Behavioral Finance

Time: 10.-14.6.2024

Place: Aalto University School of Business, Otaniemi, Espoo

Registrations: The deadline for registrations is May 26, 2024. See registration/application details at the bottom of the page.


Teaching:
Professor Markku Kaustia (Aalto University)


NFN Travel Grant:
NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Finland. To apply for the Travel Grant, please use the below form and send it to nfn (at) aalto.fi.


Lectures:
20 h of lectures (20 x 45 minutes)

DAYDATETIMEPLACE
(Otaniemi Campus Map)
Monday10.6.202413:30-15:00 &
15:30-17:00
T004, Ekonominaukio 1
Tuesday11.6.202410:30-12:00 &
13:30-15:00
T004, Ekonominaukio 1
Wednesday12.6.202410:30-12:00 &
13:30-15:00
U262 KPMG, Otakaari 1
Thursday13.6.202410:30-12:00 &
13:30-15:00
T004, Ekonominaukio 1
Friday14.6.202410:30-12:00 &
12:45-14:15
T004, Ekonominaukio 1

Course objective: Behavioral Finance is an approach to the analysis of asset prices, corporate finance, and financial decision-making in general, that relaxes some key assumptions of neoclassical financial economics. Namely, it considers a larger class of objective functions, not always compatible with expected utility. Second, it entertains the possibility that expectations are sometimes biased, and not updated in a Bayesian manner. Third, it considers how various financial market frictions can form strong ‘limits to arbitrage’. This course is designed to introduce doctoral students to these concepts, and to support them in developing behavioral research ideas of their own.

Syllabus:

Access to the articles is subject to your home institutions’ subsciptions to the databases. Hard copies of all readings are available for consultation at GSF office (Ekonominaukio 1, room T317)

Lecture notes:

The password for opening the files will be sent to the students.

Credit units: 6 ECTS cr.

List of participants:

Participants: Doctoral students in finance. The course is also open for KATAJA as well as FDPE and Helsinki GSE students with sufficient background in finance and/or economics. The course is also open for foreign doctoral students given that there is space in the course.

Examinations

Grading: The grading is based on three parts (a written exam, a term paper and classroom activity). The total points of this course are 100. In order to pass the course one needs at least 50% of points (i.e. 50 points). In addition, one has to get at least 50% of the points from the written exam and the term paper.

  • a written exam (60% weight)
  • a term paper (30% weight)
  • classroom activity (10% weight)

Term paper deadline: Sunday, June 30, 2024. Please return the term paper directly to Professor Kaustia by e-mail. Please respect the deadline promptly.

Examination dates and times:

Examination date and time : Monday, August 12, 2024 at 10:00-14:00 in V001, Aalto University School of Business (Ekonominaukio 1). Please register for the exam through this link. The registration link will be closed one week prior to the exam.

If you wish to take the exam in your home university (other than GSF member university), please see instructions below.

Exam locations:

Espoo: Aalto University School of Business
Jyväskylä:
University of Jyväskylä
Lappeenranta:
Lappeenranta University of Technology
Oulu:
University of Oulu
Turku:
University of Turku
Vaasa:
University of Vaasa

Other locations: Doctoral students in other universities are requested to inform the GSF by sending an e-mail to gsf@aalto.fi if they wish to take the exam in their home universities. The exam can be taken abroad where suitable exam supervision can be arranged. Please note that the exam must be written in the presence of an exam supervisor. Thus, please submit the name of the exam supervisor at least 14 days before the examination.  Possible payment and arrangements for supervision should be made by the student.

Please note: No retake exam will be offered for any reason (beyond your control or not).

Registration/Application

  • Doctoral students of GSF, FDPE and Helsinki GSE: Please register through this link.
  • Doctoral students in related fields and doctoral students at foreign universities: Application form can be found below (both in PDF and Word format). In addition to the application form, please also send a report on the status of your doctoral studies, and a brief CV. Please also ask your thesis advisor to send us a short letter of recommendation by-email. All the required documents should be sent by e-mail to gsf@aalto.fi. All applicants will be informed of their acceptance soon after the registration deadline.

The deadline for registrations to this course is May 26, 2024.