This Tsinghua University course (undergraduate-level) is a part of the Global Hybrid Classroom (GHC) Certificate program.
This program provides a comprehensive and systematic introduction to financial knowledge for aspirants to the financial industry. Students are expected to understand the basic framework of modern financial analysis and be able to apply what they have learned to project valuation, risk analysis, corporate investment decision-making, and investment management. The program will be taught in English, and students are required to be proficient in English.
“Foundation of Finance” certificate is compromised of 4 courses:
Firms compete in Consumer & Business Markets to sell their products & services, and they also compete in Capital Markets for the resources required to operate their business. Investors provide the capital (resources) to companies with the expectation that they will earn a competitive return on their capital and compensate them for risk. A consumer or business manager is continuously faced with financial choices and meeting the demands of both of these arenas of competition. Finance is the study of a framework that can be used to evaluate these choices consistent with the necessity of competing for investor capital. The course will provide an analytical framework that can be consistently applied to evaluate financial decisions.
Corporate Finance Syllabus (Spring 2022).pdf
Associate Professor of Finance,
School of Economics and Management,
Tsinghua University
SHEN Tao is an Associate Professor of Finance at the School of Economics and Management at the Tsinghua University. He got his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. He got a Master in Statistics and the Master in Economics from the Georgia Institution of Technology and a B.A. in Finance from Nankai University. He is the director of the Financial Index Center at the Tsinghua Institute for Global Securities Market, a research fellow at the Tsinghua Institute of Industrial Innovation and Finance, and an advisor for the Schwarzman Scholars.
His research interest includes corporate investment, capital structure, and financial markets. He is the principal investigator and main participant in several National Natural Science Foundation projects and National Think Tank projects. He publishes a dozen of research articles in leading academic journals. As an expert in Chinese financial markets, he is a reviewer of leading academic journals and a member of conference committees. He has won a number of awards such as the Tsinghua University Outstanding Faculty, China Financial Research Conference Best Paper, and China Decision Science Annual Meeting Best Paper.
He teaches Corporate Finance, Case Analysis in Corporate Finance, Finance Theory, and Finance Practice in China, and receives numerous teaching awards. He is the director of the undergraduate program and the committee member of the Master of Finance program in the finance department.
This course provides students with a critical understanding of the basic theory of investment and securities analysis techniques used for portfolio management by fund managers, analysts, risk managers, banks’ trading desks and other financial institutions. One of the strengths of the module is that it is accompanied by realistic practical examples that students are asked to solve using R, Python or other software. Moreover, the module covers pricing of a large range of asset classes including equities, bonds, foreign exchange and commodities. Students who have completed the module should be able to implement trading strategies, risk management techniques, valuation and portfolio construction methods in a wide range of assets including equities, bonds, foreign exchange and commodities.
Investment Syllabus (Spring 2022).pdf
Associate Professor of Finance
School of Economics and Management
Tsinghua University
Tianyu Wang is an Associate Professor of Finance at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University.
Tianyu received his PhD in Finance from Imperial College London in 2018. He has a broad range of research interests in the areas of empirical asset pricing, financial markets, financial institutions, and international finance. He has published in leading academic journals including the Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, and Journal of Banking and Finance. He is currently teaching undergraduate and graduate level “Investment” and “Financial Markets and Financial Institutions”.
A well-functioning financial system is crucial to economic growth and development as it promotes efficient capital allocation, provides risk sharing, and reduces transaction costs. This course aims to introduce the structure, operations and functions of the financial system by focusing on financial markets and institutions. It will discuss the economic foundations of financial markets and management of financial institutions. It will also compare China’s financial system with that of developed economies.
Financial Institutions Syllabus (Autumn).pdf
Associate professor of finance,
School of Economics and Management,
Tsinghua University
Jiaren Pang is an associate professor of finance at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University. He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics at Peking University in 2000, master’s degree in economics at Vanderbilt University in 2004, and doctoral degree in economics at Washington University in St. Louis in 2007. Before joining the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management, Dr. Pang taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo (2007-2008) and Tulane University (2008-2011). Dr. Pang’s research interests lie in corporate finance, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, and capital markets.
Empirical Finance is a course for senior undergraduate students who are interested in applying real data to test classical asset pricing theories and in the applications of econometric methods to financial problems. This course mainly contains two parts: “empirical asset pricing” and “applied econometrics”. The first part discusses how to apply real data or simulation methods to test classical financial theories, including equity valuation, portfolio management analysis, CAPM model, Fama-Macbeth regression, Fama-French-Carhart factor model, Arbitrage Pricing Theory, and multi-factor pricing models for fixed income securities.
The second part helps students review basic econometric theory, and further talks about more advanced time-series and panel data models, including ARIMA model, GARCH model, fixed/random effect models, and varying-coefficient models. Specifically, this course focuses on the application of econometric models to real financial or economic problems, for example, this course will cover the difference-in-difference analysis, solving endogeneity problem, model specification and selection issues. Also, after taking this course, students will have a general idea about how to write a research proposal and they should be able to construct appropriate reduced-form models for their topic of interest.
Empirical Finance syllabus (Autumn).pdf
Assistant professor of Finance,
School of Economics and Management,
Tsinghua University
Shuo LIU is currently an assistant professor of Finance in the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University.
He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles. During his study at UCLA, he worked as an intern at International Monetary Fund, Washington DC, and Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis.
His research interests include over-the-counter markets, corporate bond pricing, financial intermediation, and asset pricing. He teaches empirical finance (undergraduate level), financial economics (undergraduate level), and financial data analysis and application (graduate level).
Global Hybrid Courses (GHC) is currently open to current students from overseas partner universities of Tsinghua University, and it’s free. If your university (instructor or students) would like to join the program and experience what it is like to teach and learn in a truly global classroom, please contact the Assistant Secretary-General of the Global MOOC Alliance at [email protected] or [email protected].
How to attend our GHC courses?
- Tsinghua University will send the list of GHC courses to overseas partner universities every semester. These universities will notify students to enroll and priority will be given to students eager to take part
- Students from overseas partner universities have to complete the courses required by the GHC Certificate within a specified time. After completing each course, they will receive a GHC transcript issued by Tsinghua University.
- Students from overseas partner universities attending Tsinghua’s postgraduate courses, whose own universities do not allow for credit transfer, can enjoy credit exemption if they study for postgraduate degrees at Tsinghua University in the future.
How to apply for the certificate upon completion of the required courses?
- Please send your name, university, and GHC transcripts to us at [email protected]
