is to the approach of complex phenomena of modern capital markets. The first unit deals with issues of capital budgeting and the assessment of capital cost of investments. Then we show ways to finance and determine the firms’ capital structure starting with the Modigliani-Miller theorem. We also examine the optimal capital structure in cases where firms’ investment decisions are being subject of moral hazard, as well as incentives of risk-shifting from shareholders to creditors. Finally, we analyze the optimal level of leverage when investors and firms’ executives face problems of asymmetric information. The second unit of the course covers issues of firm financing, emphasizing in dividend policy, IPOs, mergers and acquisitions. During the lecture current events will be analyzed using knowledge acquired from the course.