Course Description

This course is designed to introduce students to the global financial environment with a special focus on Europe and Eurozone issues. The course aims to provide the analytical tools needed to understand international financial markets as well as the institutional and economic forces affecting them. To this goal, we will cover a number of topics related to the international environment that deal with financial institutions and economic concepts such as exchange rates, their determination and the relationship with interest rates and inflation rates. We will relate the fundamental topics to current debates on Eurozone crisis, the potential economic impact of Brexit and the future of crypto currencies.

The class will include lectures, small group studies, case-study analysis, group presentations and field trips. Course readings from the financial press (i.e. Financial Times, The Economist) will be timely provided. The nature of the class will be interactive as students are expected to read the material prior to class and to contribute to the class discussions or engage in formal debates. The field trips to various European economic research institutes and policy centers, foreign exchange departments of leading financial institutions and Fintech startups in Berlin will help complement and enrich the classroom material.

Download Syllabus (printable PDF incl. day-to-day schedule)

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