STUDIES > Spring 2010

Household Finance

Time: July 26 - July 30, 2010

Place: Helsinki, Aalto University School of Economics

NFN Travel Grant: NFN will provide travel grants for a limited number of Nordic and Baltic doctoral students in finance coming outside Finland in order to participate in this course. Please apply for travel grant with this form (rtf).

Teaching: Professor Luigi Guiso (European University Institute)

Lectures: 20 h of lectures (i.e. 20 x 45 min = 15 hours)

Objectives:  This course is a doctoral level introduction to the topic of Household Finance and it comprises both theoretical and empirical material and applications covering recent developments in the field. The objective of the course is to acquaint students with the recent academic research in Household Finance and at the same time to prepare students to do research on their own in this new field. Household finance focuses on the behaviour of households in terms of their financial decisions and asks how households use financial instruments (and their knowledge on financial markets in general) to attain their objectives. Household financial problems have many interesting features that give the field its special character. For example, households must plan over long horizons, they have important non-traded assets, they hold illiquid assets, and they face constraints on their ability to borrow, and so on. Importantly, it is also their limited knowledge of financial instruments and financial markets in general that may seriously affect/constrain their decisions over investment, consumption, saving and so on. The more detailed description of the course will be provided later on.

Course Description and Reading List: DOC

Prerequisites: First-year PhD courses in finance and at least advanced (master level) microeconomics and econometrics courses.

Lecture Notes:

Notes 1

Notes 2

Notes 3

Notes 4   New version, new slides from 53 onwards. Added 29.7.2010.

Notes 5

Password for opening the lecture notes has been sent to course participants.

Assignments:

Take-home assignement

Data for assignment in Stata format  / Data for assignment in Excel format

Please return to the office of GSF gsf@hse.fi.

Grading: The total points of this course are 100. In order to pass the course one needs at least 40% of points (i.e. 40 points). The grading will be based on

a written closed book exam (70% weight)

a take home/term paper (30 % weight), deadline: September 15, 2010. PLEASE RESPECT THE DEADLINE PROMTLY. Return to the office of GSF gsf@hse.fi.

Examination: Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 09.00-13.00

Place:

Aalto University School of Economics, Chydenia Building, H-126

Other Universities: contact secretary Milja Weckroth.

Credit units: 6 ECTS.

List of Participants: PDF

Participants: Doctoral students in finance. The course is also open for KATAJA as well as FDPE 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.

Application:

• Doctoral students in finance (in Finland): please register simply by sending an e-mail to gsf@hse.fi and provide your complete contact information.
• Doctoral students in related fields and doctoral students at foreign universities: Application form can be found here: PDF file or Word file Please send in addition to your complete contact information, a report on the status of your doctoral studies, and a brief CV. Please ask also 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@hse.fi.

The deadline for registering in this course is June 14, 2010. All students will be informed of their acceptance soon after the deadline.