040090 UK Special Topics in Banking and Finance: Corporate Finance (BA) (2019W)

The course discusses the interplay between firms' financing and their real decisions. The first part of the course discusses the incentives of corporate decision makers, how their incentives differ from those of corporate financiers and other stakeholders, and how incentive contracts can be used to mange the these agency conflicts.The second part of the course analyses how the above agency conflicts limit firm's ability to raise outside financing and how firms can boost their ability to raise financing. The third part of the discusses the incentive properties of different financing instruments and how they attempt to manage the conflicts between mangers and financiers. The fourth part of the course discusses monitoring and the allocation of control rights between managers and firm's financiers. The last part discusses the role of financial markets and corporate take overs for the management of firms.

The course consists of lectures that cover fundamental theoretical models and relevant empirical papers. In addition to the lectures the course will also discuss real world cases that illustrate several key mechanisms. The course requires active participation by students.