Climate finance, development finance, infrastructure finance, municipal finance, international finance, banking, housing finance, corporate finance, investments, and financial regulation are all applications of finance. This course provides the core concepts, techniques, and instruments needed to understand, use, and contribute to these areas. It emphasizes an intuitive yet logically rigorous understanding of financial markets and institutions, illustrated through examples and cases drawn from diverse settings. The topics covered in this course include the principle of arbitrage, the trade-off between risk and return, the pricing of stocks and bonds, the term structure of interest rates, market efficiency, derivative securities, risk management, and real options. Case discussions highlight applications such as green bonds, capital raising, pension funds, utility regulation, investment management, currency risk, weather insurance, privatization, bank deposit insurance, and securitization.
