Financial Economics Certificate Courses

The Financial Economics Certificate curriculum consists of four courses, as detailed below. FE Students must take Principles of Finance, Section 20, during Spring Quarter and may take subsequent courses in any order.

KELLG_FE 310-0: Principles of Finance, Section 20
Instructor: Anthony DeFusco
This foundation course, taken by all FE students during Spring Quarter, provides an overview of financial principles. Students will learn about the impact of time and uncertainty on value; discounted cash flows; equity and debt valuation; the term structure of interest rates; portfolio theory; asset pricing; and efficient market theory. The course also explores firms’ financing decisions, including capital budgeting, capital structure and payout policy. (This course is also featured in the Managerial Analytics Certificate program.)  Syllabus

Course Prerequisites: Experience with linear regressions is required.  If possible, students should complete ECON 381-1, MATH 386-1, IEMS 304-0, STAT 350-0, or an equivalent course that covers linear regressions prior to FE 310.  Students who are not familiar with linear regressions will be provided with a free online course that they should complete prior to FE 310 (over spring break).

KELLG_FE 312-0: Investments
Instructor: Dimitris Papanikolaou
This course covers key investment concepts from the perspective of a portfolio manager. Students will learn about passive and active investment strategies for large portfolios. The class will cover topics at the frontier of academic research, including performance evaluation, risk management, liquidity, and models of risk and return.

Course Prerequisite/Corequisite: ECON 381-1.  Econ 381-1, MATH 386-1, IEMS 304-0, or STAT 350-0 must be take before or concurrently with KELLG_FE 312-0


KELLG_FE 314-0: Derivatives
Instructor: Viktor Todorov
This course focuses on the use and pricing of forwards, futures, swaps and options. Strategies for speculation and risk management, no-arbitrage pricing for forward contracts, the binomial and Black-Scholes option pricing models and applications of pricing models in other contexts are discussed in depth.

Course Prerequisite/Corequisite: The Kellogg CPU Probability Corequisite (MATH 314-0, MATH 310-1, MATH 311-1, STAT 320-1, STAT 383-0 (ISP), MATH 385-0 (MMSS), IEMS 202-0, ELEC_ENG 302-0, EECS 302-0, BMD_ENG 220-0, or CHEM_ENG 312-0) must be completed before or concurrently with KELLG_FE 314-0. 


KELLG_FE 316-0: Topics in Financial Economics: Derivatives II
Instructors: Robert L. McDonald
Each year, this course changes topics to better reflect the current nature of the industry.
This course studies the foundations of derivatives pricing and modern risk management practice. Topics include delta-hedging, the lognormal distribution, Monte Carlo valuation, the Black-Scholes equation, exotic options, fixed income derivatives and risk assessment. Extensive use is made of spreadsheet-based valuation models. This course presumes that students already understand binomial pricing and the Black-Scholes formula.

Course Prerequisite: KELLG_FE 314-0: Derivatives I


Related Courses
Interested students may consider taking these complementary courses at Northwestern University:
BUS INST 260-0: Accounting and Business Finance
ECON 311-0: Macroeconomics
ECON 349-0: Industrial Economics
ECON 380-1, 2: Introduction to Mathematical Economics
ECON 331-0: Economics of Risk and Uncertainty